So I’ve been back in Atlanta for a couple of weeks – the second of which I was the on-call guy for work, which sucked – and I suppose it’s a good time to catch up on all the news that is or isn’t fit to print.
The featured image for this post is one of Lake Huron that I took a couple of weeks ago as a storm was rolling in. It was mainly bluster – not a great deal of rain – but it was chilly and raw. I loved it.
I’m currently sitting at Tires Plus, waiting for my oil to get changed and my tires to get rotated and my wheels to get balanced and all of that other fun stuff that I do every few months. Decided this morning that I’d bring my original Surface Pro with me and do something productive while I sit here. I’m beginning to really appreciate this machine again. Bought it several years ago, but it’s so small that I used it basically as a novelty. Real work got done on one of my other laptops. But, due in large part to it’s small size, I brought it with me to Michigan and took some notes on what was going on. Those will be pasted, in their unedited entirety, later in this post.
The vacation was a wonderful respite from life. I started out (and finished, actually) at the Cheboygan State Park in Cheboygan, MI. This park – I think it’s around 800 acres – sits on Cheboygan Point on the Straits of Mackinac, and it is a lovely place. I’m pretty sure that I’ll be going back. I chose the park mainly because it’s a few hours closer to home than is Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior and – for the same price that I’d pay at Pictured Rocks for a basic campsite – I got a basic campsite plus electricity, showers, flushing toilets…all the good stuff. My site itself was a fairly secluded area on the southern side of the point, sitting on the shores of Duncan Bay, which is a marsh and not at all what I had in mind for a great lakes vacation, although the breeze coming off of the bay was extremely pleasant. I set up my car tent and a hiker’s tarp. Bed in the car, various helpful things (camp drawers, table, stove, firewood, etc) in the tent, picnic table under the tarp.
And I had a great few days there. Arrived in the early afternoon on Thursday, October 12 and had pretty good weather (until Saturday night). By then, after walking around all over the park, I’d decided to rent a cabin on the northern edge of the park, right on The Straits. Gave up the electricity and the running water, and paid triple what I’d been paying for the campsite, but gained a fantastically cozy, warm, dry, spacious domicile with easy access to Lake Huron, trails, various critters, and – of course – the ubiquitous fall houseflies of Michigan (see my writeup from last year). If you refer back to the featured image, I actually took that between the time that I checked out of my campsite (at around noon) and the time that I entered Poe Reef Cabin (at around 2:30). I spent the time in between just walking around on the point – on the beach, into the woods, back onto the beach, in the off-beach dunes, out on the point, etc. – and getting very cold and a bit wet and playing my wind game (hiding behind trees, under bushes, near rocks…I love my wind game). Finally, I decided I’d waited long enough to get into the cabin, which I technically wasn’t supposed to do before 3:00. Whoever had been in it before me, leaving by 1:00, had left a birch log slowly burning in the wood stove, and walking into that dry, warm, wonderful room was probably in the top 5 greatest experiences in my life. It. Felt. So. Good.
Stayed until the following Thursday morning, then drove home in one shot, arriving at sometime around 1:00 AM Friday.
Back at work, the first week was fine. The second week, as I mentioned, I was on call. Got very little sleep (I do not understand why CPAs feel the need to work – and call the help desk – at all hours of the night and on weekends), but survived until yesterday morning, when my on-call shift ended.
Learned on Thursday that the X-Company has been acquired by Right Networks in Hudson, NH, under an umbrella of a venture firm in Boston. Not sure what that means at this point, but it doesn’t have the same stress level of the other mergers I’ve gone through.
Still looking for another job, but I’m finally starting to settle in and accept the fact that I might be stuck doing what I’m doing for a while. With that in mind, I accepted an offer to go on a project in Memphis during the last week of November and first of December. Sounds like I’ll drove over there on Sunday the 26th, come back on the 30th, then go back on the 3rd and return on the 6th or 7th. Lots of driving, but at least it’s something different to do.
Mary informed me yesterday that she may be moving out at about that same time. Not sure why, but it’s all good. I’ve been redesigning my house in my mind since she told me. Getting my office back (currently her bedroom) and the second guest room (currently unusable because of the boxes in it) will be nice. I’ll also be able to drop one or two of the paid streaming services that I’m paying for, since I only picked two of them up so that she wouldn’t complain when I dumped DirecTV.
And that’s about that. The remainder of this post consists of what I wrote while in Michigan.
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6:27 AM 10/14/2017
Saturday morning, day three (or four, if you count Wednesday) of my 2017 vacation. Cheboygan (MI) State Park, site 27. It is a brisk October morning and the sun hasn’t even though about coming up yet, but I had to pee (did so in my trusty pee jar), and then figured I’d take advantage of the bathroom building before they shut it down – I’m told that that might happen tomorrow – so I got up, got dressed, walked over to the loo, and did my business. Being up and dressed, I figured I’d go ahead and start the day, so just made some coffee and pulled out the old Surface Pro to catch up on things.
My vacation actually started on Monday. The idea when I asked for the time off was to head out for the great unwashed north (probably Pictured Rocks) on last Saturday morning and arrive sometime Sunday afternoon. As so often seems to happen to me these days, life got in the way of those plans. Found out that I had a concert on Sunday, so leaving on the weekend was out. Then the GBB set up a very agressive schedule, giving us a minimum of rehearsals between concerts; I decided that it would piss people off if I missed two rehearsals in a row, so I hung around Atlanta until Tuesday and left on Wednesday morning.
While all that was going on, Dad and Diane went to Myrtle Beach last week with plans to stay for a couple of weeks. Drove over to see them on Saturday, and also reserved a spot at the state park there for this past week in hopes of spending some more time with them. Unfortunately, Dad had some medical issues and cut the trip short. I say, “Unfortunately,” because of course I don’t want him to be sick. It did have an upside, though: Myrtle Beach was (and is) incredibly hot and humid this year, and I’ve got to admit that I was not looking forward to camping there for a week. My recent purchase of a Kelty 20-degree bag was definitely not made with hot weather in mind. So once Dad let me know that he was leaving early, I started looking for places to stay in the Upper Pennisula.
Having prepared for Myrtle Beach in my head, I had pretty much wrapped my head around the idea of having electricity, so my normal spots at Pictured Rockes were out. I looked around at other places near Grand Marais, but all of them looked kind of boring: close, tight, campsites with little direct water access. So I started to just look at other parks under the Michigan DNR umbrella. And I found this one, settled in on the Straits of Mackinac on a little jut of land that provides a marsh on one side, the Straits on the other, and an all-day breeze that is amazing. The website said that the bathroom building (showers,toilets, running water) would be shut off on October 4, but all sites have electricity – and it’s cheaper than my Pictured Rocks places! So far, I’m pleased.
So what’s happened? Well, I left on Wednesday morning and drove to Lima, OH (imagine that), where I spent the night at the Country Inns and Suites – pretty much my go-to plan when heading north to either Michigan or Canada. Hit the road by about 8 Thursday morning and made it here at around 1:30. Checked in via a dedicated telephone (haven’t seen an actual ranger yet), got to my site, and got everything set up. The rest of the day was spent doing basically nothing. Sat in my chair, drank beer, took a couple of pictures of Duncan Bay (the marshy area that is my backyard), and eating an Arby’s beef sandwich leftover from Wednesday night. Went to bed at probably 8:30 (well after dark) and slept until sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 yesterday. Slept like a brick.
For much of the day yesterday, I explored the trails in the area. I walked a total of about 10 miles all over Cheboygan Point, which is nearly all park land. Discovered a couple of beautiful little cabins on the north shore that I’m going to have to check out online (with an eye toward renting next year) and also bushwhacked to the extreme northern tip of Cheboygan. Took a few pictures of Mackinaw City, Grand Mackinac Island, and “The Mighty Mac” (bridge) – although it’s quite difficult to see it on a cellphone camera (I opted not to bring any real cameras with me).
Between walks, I cooked up a couple of angus steaks and some corn on the cob – both were amazing – back at my site. Lit a fire last night as the weekend crowd started rolling in. I’ve got a couple with a very whiny daughter to my right now. Still no one on my left. I’m guessing that it’ll be just me and few folks in their motor homes if/when the water is turned off. I’ll cool with that. There’s a pit toilet about 200 yards from me and one shed where the water will remain turned on all winter. So it’s the same as Pictured Rocks would be – plus I’ve got electricity.
Planning on doing some more walking on the point today, but we’ll see what the day brings.
9:51 AM 10/16/2017
On Saturday, I woke up fairly early – I’d guess around 7 – and, with no real plan in mind, started walking down the approach road away from the campground. After about a mile, I came upon road labeled “Poe Reef Cabin” and decided it looked like a nice walk. Locked gate, so I wouldn’t have to worry about traffic, and it headed off into the north woods, which I wanted to explore some more anyway.
Very shortly, I came upon the afore-mentioned cabin, which appeared to be bereft of humans, so I walked around it to the beach and sat in the wind for a while, looking across the straits to Makinac Island. Then walked back around the cabin, peered in the windows, availed myself of the outhouse, and made a snap decision to try to rent the place. Pulled out the phone (it’s great to have a couple of bars of coverage up here), and found that Poe Reef Cabin was available from Sunday until Thursday. Then checked my bank account and learned that I’d finally been reimbursed for my trip to Maryland from two months ago. That did it. I immediately tried to reserve the cabin and was immediately rejected because I already had a reservation at the campground. I resigned myself to doing it next year.
After walking some more (saw a porcupine), I ambled back to the campground – it was probably around 10:00 by then – and flagged down a passing ranger, there to clean the restrooms. I told him I still needed to pay him for my Michigan DNR passport (a parking pass necessary for all MI parks) and that I was wondering if I’d be able to get the cabin in spite of my campsite reservation. He told me, “Theresa will be in the ranger station at noon – sometime after noon – and she can probably help you.”
So I went back to my campsite, made some coffee, ate some peanuts, and waited for noon. At noon, went back to the office – no Theresa. Back to campsite. 1:00 rolled around, and Theresa still wasn’t at the office, so I tuned in to the Furman/VMI football game on my phone. I remember, back in the mid-90s, when David Willard and I would plan for days in advance trying to find a bar with a satellite dish that might possibly be able to get the Furman game. I even started a website about Furman football as a way to force myself to keep up with it and to help other people who were looking for places to hear and/or see the games. Now, I can just pull up Tune-In radio on my phone and hear the games live from anywhere in the world that has cellular coverage. Amazing.
Furman won, 42-10, by the way. But back to the story.
About halfway through the first quarter, I walked back to the ranger station and found that Theresa had arrived. We took care of my passport, and then I broached the subject of the cabin. She clicked and clattered away on her computer (complaining all the while about how slow it was, while I was still listening to my football game over the phone), and not only reserved the cabin for me for Sunday-Thursday, but also reimbursed me for those days at the campground. I told her that I’d happily eat the cost of those nights – if I have to give my money to any government entity, it would be the Michigan DNR (I mean that sincerely) – but she was adamant and I didn’t argue the point. The she offered to walk the key and combination for the cabin to my campsite later (which she did), and told me about Saturday night’s Halloween festivities.
The cabin was sounding better all the time. Apparently, the campground had set aside Saturday night as a “local kids don costumes and bother campers for candy” night. Later that night, there was the “Haunted Trail” campaign, during which, for $10, children (and, I assume, their folks) could walk along a few of the trails near the campground after dark and be frightened by various things set up on the trails.
I opted to turn my back on the moochers and drink bourbon while staring at Duncan Bay. Lit a fire somewhere around 5:30, as the wind began to pick up, and hit the sack, I’d guess, at around 8:00.
I have yet to spend any camp time in Michigan that doesn’t end with me tearing down in the rain, and Sunday morning was no exception. A squall came in out of the north shortly after I went to bed, and it more or less raged all night. At some point, one of the bungees holding my tarp up gave up the fight. This allowed my tarp to fold in half and completely expose my table – on which I’d left my lantern, stove, jetboil, and pans – and to soak everything. When I got up, somewhere around 8:00, I fixed that issue and then hoped for a break in the weather during which I could tear down while staying as dry as possible.
It never really happened. While I did get about 20 minutes of non-rain, the wind never let up. Every time a gust hit, rain fell out of the trees and covered everything again. In a nutshell, I did get everything sort of packed into the car, but I had no chance to dry out the tent or the tarp. And I was drenched. I took the opportunity, after packing everything, to use the campground’s shower, and felt much better. Headed out at about 12:45, but couldn’t check in to the cabin before 3:00. So I parked at the trail head, and started walking.
The squall had picked back up by now, so I tried to keep to the internal forest as much as possible. Every time I got within a quarter-mile of the lake, the wind and spray was pelting me and it was getting cold. I’d guess that the actual temp was around 45, but add strong winds and wet and I have no idea how cold things really were. Time went fairly slowly, as I walked probably 8 miles of trails waiting for 3:00. At 2:45, I was back at the trail head and thought, “Screw it. I’m going in.”
So I did. And when I opened the cabin door, I learned that the people who’d left earlier had left a nice birch log roasting in the wood stove. The inside of the cabin was between 75 and 80 degrees. It was the most amazing feeling that I’ve had since….it was just the most amazing feeling ever. I’m trying to compare it to sometime during a Shoreham winter when I came into the kitchen after playing outside, but it went beyond that. I was absolutely worn out and freezing when I opened the cabin door, and the sense of being warm and dry was incredible. I moved all of my stuff (except the tent) into the cabin, crawled into my sleeping bag, and slept for close to 4 hours. Then got up, ate a couple of sandwiches, played in the wind for another hour or so, and got back into bed. Slept until 9 this morning, with one interruption at 4:00 to get up and pee and throw some more wood into the stove. The wind was still howling at that hour, and it was very cold. By 9:00, however, the storm had cleared. The sun is now shining and the wind has died out as much as it can on the shore of a great lake. It’s still chilly – there was frost on my picnic table this morning – but the sun feels good and I’m hoping for temps in the upper 60s today. Inside my cabin as I type this, with some oak smoldering in the stove – flu nearly closed – it’s right at 60 degrees and feels wonderful.
I’ll do some more hiking today and, perhaps, drive into Cheboygan for a few supplies. Coffee, batteries, maybe some ice. And I’ll continue this tome as time permits.
5:15 PM 10/18/2017
Today and yesterday were both phenomenal, weather-wise. Temperature was in the mid-60s and the sky was perfectly blue on both days. I did jump into the lake briefly yesterday (very cold) and considered it again today, but decided not to – though there’s still another hour or so of daylight left. Got a couple of long walks in on both days, and filled out things by sitting at my cabin, listening to podcasts and drinking. Also built a fire outside the cabin today.
During this morning’s walk, I startled an eagle out of a tree by the beach – first time I’ve ever seen one of those in the wild, and it was pretty cool. Other interesting wildlife that I’ve noticed this week are a flock of swans in the straits and a multitude of jet-black squirrels. Also got a couple of close-ups of a pilliated woodpecker over the course of the week. I assume it was the same bird, but it could be that all of them enjoy showering me with wood chips.
Planning on leaving before dawn tomorrow, but that really depends on how I sleep tonight. I woke up briefly at around 4 this morning, but convinced myself to go back to bed, where I happily snored until after 9. When I get home really depends on when I leave here. I’d like to get there before Friday night, so am hoping that I can suck it up and do the trip in one shot. Otherwise, I’ll probably end up stopping in Kentucky somewhere, and I hate to spend money in Kentucky. “Don’t support anyplace that supports Mitch McConnell,” is my motto.
As for the rest of today, I have no plans. Had a couple of sandwiches an hour or so ago, so I don’t think I’ll need to eat again. Already boiled some water and put it into my thermos for my morning sponge bath. I’ll probably have some coffee at some point, and I’m still listening to podcasts. Might watch a movie on the Surface Pro before bed. I brought 5 or 6 or them with me, planning to go through them in the campground – where I had electricity – but since moving to the cabin, I’ve had to be stingy with the amount of time that the computer is running. The phone and my iPod are fine – I’ve got a great portable charger – but once the Surface Pro dies, it’s done until I’m home or at a hotel.
To sum up, it’s been a great week – particularly the last four days – and I’m fairly certain that I’ll rent a cabin here again next year. Might try to get one of the other two that are about a mile farther up the point – they have better beaches – but I’ve got nothing negative to say about this one, and I’d take it again in a heartbeat.