Late Fall Camping

Charlie and I went camping this week-end, Since we bought the camper in August, we have only had a chance to use it once so we decide to try it this week-end the latest we have ever camped. I checked with DNR and Bruin Lake State park is open until November 30, so off we went, I rather short notice although we had talked about it for several weeks.
The address for Bruin Lake is Gregory, but it is about a mile (by road) to Unadilla (I love that name, the way it sounds.)

The weather was great, a little windy on Sunday morning, and the rain held off until we were all packed up and pulling out of the campground.

We have been to Bruin Lake before, several times but we figured out that it has been at least 10 or 11 years since we were there last. We usually go there when we want to take someone novice canoeing because it is not far from the Huron River, a great beginner canoeing river.

Charlie went over on Friday afternoon and had things set up by the time I got there after work, and stopping to pick up a few groceries. Only one little glitch, he was backing the trailer in the site, make sure not to hit the fire pit and hit a tree. Not a lot of damage to the trailer but...

We also realized during our conversations that this was the very first time we have ever gone camping alone, just the two of us. some.

Fall is a great time to go camping, there is hardly anyone at the parks. Bruin Lake has 186 sites, and we counted 20 sites being used. Don't tell anybody, they might decide to try it, then it wouldn't be as nice because it would be too crowded.

Oh, the restrooms were closed for the season, but they did have an porta-john and we had the bathroom in the camper.

We ran into some people who said they had been camping for 3 weeks, there were two couples left, for this there last weekend. They had up to 7 families there at one point during the 3 weeks. They said they have been doing this for the last 10 years.

We went for a ride on Saturday, and found a horse riders campground. it was packed with trailers and horse people of all ages. Charlie had heard there was one in the area, and was checking it out for some of the kids he will be working with this year. He is going to be the horse 4-H leader, more on that in another post.

When we go camping, Charlie does most of the cooking over the camp fire. On Saturday night it was beef stew, it tasted great.

There are not a lot of trails but Charlie and the dog managed to find a few, they even walked to Undilla Sunday morning, about 5 miles cross country, on the trails and down a little private road.

We had a some nice campfires, I had to take a picture of this piece of wood, it looked a little strange. That is all one piece of wood See the picture below on the right.

We have talked about camping at least once a month, trying a different camp ground, each time, I was thinking April -October, but I found out that there are 10 state parks that are open year round. We are thinking about going sometime this winter, Anybody interested?

The worst weird things I or you ever ate.

I haven’t been able to find a book on the subject so I may write one.

Some of my co-workers were discussing child hood memories one day and we started listing some of the weird strange gross things our parents made us eat.

For me it was my dad eating chicken feet, no way would I eat that. Now the pickled pigs knuckles I liked or the sardines, although now I can’t figure out why. When he was a kid he made a younger friend eat worms. Hey the older boys said her try this, so little Charlie did.

My dad wouldn’t drink is coffee without canned evaporated milk. Yuk. My mother used to make sandwiches out of left over bean soup. You know the navy beans and ham soup that when it was cold it congealed and looked gross. She ate that stuff.

For TE it was Vienna sausages, potted meat and spam. Oh yeah and SOS, or the more proper name Chipped beef gravy on toast.

MW agreed with the spam

JeD said creamed spinach, oysters

Big K said dry non fat milk was really gross. Another thing she hated was little green brains (it took a minute but she meant Brussels’ sprouts)

They both thought we were loosing it when JD and I remember having milk with cream on top and scraping it off.

JD’s dad ate orange marmalade and onion sandwiches,
EWWWWW
His neighbor ate vanilla ice cream and mustard.

Kalamari said chow mien, it looked like little white worms.

The worst think EP could come up with was oyster stew every New Years.

Okay your turn, leave a comment, what is the weirdest, strangest worst thing you can remember your parents eating or making you eat? After all if I’m going to write a book I need lots of material.

Catching up again

OK, so it has been awhile since I wrote, again I am just going to list what has been going on the last couple of weeks.

• Shonda and I attended Jenn's baby shower, on the 7th. She got lots of nice things, and I found out that you are not supposed to cover babies with blankets when you put them to bed, it is easier for them to suffocate. I made a comment that it is a miracle we “ the gandmother generation” made it to adulthood. I mean we didn't use seatbelts, or car seats, bike helmets, had drawstrings on our hoods, lead paint, no bottled water....

• A friend of Charlie's, the one he went to Oregon with a couple of years ago, called him a couple of days before his appointment and wanted to know if he wanted to go to Phoenix to do some work,. Charlie told him he could because he had surgery scheduled. He had his doctor's appointment on Tuesday, the 9th. There was a misunderstanding somewhere, because it was just a consultation and not surgery. The Dr. suggested that he wear a brace at night, that it works better wearing at night than during the day. He has to go back on November 3. So he and a couple of other men left for Phoenix on the 12th at 8 AM.

WARNING Complain mode- I had a miserable weekend:

• It started raining about 8:30 PM, Friday night and rained all night, the roof started leaking (are you ready for this) over the toilet, not into the toilet, on the seat. The kitchen sky lights have leaked before, but this weekend it started running along the ceiling to the wall, and running down behind the cupboard, water running on to the microwave, I had buckets and bowls setting on the floor, on the the bathroom,stool and on the cupboard. I rained all day. I emptied the rain gage at about 5 PM, we had 3.5 inches of rain.
  

• I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, because my CPAP had quit, because I had no power. GREAT.

OK done complaining - it could have been worse at least I wasn't in a hurricane or have several inches of water on the floor.

• Shonda and I went to see a movie Sunday, There was nothing elsed to do. We saw The Women, it was pretty good, but the critics didn't like it, I think probably because they are all men. We thought it was funny. I started working on my macrame chair, not very hard, a little tricky getting the first cords started, and the pattern on the back is a little difficult to count and doesn't look like much of a pattern at first.

• I emptied the rain gauge at 6:00 PM there was another 5 inches.
  

• When I called consumers abouut the power their projected reconnect time was Tuesday evening at 6 PM.

• N0w for some better news, I had a Doctors appointment Monday morning, and a I have lost 10 pounds (since April) not a lot but it is a start, and I do feel better, with more energy, and more rested. I even took the dog for a walk when I got home tonight (Tuesday). Only 15 minutes, but it is better than nothing, but it was all I my back could manage.
  

• The power came back on by 5:30 Monday. At least I didn't loose any of the food in the freezer like the last time we were without power.

Springport's homecoming is tonight (Friday) I don't know if I will go to the game, but I am going to the parade to campaign for the library millage for more information on that if you are interested see the library website

Labor Day Week-end continued

After thinking about it for a couple of days, I decided I needed to add a couple of things about this camping trip that we will probably remember for years to come.

• Charlie standing on the floating dock and Tom pulling him in.
• Kathy using the paddles on the inflatable boat to maneuver the dock around the pond.
• The frog that tried to eat a snake. I didn't see it and we have no pictures you will have to ask, Charlie or Michelle.
• Tom floating around on the pond for a long time using the inflatable sides of a kiddie pool (the bottom had a big hole so they cut the sides off).
  
• Little Benjamin toddling around falling down then having to crawl to something to pull himself up because he hasn't figured out how to stand up without some support.
• Benjamin being so overly tired and overly stimulated, and not wanting to go to sleep getting so upset he was sobbing, and then throwing up all over daddy Ben. Papa (Tom) was the only who could finally calm him down.
  

Actually we might not have remembered them for years, but we will now that I have put it in writing and posted on the web for all the world to see.

Labor Day Week-end

We used the camper for the first time this past week-end. We camped at my sister's property in Olivet. I know that sounds a little strange, but it is about 12 acres back off the road, they have built a pavilion, and although you can see a couple of back yards it feels more isolated.

This is a panoramic view of the campers taken from the hill near the pavilion

We saw several deer and 3 or 4 wild turkeys, although no rabbits or raccoons.
They have a pond with lots of little blue gill and bass, and some that are getting to be decent size. We even saw a blue heron fly into the pond, but it didn't stay more than a few seconds, too many dogs and kids.

Friday and Saturday was just family, including some of the dogs. My great nephew will be 11 months old next week and is toddling around and has a fascination for anything on wheels that makes noise. He particular likes tires, and they have to watch him like a hawk, because as most babies, he wants to see what they taste like.

My brother brought his dog Otis, who is about 14 years old and has arthritis in his hips and cannot hear very well. One day I watched him take a few steps, stop and do this have crouch lunge thing for a second or two, take a couple more steps and lunge again. I made the comment that it looked like he was doing exercises. (see the picture to the right).

Every camping trip or family vacation has to have something special to remember, this one was no exception. Sunday night, a lot of friends and extended family came for dinner. there was probably 30 people. There were a lot of people there who were dog people so they petted and played with both his dog and ours.

At some point in the afternoon Otis came up missing and without a huge announcement half of the people were looking for the dog. In the pond, in the "tall weed" in the briars, in the woods, and down the road. For about 15 minutes.

Then somebody notices that my brother-in-law's propane camp stove is in flames. He had left it on to burn off some of the grease and in the process of looking for the dog, forgot about it and the grease caught fire.

About 8 of us were trying to decided how to put out the fire before it burnt the pavilion down. We did get it turned off, but the grease was still burning. I had said don't use water it will just make the grease fire worse, they didn't listen, flames shot to within inches of the rafters. Somebody tried opening the lid that gave it more oxygen, same effect. They tried beating with a dry towel (yeah like that's going to work). My niece got a fire extinguisher from a camper, (out of date and no pressure) finally Charlie yelled but a wet towel over it. duh!!!! Sorry, don't have any pictures of the fire. (sorry no picture of the fire we were too busy trying to put it out)

OK, back to looking for the dog. Which we found about 20 yards from the campfire ring, lying in the weeds in the shade of a big tree. See the large tree behind
Charlie to the left of where he is setting, that's about where we found Otis.

Like I said every trip has to have something to remember.