Story Part 4

FINALLY...here is part four of the story. It will be short and sweet so I can get it over with. :P

So through the remainder of the night we tossed and turned. The constant snoring and farting was enough to keep me giggling even while I was almost passing out from exhaustion. I imagine some of it was due to the lack of oxygen remaining in the cabin, but eventually sleep got the better of me and I started to fall asleep on and off. The wife was not so lucky. She was constantly tossing and turning, waking me up every few minutes. I felt really bad so I did not complain and I just dealt with it. I prayed for morning to come quickly so that we could leave. I made the mistake of wearing my watch to bed, so the hours seemed days. FINALLY, after sleeping for a couple hours throughout the night I saw a faint bluish tint coming across the sky through the window. I watched the bluish tint turn into orange and then into a bright yellow. The morning had finally arrived.

We slowly started to get up, but once up it was a full on "get the heck out of there" pace. We had the tent broken down and all of our gear packed up in about an hour. My friends started to get up while we were packing, but I was not really in the talking mood. I got the most evil glare (which I captured in a picture that I cannot share) from my wife that morning. I knew if I did not have her out of there shortly after waking, I would die a slow and painful death. We got all the gear on our backs and headed out. This time we took the "short trail" and it took us only about 15 minutes to get to the lower cabin. So much for that short cut along the river the day before. We made the walk back out to the car and we took off. We stopped in Indian River to get some food and went home. My wife took a nap and I worked outside getting all of our gear put away.

Remember the ticks? Well, as we were putting the gear away that night my wife decided that we should check our hair to make sure there were not any crawling around on our heads. She checked me and there was nothing. She bent her head down, and I started feeling through her hair down to the scalp. Suddenly, I felt what I thought was a scab from a bug bite. I look and could not believe what I saw. It was a tick burrowing into her scalp. Out of all four people out there, two of us fairly hairy, she got the tick. I picked it off and killed it. THEN we were done with that camping trip. :P

Needless to say we have not been camping again since then. I recon that will change as the summer goes on. I have some overnights to do with my friend so he can finish up his work on the book for the Michigan portion of the North Country Trail. It should be a good time. I just cannot wait to get out and hike some trails!

Anyway, that concludes my story. I apologize it took so long to post all of it. I also apologize that the fourth part seems to have lost interest. I wrote alot more in the third section than I had anticipated. If you have any similar experiences leave a comment and tell me about it! :)

The remainder of the week looks to be warm finally! We have been far below normal temperatures for the last two weeks. In fact, many places in Michigan set records for cold this morning. I heard that in the Grayling area some temperatures dropped into the low teens. It is MAY! Those temperatures are often times even below normal for December. We have been getting a decent amount of rain. Since I hooked up my rain guage at the very end of April we have received 3 3/4 inches of rain. We could use more but we will take what we can get while it stays cool out. Everything around our house is very green. Once you get off the hill toward the lake, things are still a bit behind, but they are going to quickly catch up this weekend as we jump up into the 70s. We should see some rain and thunderstorms too!

If any of you are in the Northern Michigan area drop by Northern Michigan Rare Coins in downtown Petoskey. They have a great selection of new and circulated coins, gold, and silver. I just picked up my 'D' mint coins for 2008. Those are tough to come by around here unless they are atleast a year old. I prefer to get mine pre-circulation so I buy them from the rolls that they get. They have a small selection of old collectable swords and daggers as well. Very cool. If you need collecting supplies just drop by their store. They carry blue books, plastic sleeves, valuation books, and more.

That about sums it up for now. I will update more frequently with shorter posts now that my story is done. Summer is going to kick into high gear soon so there will be many pictures! I apologize I have not uploaded any pictures to Picasa. I will update it soon...so please keep looking! http://picasaweb.google.com/dallerding.

Have a good one!

-Derek