Just Drive!

Jro's blog has been so funny lately. I know I get on my fellow bloggers to write something. The reason being, is I LOVE to read everyone's thoughts. You guys are so flippin funny sometimes, even if you are rambling about nothing. I would rather read what you write, than anything else out there.

Her stories of camping recently brought back a memory for me.

Mio, MI 1996 or 96

My sister and I worked together at Rock Financial. She had invited us up to Mio to camp and canoe on the Au Sable river. Den and I had odd schedules at the time, so we were the first to head up.

After arriving and seeing "Camp Runamuck", we decided to go look for a hotel. The place we were to set up camp was in the yard of a single wide trailer that looked like it could be the scene of a homicide. It was in the middle of the jungle, with an outhouse.

We made it all the way to Alpena. No Hilton, no Mariott... nothing. After deciding we would rather stay at the camp rather than the methlab hotels that we had seen, we went back. We pitched our tent, then headed off to find beer. Beer makes EVERYTHING better. An hour later, after passing a house on fire (with no fire department to be found), we located a party store. It was hot, cramped, and packed full of junk. The beer... hot, dusty, and a year past it's expiration date. After purchasing NOTHING, we left. Passed the burning house, and went back to camp.

My sister arrived with her "friends". I quote "friends" because I could not believe the people that were with her. My sister is sometimes a bit odd, but how in the world did she get hooked up with these dirt bags? Hillbilly USA! After throwing up their tents, a fire was built. Using anything and everything that they could torch, including gasoline. Which by the way went over like a lead balloon with the resident firefighter.

After a night of tent sleeping (which isn't really sleeping), we headed to the river. On the way, we again passed the burning house, which was now leveled to the ground and smoldering. We also found a grocery store on the way and picked up our beverages. We got in our canoes and headed down the river. A short distance later, someone came up with the brilliant idea that we should all tie up canoe's and "drift". It was a fairly decent time until one of them decided to spark up a fatty. THAT WAS IT. THAT was the last straw. Den and I untied our canoe, and told them we wanted to just go solo for a while.

6 HOURS! 6 HOURS of paddling like mad and we finally made the pick up spot. We all headed back to camp where Den and I proceeded to pack up ALL of our things after canoeing all day, and drove ALL THE WAY HOME. We had been awake for 36 hours, including the EXHAUSTING canoe trip. It was the worst trip I had EVER taken in my life. It wasn't even worth spending an extra minute there let alone 2 more days!!

After getting home, we had the best night sleep we have probably EVER had.