Holiday Road

Driving into the North Woods, mile after mile of forest

Now is a good time to cue up the music track from the Lampoon Vacation movie, I'm humming Holiday Road as we pack.  It seems to take an appalling amount of gear just to camp in the woods for a few days before we transition to a hotel.  Plus two types of clothing, one for water sports, wood smoke bonfires and general living outdoors activities.  More casual dressy for dining out with friends once we get to town, and not looking like we escaped from a Survivalist Camp.

In the theme of a picture being worth a thousand words, here are some views of our anticipated holiday.


The Spousal Unit and cousin setting the anchor for the raft.  The water is crisp and clear from a natural spring and it is rarely warm enough to enter with out gasps of pain or having baked oneself in the sauna (prounced sow-nah) prior to immersion.  With the only water being what we pump by hand directly from the lake, personal hygiene is done the old fashioned way without showers.  I must be quick with timing to enter before the cousins get the sauna temperature into the 160+ zone, we emerge looking like par boiled lobsters to plunge into the cold lake like ancient Romans in the fridgidarium.  But with lots more shrieking.

This will be our first trip to Camp without our lovely lady, the first time in 39 years actually that we will be there without a dog.  She loved the freedom to be off leash and spend the day hunting frogs along the shore or chasing chipmunks through our tent area.

We won't be far from the big Lake, our destination is off a river that stretches from Lake Michigamme up to Superior along the McCormack Track.  Loggers cruise the one lane twisting road and it is usually a game of chicken to get across the 5 bridge spans that are one vehicle wide.  Moose, deer and bear are often present, and we have ruined 2 cars on the last two of that list.

The cousins have a speedboat for the young'uns to wake board on, there are kayaks and a huge floating raft that has mesh to let the water in the cool our feet while we bask in the sun.

There will be fireworks, a bonfire, stories to catch up on and so much food to eat.

Enjoy your own 4th of July.  In the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave.  

Namaste.