Out on the 45

On the weekend prior to the Fourth I was graciously permitted another opportunity to go spend some time in that favored northern Benzie-ish region of mine. Somehow I only made it up once last summer, and I half-mucked that one up roy-alle, which was disappointing at best and criminal at worst. I've done well to remedy that this year, with a trip in December and 3 or 4 trips since spring, none of which having thus far involved Up Close And Personals with the local Law. This last trip included hooligans totalling 4 in number; one Heather and the three merry men Williams, Walline, and Bacon, kickin' it old school and shit. Last year's twist on a theme was near-incarceration, this year's twist was relocation... To here. Specifically, the DH Day campground in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and more specifically still, a tent. It was a novel twist, for certain, and one which afforded us the maximum up-north-ness for our buck. Highlights include:

• Getting up a day early to put my shirts in a motherfucking store.
• Cabbage Shed and its ever-endearing live entertainment.
• The best Kayaking ever on the Crystal River.
• Glen Arbor breakfasts at Art's Tavern.
• Meeting a real live effing otter in a real live river that looked like it could have been in effing Alaska.
• The Milky Way and shooting stars.
• Night swimming in water that you can't really see but know to be astonishingly clear.
• Dune hiking.
• Dune jumping.
• Getting caught in dune lightning storms.
• Smoked trout.
• Pasties.
• Beaching.
• Chasing otters.
• Chasing trout.
• Buying a 3 dollar snorkle mask and using it to chase schools of minnows like a real live freshwatersharkasaurus.
• The Cherry Bowl Drive-In theater.
• Oberon Mini keg with our campfire-grilled dinner of cheddar-filled brats.
• Smores.
• Pyrotechnics.
• Foreign tourists.
• Seeing 5,000 people descend on a 1,000 person town.
• Pyramid Point and its dizzying ways.
• The Cedar girls. Briefly.
• Sand Soccer.
• Beach frisbee.
• Checking out library books without a library card.
• Desperately waiting in line at 8 Friday morning for a campsite.
• Fresh-picked cherries.
• Good folk.

Lowlights include:

• Sleeping in a tent.
• Freezing my balls off in the drink.
• Being a bad camp-leader and forgetting extra sleeping bags on night-one, thereby freezing my balls off.
• Hostile wing-ed invertebrates.
• Being attacked by a bear on the trail to the beach and then realizing it to be Kyle's mom.

Word. Onward to Leelatundig, ya filthy animals.

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