Tag Archives: Camping

Live from Schoodic Woods

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I’m currently sitting at a picnic table at site A29 in the “new” Schoodic Woods Campground.  In the early 2000s, a 3,200-acre tract of forest on the Schoodic Peninsula was being considered for development as a large resort with a hotel, golf course, sports facilities, and luxury villas, but in 2011, an anonymous conservation-minded buyer purchased the property through Schoodic Woods LLC.

This little bastard stole 75% of the paper trash that I’d put in my fire pit to burn tonight.

Rather than allowing the resort project to proceed, much of the land was set aside for conservation. A 1,400- to 1,500-acre portion south of Route 186 was eventually donated for inclusion in Acadia National Park, leading to the creation of Schoodic Woods Campground, which opened in September, 2015.

I arrived yesterday at noon and spent an hour or so getting the tent and fly set up.  Truth be told, the fly isn’t really set up.  I didn’t have trees in the right spots to attach it to, so I’ve got it propped up on two telescoping poles and bungie-corded to the table – but it’s doing its job, which is to keep rain off of the table (and me), although I haven’t seen any rain yet.

Had some bourbon last night and slept like a dead man after three hard days of driving.  I think I got in the sack at around 8 and I woke up just about 12 hours later.  THIS is why I go camping by myself once or twice a year.  Sleep.

After a slow morning (had a couple cups of coffee and scratched myself), I set off to see what was around me.  Walked along a bike trail to Wonsqueak Harbor and back (round trip was around 6 miles, and the harbor was quiet and not particularly photogenic) and then convinced myself to go to Winter Harbor and buy some ice, hotdogs (and buns), and a sandwich (which I ate for lunch, and it was fantastic).  I must admit that the ice was mainly for my bourbon, but it’s pulling double duty and keeping the hot dogs cold.  I may eat them for dinner tonight, or I may have them for lunch tomorrow.  Hell, I may throw them into the woods and see if bears visit me.

After eating and watching a few highlight reels from yesterday’s college football games, I went for another walk on the South Harbor Trail, which – unlike the bike trail this morning – was an actual hike.  It had more exposed roots than should be allowed, a lot of ankle-breaking rocks, steep up and down grades, etc.  Having been lulled to sleep by the morning walk, I opted not to wear my hiking boots this afternoon and did the rough hike in sneakers.  Bad plan.  My ankle now hurts.  But I enjoyed it, and it had some truly beautiful scenery.

Because Schoodic Woods is the only portion of the park that’s located on the mainland (and because it’s only 11 years old), the tourist population here is minute compared to the rest of the park.  I didn’t have to deal with a great deal of traffic getting here, and so far in my hikes I’ve seen a grand total of 4 other people on the trails.

The sites in the campground are relatively close together, but the undergrowth and abundance of trees make each site quite private.  I can *hear* other campers around me, but I can’t see them unless I try to – and I don’t try to.  Additionally, there is NPS-provided WiFi throughout the campground, which is very nice to have.  I do have a VPN active on both my phone and the tablet that I’m typing this on – no reason to take chances.

Other nice things about being in a new campground: The bathrooms are nice.  Clean, dry, don’t smell like campground bathrooms.  There are dishwashing stations outside of each bathroom.  Not a spigot that says, “Don’t wash your dishes here,” but an outside sink with a bear-proof container next to it for food scraps, and a bottle of Dawn detergent on the sink.  There are trails for foot traffic (hiking), and for bike and foot traffic (crushed gravel) – and there are a LOT of said trails.  I got in 13 miles today on just two of them.  The nearby town of Winter Harbor has devoted itself to supporting the campground, with several Maine-centric eateries, a very nice grocery/supply store, and plenty of places selling firewood.

In short, this place is a gem.  I may rethink my, “It’s gotta be Michigan” attitude for fall camping.  Michigan is *closer* to me, and my Michigan campsites are closer to the water – but this place is extremely nice, and I could see myself visiting again, perhaps somewhat regularly.

I believe this is called “South Harbor” and it was the midpoint of a 7-mile hike that I took this afternoon

Greetings from Tallwood!

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As expected, I’m now in Maine.  Wells, Maine, to be exact.

This is not my final destination – that’d be at Schoodic Woods Campground in Acadia National Park tomorrow afternoon – but it is the place that I’m staying tonight, and I think I’m in love with my hotel.  This place has vibes from the 1960s and 70s, before every overnight stay was in a corporate hotel chain.  Tallwoods Motel is one of those places where you park directly in front of the door to your room, the room itself is about 12×15, there’s a window A/C unit, and you have to walk to the office to get ice.  I’d post some pictures now (maybe I will in the future), but I haven’t figured out yet how to link my phone’s gallery to this tablet, so you’ll just have to imagine it.

I started the day today in Winchester, VA, in one of the aforementioned hotel chains (a Sleep Inn, as I recall).  I chose it because it was the cheapest I could find in the Winchester area that didn’t give me the idea that I’d be in a crack house.  I still kinda felt like I was in a crack house.

The drive from Lawrenceville to Winchester (on Thursday) was at once boring and incredibly stressful.  Somewhere south of Boone, NC, my car screamed at me that “EyeSight” (that which is responsible for cruise control) was no longer operative.  It then flashed a series of warnings at me, telling me that my transmission was shot, that my brakes weren’t working, that my backup assist was toast, that my windshield wiper fluid was empty, and that my engine needed checking.  In short – and this is no exaggeration – every check light that could possibly come on came on.

After an initial freak out, I did not freak out.  You ask, “Why not?”  Well, because the exact same thing happened to me two years ago when I was driving to my fall vacation in Michigan.  When it happened back then, I was just south of Knoxville and – mainly because of the “transmission oil overheated” warning – I searched out the closest Subaru place and made my way to it, hoping to save my car from death.  I’m not sure why I didn’t actually have anyone check it out, but I didn’t.  I literally drove through the parking lot and continued on my way to Ohio – without cruise control, which sucked.  I did a bit of research that night and someone had said that the same thing happened to them and it was because of a rear proximity sensor and they’d cleaned it off and everything was fine.  So the next morning (this was two years ago), I wiped off all of the rear sensors, got into my car and started it, and everything was fine.

So yesterday when all this happened, I didn’t freak out (after the initial freakout).  I drove to the next rest area, went to pee, came back and wiped off the rear sensors, and started the car. 

Still had the check engine light.  Still had no Eyesight.  Still had no cruise control.

So I continued on my way to Winchester, got to the hotel, and pulled up Copilot (an AI software that wasn’t available two years ago), and told it the whole story, including what happened two years ago.  Copilot told me not to worry about it, said it was probably an intermittent electrical problem, and that it would bet that the problem would be cleared when I started the car this morning.

I felt good.  I felt confident.  I started the car this morning.

Check engine light was still on.  Still didn’t have cruise control.

So I resigned myself to driving to Maine without cruise.  Not a happy thought, but what else was I gonna do? 

After about 20 minutes on the road, I stopped for gas and thought, “Maybe it’s a vacuum thing with the gas cap and all will be well now!”  Got back into the car, started it….check engine light on, and no cruise control.  Shit.  Drove to Dunkins for some breakfast.

Came out, started the car…..everything was fine.  So…..I’m still thinking it was a gas cap thing.

At any rate, I’m really glad I had the cruise control working because the drive from Winchester to Wells absolutely sucked.  I think the blame is shared by northeastern drivers (who have no concept of a speed limit or of staying in their own lane) and by the road planners (who’ve made entering and exiting major interstate highways ridiculously hard).

But after about 10 hours, I did make it to the Tallwood Motel in Maine, and I’m happily contemplating sleeping in a tiny room with a window A/C unit while I listen to trains passing about 200 yards from my window.  Most people would hate this.  I love it.

And tomorrow? It’s on to Acadia!  Haven’t been there in 50 years, and I can’t wait!

Time To Catch Up

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I’m getting my 60K miles tune-up done on the Subaru this morning. It’s not something that I think I’ve ever done on one of my cars before (dealer-suggested services), but the Wilderness is a good car and I don’t spend a lot on it, so I guess it makes sense to try to keep it in good working order for as long as possible.

I arrived at the dealership at around 8 this morning (it’s about 9:30 now), and the whole shebang should take 4-5 hours, so I brought my iPad with me, along with a keyboard, mouse, and headphones. Figured I could watch some movies, maybe do a little work, and actually update this li’l blog thing with tales of what I’ve been up to over the last year or so. Hopefully, I’ll have enough calendar entries and photos on my phone to remind me of actually what that WAS, because every day is kind of a blur once it’s over. No, I don’t have dementia or depression and my memory isn’t going (much) – I just don’t lead a very exciting life.

It appears that my last entry prior to this one was in October of 2025, so let’s start there and see what happens…..

The month started out with a joint concert of the GBB and the Atlanta Wind Symphony at Milton High School. I don’t remember a great deal about it except that it was fairly well attended, and we did one mass piece that was kind of a cluster. I won’t swear to it, but I think it was Pines of the Appian Way. GBB tenor horns naturally sat with AWS French horns, but we had completely different parts and nobody really knew what was happening. It was also tough to see the director, since there were about 900 people on the stage.

As I recall, the AWS sounded pretty good, but hadn’t progressed much beyond where they were when I was playing in the group 30 years ago.

Other things that happened during October – Sandie began a journey of mouth fixing (root canals, crowns, implants, veneers, etc.) that continues to this day. I see in my calendar that she had three appointments with a dentists or dental-related people, and I have very unflattering picture of her with a wide-open pie hole in my OneDrive photos from that month. I will not be sharing that here.

We also went to a haunted house in Cumming, GA, in the middle of the month. This is a fairly large undertaking that two of my colleagues from work dive into each year (raises money for someone, but I’m not sure how), and Sandie and I have gone each of the last two years, usually meeting up with at least one other person from my work, to support their efforts. It’s actually very well done, but it tends to be a bit too loud and too full of dry ice fog for my tastes. I don’t particularly enjoy it.

Sandie went to a Springsteen concert and a No Kings rally in October (I agree with the sentiment of the latter, but have no interest in hanging out with 3000 people), and the GBB had the first of a handful of 8-hour weekend rehearsals as we began preparing for NABBA 2026 (the brass band championships).

Had a couple of cool things happen in November. First, I got to play the big horn at a special service at Morningside Presbyterian, celebrating its centennial. Not only did I get a raise from the church (for the first time requiring that I fill out an I-9 form), but it was also the first time in I don’t know how long that I had TWO tuba gigs in the same calendar year (the other being Easter at Morningside).

Immediately after the gig, I took off for a 10-day vacation at Fort Mountain State Park in Chatsworth, GA. Normally, I like to take my fall vacation in the far north, and I don’t recall why I didn’t do that last year. Might’ve been to save money, might’ve been to just give Fort Mountain a chance to prove itself, might’ve been because I couldn’t make the timing work for Michigan….I really don’t know why I decided to stay in GA, but it was both a success and a failure. At the start, I had the campground pretty much to myself (which is usually the plan), but it was also a lot warmer than I would’ve liked. Sure, it got down into the 40s (maybe even the high 30s) at night, but a tee-shirt and jeans were more than enough to stay warm during the day, and make hiking (of which I did a good amount) a sweaty, uncomfortable, affair. I brought along an electric heater for the tent (that may have been another reason I chose Fort Mountain – experimenting with an electric campsite), but I don’t think I used it at all. Later in the week, as the weekend before Thanksgiving approached, the campground started filling up. By the time I left, it was well over 75% occupied and not at all what I want during my fall camping trips.

I’m not sure exactly how long I stayed in the woods, but I did go home in time for Thanksgiving, and Dianne, Dad, and Wayne (along with two little dogs) made the trek to Lawrenceville to spend the day with Sandie and me. I think we had a bit of trouble with the turkey (didn’t manage to get it thawed in time), but we did manage to get everything cooked and had an enjoyable day with the crew.

Not much happened in December.  I had two GBB concerts on consecutive Tuesdays, which was rather odd.  And I ended the year back at Fort Mountain State Park.  Spent 5 days there and thoroughly enjoyed myself.  As hoped, the place was basically empty and the temps were brisk.  I did a good deal of hiking, slept like a dead man, got in some reading, and actually got to USE the electric heater in the tent. 

So that was the end of last year.  I’ll go ahead and publish this, and the next entry will try to summarize this year up to this point.  Hopefully, I’ll be in a campsite in Maine when I write it.

Wilderness State Park – 2024

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As the title would imply, I’m at Wilderness State Park in Petosky, MI, this week. I arrived yesterday afternoon, late enough to take everything out of the car, put it in my cabin (the Sturgeon Cabin), drink some bourbon, and go to bed.

This morning, after a breakfast of granola and berries (I’m hillbilly like that), I drove to the Walmart in Cheboygan and picked up 3 new lanterns. The cabin is DARK. Got back, got things organized, and I guess my vacation can now REALLY begin. On Election Day, no less.

Wilderness State Park? I found this place last year, when I was trying to book a week at Pictured Rocks and discovered that Michigan is now closing a lot of its parks (yes, Pictured Rocks is a national park, but I group them all together) on October 15th. This did not sit well with me, since I like for my Michigan sojourns to be at least a bit chilly, so I went on the hunt for the northern-most park in Michigan that I could reserve in November. I found Wilderness. And I spent a week last November living at the park in a tent.

It was glorious.

On one of my walks last year, I stumbled upon the Sturgeon Cabin, and instantly fell in love with it. It’s a log cabin that’s about 3 miles from anywhere, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. No power. Hand-pumped (tannin-filled) water out front. A vault toilet about 100 yards away. Wood crib that holds about a two cords of wood. So secluded that you almost don’t see it if you drive past on the “road” (literally a couple of dirt ruts) that goes past it. When I saw that I could reserve it for the second week of November, it was a no-brainer to grab it. I’ll have some pictures up in a future post.

This is smaller than the cabins I’ve stayed in at Cheboygan State Park. It’s probably 18×22 inside, with two bunk beds and another single bed, a table and benches, a counter with two shelves, and a wonderful little wood stove. Behind the stove is a stonework that looks like it may have been an actual fireplace at one time, but it is now just a great place to store wood – and whoever was here before me left me a good supply, so I probably won’t have to go to the wood crib before I leave.

Behind the cabin is a short path through some trees and shrubs to a private beach on Lake Michigan. I say “private” because – due to the way the land lies – you’d have to REALLY want to get to this beach from anyplace other than the cabin. On the other three sides of the cabin are fairly thick woods. This is the type of place that I’ve fantasized about retiring to for the last 30 years. I may never (let’s face it, I’ll never) get to realize that dream, but I can live it a couple of weeks every year.

So that’s a description of where I am. Over the next week, I’ll try to get daily entries in – with photos – so I can remember what I did this week in November of 2024.

The Rise and Fall of the Turf

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Two more months have gone by, and we’re now officially well into the hottest part of the summer in Georgia. I’m quite settled into the work-from-home routine – though I’m actually at the office today because my internet crapped out at home and AT&T isn’t sending a technician until Friday. Yes, I do have a mobile hotspot, but it’s just barely sufficient for doing my job at home.

The routine for the last few months has been pretty much set in stone. I get up at 5:00, feed the cats, drink a cup of coffee while watching the news or some YouTube videos. Shortly before 6:00, I’ll head out for a 5-mile walk, which gets me home at just after 7:00. At that point, I’ll have another cup of coffee (decaf, by the way – always), will watch the tube a bit more, and might eat something for breakfast – egg white omelet, bowl of cereal, or some fruit. As often as not, I’ll skip the food altogether. At around 7:30, I’ll take a shower and start work. Somewhere between 4:00 and 5:00, I’ll turn off the computer, feed the cats again, take another walk, put something on the stove for dinner, and drink a couple of rocks glasses of bourbon while looking at Facebook or playing a game on my phone – generally sitting in the screen house on my deck, though it’s recently gotten so hot that it’s uncomfortable to sit outside for too long.

The “Bourbon Barn” on my deck – a screen-house with removable wind/rain panels – is where I’ve taken to spending most evenings. I took this picture the day the roof was being replaced, which explains the rope on the roof.

After an hour or so, I’ll wander back inside, eat whatever was cooking, watch part of a movie or something, and generally hit the sack before 9:00. Lather, rinse, repeat. It really shouldn’t be surprising that I quite often do not know what day it is. Seriously – it’s not unusual at all for me to start the day by saying, “Alexa, what day is it?”

There are some highlights and banner days, however. For example, I had my gutters replaced last Thursday. After getting quotes from three different roofers to do the job – and after all three of them gave me quotes, but never followed up to schedule the work even when I sent them emails, I called a fourth company who was recommended by my bartender on Sunday. They came out and took pictures on Monday, gave me a quote on Tuesday, and did the job Thursday. The gutters look great, the work was done in less than three hours, and I’m not sure why the first three companies didn’t think it was worth three hours of their time to make $1500.

Another example: yesterday was Tuesday the 11th – and on Tuesday the 11th, my new retaining wall was completed. While it was expensive, it came out looking great and I’m confident that the erosion that has claimed about a foot and a half of my backyard over the last 20 years will now stop. I ended up hiring a hardscraper who lives in my neighborhood, and he went to town: 85-pound blocks, a few tons of gravel, two large drainage tubes, another ton of fill dirt, another ton or two of large rocks….the upper yard is not going anywhere anytime soon.

The new retaining wall shortly after it was finished.

The biggest disappointment with the new wall, however, is that my lawns were absolutely destroyed by the equipment and materiel needed to build it. As you can see in the picture, both the lower and upper yards are now little more than dirt. I’m fairly certain that it’s too late in the year to try planting grass, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. Wendell (the guy who built the wall) really wanted me to hire him to resod the yard, but I’m not doing that anytime soon. The plan all along has been “Roof then wall then floors,” and I’m sticking to it. My floors – at least downstairs – are getting replaced next.

And I think the upstairs will get replaced sooner rather than later, too. Since I’m going to be working out of the house for the long term, I really want to get my upstairs office into better shape, starting with a new floor. It’s okay right now, but I need to make it feel less like a spare bedroom and more like an office, so I might as well start at the bottom, rip out the floor, repaint it, replace the lights, then put in a new floor and start getting the furniture laid out like an office. I think it will help me put some distance between home and work, and make the days a little less monotonous.

I did drive up to the NC mountains last weekend – mainly to find out if they were open and people could camp there again. I went to the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest and drove along the forest road next to the Little Santeetlah River, where all of my favorite spots did indeed have people in them. So that’s a good thing. I stopped for 45 minutes or so just to sit by the river and soak up the sound of quiet. Now that I’ve established that the place is open, a couple of friends and I may hike up to Bob Bald in the next couple of weeks and spend a night up there. That should be really nice.

Still Alive!

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So it’s been a while. Figured I’d try to catch up on things while I’m sitting at Tires Plus waiting for new tires. Also testing out a WordPress app on my phone, which may allow me to post more often and, hopefully, will work well enough so that I can use it when I’m in Michigan in a few weeks.

I guess that’s the big news for now. I rented a cabin at Cheboygan State Park again this year, and I’m planning to stay there from November 9th to the 16th. It’s a lovely spot and I’m really looking forward to having a week by myself in the middle of nowhere to decompress and think about things. That week will come immediately on the heels of a week in Toledo, where I’ll be on a project for work. Not looking as forward to that, but it works nicely financially, as I’ll be reimbursed for mileage for around 1300 miles out of my entire trip.

Work has been somewhat exhausting as of late. The X-Company really built up the numbers in L1 support staff this year, and I’ve now got 10 direct reports and am expecting 1 or 2 more by the end of the year. Having been back in the management gig for nearly a year now (the last time I had directs was around 2006), I’ve sort of settled in to it. Managing people is, for me at least, much more stressful than just dealing with misbehaving computers. I get particularly annoyed when one of my people feels the need to take an emergency day off because, “My kid threw up,” but I guess I’m not allowed to admit that. I also have a few scenarios every day when I’m deep in the heart of working a problem which has been escalated to me and I get interrupted by someone who needs help with something that, to me, seems incredibly obvious. Maybe not the solution, but definitely the troubleshooting steps required to find it.

I haven’t gotten to get out much this year. Did go up to Whigg Meadow two more times since that weekend when Brett and I discovered it. Both trips were really nice (I hiked up both times, rather than subjecting my car to the terrible drive), though I did get absolutely soaked the first time – caught on the trail in a downpour with no rain gear.

I’m still looking for the perfect place to buy some land for a tiny cabin to live in in my old age. Have not found it yet, and I’m again wondering when I’ll be able to actually do this. I looked at my 401k yesterday and see that in the last 2 weeks I’ve lost everything that I gained during the first nine months of the year. Wouldn’t call it depressing, but it’s certainly not encouraging.

…

And now it’s the next day. I did get my tires put on, and had the front end aligned, which makes my car feel like a new car. Very nice. Jenny and I went to a Gladiators hockey game last night. Once again, we saw them playing the Orlando Sun Bears, which I think is the team that we’ve seen play every time we’ve gone. And once again, the Gladiators lost. We have a bad hockey team.

After I got home last night, I saw that I had an email from Dad. It had been written while I was sitting at the tires place, and it mentioned that he misses seeing updates to my blog. Well, here you go, Dad!

I guess the last little bit of news is that I’ve got a concert with the Gwinnett Wind Symphony later this afternoon. We’re performing the Suite from West Side Story, the Candice Suite and something else that I don’t recall right now. The band has been sounding pretty good for the rehearsals, which is different for this group.

So, we’ll call this test over. This app appears to do a pretty good job of allowing me to update my blog on-the-fly. The Voice Control isn’t all that great, but it’s faster than typing on the little phone keyboard. I do have to go back and correct things fairly often.

I don’t know how it will do with inserting pictures, which will be important when I’m in Michigan, but I’ll try that out later.

A Day Away

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My buddy Brett and I decided last week that we had to get away from Atlanta, so he sent me a text saying, “How about the Chatooga?”   That was pretty much all of the planning.  I knew it wouldn’t give me a chance to try out my new car-camping setup, but I honestly thought we might go canoeing.  After a day or so, I figured out that he meant he wanted to go to Burrell’s Ford, near Walhalla, SC.

That was good enough.

I brought along my digital audio recorder, as I’ve done on a few other camping trips (with some half-assed plan about putting together a ridiculous podcast), and we had a great time recording ourselves getting rather cronked in five-minute segments. I also recorded some stuff on my phone. I’ve discovered that I tend to lapse into a somewhat idiotic southern drawl when I record myself on these camping trips – see for yourself (video will take a while to load):  Southern Camping Podcast

It was a quite short, but enjoyable trip.  I arrived about an hour before Brett at around 9:00 Saturday morning.  Took a hike down the river looking for (and finding) a nice spot to pitch a couple of tents, but when Brett got there I learned that he’d brought a cooler with him and didn’t want to walk very far.  So we set up pretty close to the parking lot in a site next to one that we’ve used many times (there was already a group in our “regular” spot).

Saturday afternoon and evening were absolutely gorgeous.  Sunny, warm, quiet.  The water in the river was pretty cold, but I had no intention of swimming in it.  I just used it to keep my beer cold.

Hit the sack fairly early and slept until nearly 7 Sunday morning, when I packed up in a drizzle (Brett had already left) and came home.

At some point, I’ll do some (heavy) editing of the audio that recorded and upload it.  I listened to it at home on Sunday morning and cackled to myself.

 

It’s Finally Saturday

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I percolated some coffee last night.  I’m not positive, but I think that was the first time I’ve ever done so when I wasn’t camping.  While I do love the speed and convenience of my little pod-based coffee machine, there’s something about percolating that I’ve always like; and something nudged me to brew a pot when I got home last night.  It was good.  It’s also good this morning.

Spent some quality time lying in bed with the cats this morning.  5:15 came incredibly early, so I got up to feed the cats (Ocean Whitefish today – Boo was not pleased), then went back to bed for a few hours.  I would dearly love to spend most of the day there – checked my sleep activity yesterday, and I haven’t gotten more than 7 hours in two weeks – but I’ve got a concert with the brass band at Kennesaw State this afternoon.  Next weekend is also booked with band stuff, all NABBA-related rehearsals.  Friday night, Saturday morning, all day Sunday.  I suppose I should be looking forward to that.  To some extent, I am; but I really just want a weekend with nothing planned.  Preferably a sunny one (it’s raining again today and is forecast to do the same tomorrow) so that I could head for the woods and try out the new car-camping setup that I put together several months ago and have yet to try.  I’ve got a new Napier rear-gate cover, similar to the tent that I’ve used for a few years, but without the tent.  It just slips over the back of the car, and provides a screen window and a very shallow awning.  Also picked up a couple of door window condoms – I think they’re supposed to be used to keep sun off of babies or something, but they also function as fast and sturdy door screens (to replace the netting & magnets that I’ve been using).  The only thing I’m still looking for, to have what I think will be the perfect car-camp setup, is a kid-sized memory-foam mattress.  The air mattress that I normally use is great, but I’d like to get something a little firmer and less prone to leaking.

Had a pretty decent day at work yesterday, although I learned in the late afternoon that the client who had previously sent a letter from their lawyer has now sent another.  They’re unhappy.  I get it.  They want to get out of their 5-year contract.  I get that, too.  I really sort of hope that we just let them go.  I’m tired of hearing their complaints, and I’m tired of them blaming me for stuff that I can’t control.  I’m told that I’m not mentioned by name in this second legal missive.  That’s a good thing, I guess.

Still thinking about retirement and how to go about it.  It’s dawning on me that I may have to postpone it for a bit – mainly because of the cats, although if I can put up a big enough shack, they should be fine.  Questions about pooping (mine, not the cats’) have me vexed for the moment.  I know I’m hiking & camping guy, but I really don’t want to just have a composting toilet as my primary john.  I’d be completely happy with a pit toilet in a separate shack, but if I do go to the place in SC that I’ve been thinking about, I don’t know if that would be allowed.  If it would be, I’d have to find out how much it would cost to put it up.  Understand that I don’t want just a hole in the ground with a wooden one-seater over it.  I’d want a cement vault, as you might find in some decent wilderness campgrounds.

I’ve also decided that I want a hot shower, which my friends who’ve retired early have so far forgone.  They’ve been bathing in a tub resembling a small horse trough and heating the water with a huge heating element.  Yeah.  No.  I want hot showers on demand.  Propane could do this, I guess.  Or a tank-less water heater.

It’s basically all coming down to “what am I allowed to do, and what will the start-up costs be?”  I’ll continue to work it out in my head and then start putting things on paper before deciding if and when I can actually take the plunge.  It’s always in the back of my mind.

Today’s featured image, by the way, is – I think – one that I took during a weekend in Waukegan a few years ago.  Amy and I spent a good part of an afternoon at a little coffee shop and took a shot of the wall.  Or maybe it’s a stock photo, but I don’t think so.  I can’t imagine why I would save it if it is.  Nah.  Pretty sure that I took it.

Since mentioning a few weeks ago that I intended to start walking in the mornings again, I have yet to actually do so.  I’m usually dog-tired in the mornings.  I guess that getting out of bed and walking for 45 minutes or so would help with that, but I just don’t have the energy or the desire to bundle up and go out into the (relative) cold.  Maybe next week.

Well, I must do something productive before getting ready for the gig.  Still working on the football site, and I have to figure out why the images from my migration blog aren’t showing up in my media library on this one.

Need to start taking back my guestroom, too.  It’s still full of boxes that got thrown into it when Mary moved in.  Really want to clean that room out and make it usable again. It’s a nice room.

 

Post-vacation wrap

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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.

photo of Duncan Bay

Duncan Bay

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.

Camping at Cheboygan

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.

Poe Reef Cabin

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.

If you look closely, you can see a wild eagle in this picture

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.

Wind

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And it’s been three weeks without an update again.  Neat.  I do it this way just so that I might have something worth typing about.

Brett and I went back up to our hidden hunter shelter the week after the eclipse.  Knowing what to expect this time, we planned on car camping and brought speakers and coolers and firewood and all of the other great things that you can bring with you when you don’t plan to hike anywhere – like beer.  We spent a great two nights up there (Labor Day weekend), and even found – holy of holies – a pit toilet hidden in the brush behind the shelter.  Not just a hole dug in the ground, mind you.  An actual cement vault with a toilet on top of it.  Not a great deal of privacy if anybody happened to walk up to it while you’re doing your business, but since nobody was anywhere around, it was pretty perfect.

Did a bit of walking with the dogs (Brett brought four of them), got some more ideas for my upcoming sojourn to the upper peninsula, and enjoyed nearly perfect weather for the weekend.

Then it was back to the grind at work.  Not much to say about that.  I got assigned as primary to three more companies, which isn’t as glamorous as it sounds.  Other than that, it’s just more of the same.  Oh!  I did get taken off of the phone queue, which is nice.  I can actually concentrate on some of my more pressing tickets now without worrying about being interrupted.

I guess the big news was that Atlanta was put under its first-ever tropical storm warning a few days ago.  Hurricane Irma swept up through Florida and headed towards the big A, causing damned near every idiot in my adopted city to freak out.  I couldn’t wait for the thing to arrive.  I’ve always loved strong wind.

And…that’s about all we got.  In spite of the governor declaring the entire state an emergency area.  In spite of schools somehow making the decision to close for (at least) FOUR DAYS.  In spite of my own company declaring that everyone should work at home on Monday and Tuesday (I didn’t).  Here’s what I experienced in this mega-storm:

Sunday: A beautiful day, with an absolutely fantastic breeze blowing all day.  Gusts of about 20 MPH.

Monday: Light rain and breezy in the morning.  Empty roads on the way to work.  Me and one other consultant in the office.  Sprinkler system going full-blast all around the office.  Rained on and off all day – never very heavy.  Some pretty significant gusts (50-60 MPH) in the afternoon, lasting less than 5 seconds per gust.  Lots of leaves on the ground (you know – like it’s FALL or something).  Empty roads on the way home.  Rain stopped by 7:00, beautiful breeze continued with some occasional strong gusts.  Opened all of the windows (the cats loved it).  Sat on the deck for a while with my eyes closed and imagined I was at Lake Superior.  Went to bed with the windows open.  Slept like a rock.

Tuesday: Light rain and breezy in the morning.  Empty roads on the way to work.  Drove around two trees that had fallen into roads (over the course of my 14-mile commute).  Me and three other consultants in the office.  Rain ended by about noon.  Breeze died.  Light traffic on the way home.  Rehearsal until 9:30.  Home in a drizzle.

Wednesday: Any other day.

So that was the Tropical Storm Trauma, huh?  Not much different than any summer storm.  Yet many schools are closed on Thursday….

I mentioned that I got some new ideas for my Superior trip during the Labor Day car campout.  Ended up buying a Kelty 12-foot hiker’s tarp (which I’ve actually been meaning to do for years), and while looking for it, I stumbled across a double-wide Kelty sleeping bag, rated to 20 degrees.  It’s pretty fantastic.  Has a zip-off quilt and internal blankets and I’ve been sleeping in it on my bed for the last several nights.  Incredibly comfortable, very warm when it needs to be, but wide enough to let me stretch out, cool off, and be very comfortable.  It will be a wonderful topping for the air mattress in the back of the Subaru.

Can not wait to get back to the lake.  I don’t remember the last time that I needed (and I do mean NEEDED) a vacation so much.  Ironic that I’ll be going to basically the same spot where I found out that I was probably getting laid off, which is what ended up making me need to go back so much.

And that’s about all that’s new for now.  I’ll probably think of more stuff later, but won’t write about it for another two weeks.