Thoughts and Notions

We were all disappointed when Alan called and said they had broken down and wouldn’t be coming for the visit that had been planned this week. But then the next day when the car was fixed the visit was a go. Alan, Rachel, Judah, and Miriam all made it here and spent the night with us. Chesley and Judah hit it off just like old times. Miriam adored Kaden the “bi-bi”. Karl stayed up late to chat with Alan even though he had to be at work first thing in the morning. Everyone had a good time. Rachel and I talked all day, catching up where we left off when we graduated 6 months ago. We even managed to take the kids to a playground to get some fresh air!

We made it! At times I didn’t think we would. Well…

We drove up to Manistee National Forest with the hopes of staying near Lake Michigan. The first night we hiked into the woods only to be stopped by a plethora of private property. Unfortunately there isn’t a trail down toward the woods… and the closest area to the lake is surrounded by non-federal land. So we never did stay near the coast. We did however set up down a hill under the forest cover and near a creek. It was extremely creepy and it became dark sooner than at the top of the hill. Plus, we had no cell phone coverage. A million images of Denise and I becoming victim to some weirdo wandering through the woods went through my head… By this time it was super late… I thought I lost my keys… then we almost went home. But we moved to the top of the hill and down the road and camped behind the car in a different location.

The next day we visited the beach, got sun burnt, and even recycled some forest wood and a broken wooden chair in our cool fire that night. The broken chair I found at another camp someone else had a while back. We did come out of the forest and eat at Wendy’s (I felt bad about that) and toured Manistee (I felt good about that). So all in all we had a good time.

We woke up at 8:30am and heard drips on the tent. Camp was packed in 15 minutes… and we were outta there. It rained most of the way home. Dispersed camping has definitely been an eye opener, I think it will be hard to go back to regular camping. Ha!

Wow… I don’t think I have ever had a backpack weigh that much. Well, Denise is pregnant and I decided to take the bulk of the load. Besides, my pack is tons larger than hers… and I am a man right? Anyhow, we have the hatchet, shovel, stove, tent, sleeping bags, mats, food, and everything anyone could imagine. Rabun and Ericka are staying at our place this weekend. I’m excited about this, because we’ve never turned over our place to anyone. I hope they like it…

I am so tired right now. It’s been a long day… so I have to go to bed, in order to have energy to hike into our camp… wherever that is… we’ll sure find out tommorow.

Here’s my opportunity to weblog off my own server. Yeah, I guess I have weblogged once before and quit… but I decided to give it a second try. Who knows, maybe even Denise will give it a try. I first looked at Movable Type, but didn’t have php or sql access on my free server, so I settled on a great perl script… Greymatter…

What a joy to set up and get going. Anyhow, I’m taking off with Denise this weekend to Lake Michigan. We’re going to attempt some “dispersed camping”… You know… park on the side of the road, walk into the woods… and camp where it looks best! I am so excited.

We spent 70.00 at Meijers last night. Between a hatchet and dried fruit, I think we are set.

OH! The hatchet. In the camping aisle with the name “Gerber” on the side, it was 39.99. In the tool aisle with a different name on the side it was, 19.99. SAME EXACT HATCHET!

It’s a crazy world we live in.