Tuesday, July 8, 2014

The details are in...

Generally speaking I am not really much of a details person (with a couple exceptions running (because I love it so much) and grammar editing (because I had a really excellent high school English teacher (thanks Z)) otherwise I kind of suck at details. I can drive somewhere fifteen times and still not notice the "details" of the "landmarks" that others notice the first time they drive the route.  I can't tell you how many times I have said, "I don't know" or "I didn't notice" to commonly asked, detail-related, questions.   It drives my husband (and possibly other "type A" people) crazy and to be completely honest it is kind of a pain in the ass sometimes, but I just don't notice details.  And my therapist said I shouldn't sweat the small stuff and details are always small so...

For this reason, I would make a horrible witness to a crime. I would be all, "Officer all I know is the dude (or it might have been an old lady. It was hard to tell) was between the ages of 12 and 73 and he/she was  black or possibly white or maybe yellow it was hard to tell and he/she was definitely between 5'2 and 6'4.  Kind of bulky and a little scrawny all at once.  He/she had some facial hair or maybe their face was just dirty I dunno...Oh and I think he/she was possibly gay, but honestly my gaydar isn't the best and I am still not sure if it was a man or a woman...That's all I've got! I hope it helps with your investigation"...

Anyhow, the details to our camping trip are few and far between probably because I don't remember most of them (and not because I was drunk the entire time either because I totally wasn't).  Here's what I can recall...  

On the Northbound road trip we saw the following along the roadways:
14 different states license plates(I won't bore you with the details of which ones).  We also saw 5 MSU License Plates and 4 Michigan License Plates (eat that wolverine fans!)  We saw more than a hundred semis, two dump trucks, four motorcycles, six tractors and here's where things get somewhat interesting, or possibly disturbing, or (if you are adventurous like me) both...

In an act of sheer desperation (because I had outright refused to bring portable DVD players or laptops, and because kids started to drive me crazy within the first five minutes of the trip with questions like, "how much longer before we stop for lunch?" and "are we almost there?") we played a little game of roadkill bingo (or something along those lines).  We basically watched for all the dead animals along the highway so we also know details about all the carcasses between Nunica and Onaway Michigan.  Possibly, the most disturbing part about this was that the kids ate it up!  They LOVED it!  It totally entertained them all the way to lunch break and we had so much fun playing this gruesome game!

We saw 5 opposums, 4 squirrels, 6 raccoons, 6 deer, 2 skunks, 3 birds, 2 turtles and 13 unidentified dead animals (which made me think of the Rodents of Unusual Size in The Princess Bride which made me happy because that is such an epic movie, but which has nothing to do with the details of this story). See I would make a horrible witness!  These are the details I recall from the trip to Onaway State Park!

Here is another little detail:  Before we left, I made foil dinners for everyone out of venison steaks (circa 2011), fresh veggies and spices.
Unfortunately this is the best the foil meals ever looked because we overcooked or maybe burned them (I can't recall that detail) ...At least we got another package of meat out of Chester! So I am a happy camper (no pun intended)!

The kids became campfire cooking experts!
Smokey Bear is turning over in his grave...
Or is he still alive?
I cant remember that detail either...

Okay so this looks disgusting, even I recognize that detail, but it was actually really, really yummy.  This dish consists of pudding and Lady Fingers that I made for dessert a few days before we left for camping!  The lady fingers were old, frozen and found among the contents of Chester (thanks to the evacuation last month) so we are one step (or technically one pack of lady fingers) closer to an empty freezer.  Hallelujah! And the chickens feasted on the leftovers when we returned from camping to find the remnants still in the fridge!

We took all of the camping groceries that I mentioned in my posting entitled "Gone" and ate every last crumb of them (with the exception of a few yogurts and a package or two of hot dogs).  We may need to have our cholesterol checked after all!  In our defense, we did try to catch healthy fresh seafood. We went fishing every day and we attempted to catch crayfish with no luck on either front; all we managed to catch out of Black Lake was a serious case of Swimmer's Itch which is quite possibly the most disgusting health ailment I have faced. EVER. Parasites from the feces of birds (and there is some involvement with snails, but despite my four year Biology degree I don't totally understand the entire biological cycle involved) anyhow these parasites burrow into your skin and die and cause the most irritating, God awful, itch known to mankind.  All of us caught it except for our youngest child!?  And when we called to report it to the State Park they said, "Yeah we know. We have had that going around a lot this year".  Mind you nobody bothered to warn us before we went swimming and there were no signs posted at the beach. GRRR.

 Trying to catch crayfish for Jumbalaya!  All we scooped up were some itchy legs!


Kara stands guard over our fierce fire!

As I mentioned before, the best part of camping is having no technological distractions and I also love that my husband does the dishes.  We had a great time and now we are back to our regular old, boring no shopping challenge!

PS if you go to Torch Lake or Black Lake both are majorly infected with swimmers itch so stay out of the water

PPS If Smokey is still alive please don't tell him our kids were in charge of the fire for the better part of a week.  We might get a ticket or get banned from state parks or something.

PPPS I take back what I said about me being a good details editor in regards to writing after reviewing this story because there are all kinds of grammatical issues found within it!  Sorry but I don't have time to fix it all.

Vern Out








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