In Reply to: Hi Charlie posted by Acheick on July 09, 2004 at 20:33:01:
Well get your little ass on up here for a visit.
I bought a great little tent the other day at a garage sale. Now that's it's camping weather, I thought to try it out so I invited Fran for a little trip out to that little island way out back in the boreal forest, you know, where the sun dappled lickens drip from the rocks and the cerrulean blues of the sky dance with the whites of cloud reflection in the black and bronze waters of the precambian Canadian Shield. However, she had been working really hard, and was very tired, and wasn't really up to roughing it out in a tent. Nor did she care to donate blood to the hordes of mosquitoes that explode upon your camp just as the sun goes down and the day temperature drops. She wanted to go, though, cause she likes to fish. She also likes the very comfy lawn chair that she gets to ride around in up front of the canoe. When she tires of fishing, she reads her book, or takes a nap. I just paddle around and do my thing; fish, glass birds, cook up a shore lunch, cook up an idea for a seller painting, breath in the view, dream of living up here in a cabin for the summer with no electricity and no running water, just a candle and a pail and a whole load of simplicity. And for the winter, a similiar cabin somewhere down south where smart birds go.
Anyway, Fran suggested that since it costs a little over $100.00 for gas (there and back) in the truck and camper, why not rent a room for two nights (dreamy, come hither look thrown in here) instead. To make it really pallitable (not that I hadn't already taken the bait), she suggested that we take her car and, since it's so good on gas, said that she'd pay the gas. "Well Honey! It's camping weather now and the tent is mosquito proof, the spring rains and winds have gone wherever they go, and the night temperatures are well into the comfort zone for old folks like us, and I really wanted to be on the island away from everything..................but what the hell, good idea, let's get the hotel."
So, after a great Tim Horton's coffee, a maple pecan danish, a chocolate covered strawberry, and a super blueberry cheesecake, we headed for the spruce and firs that literally jump out of the prairies a few miles north and east of here, the spruce and firs that beckon, "Come - come to the land of the beaver, the land of northen lights and nighthawks, whipoorwills and hawkowls, the land where the last road north ends and the wilderness adventure begins. Boy scouts from all across America work their way up to the end of the road. They've got a base camp set up there which they use as their jumping off point for some of that wonderful fly in wilderness. What they don't know is that just down the hill, the wilderness lake that they fly out of is one of the best little fishing secrets around (until now of course). I watch them as they wobble down the hill, packs overloaded with gear, anxiously awaiting their bush planes. Fran and I's wilderness adventure didn't get too much further than a few paddle strokes out into that lake - just what Fran wanted. No stress (other than the buzz of the cessnas taking off), no in your face canoeing, no bugs, just a day on the water, or even off the water if we wanted. I was going to do a few shore lunches, but she had packed two big bags of pistacios and cookies so who wants to eat after that? Honestly, since we were renting a hotel just up the hill, cooking was the last thing on our minds. It was a bit of a surprize to find the restaraunt closed when we came in off the lake, but the hotel manager found a cook and worked it out for us to have anything from the deep fry menu, so we did the room service thing, added to our intake of fat grams and calories for the weekend, flipped on the flic, watched a re-run of CSI, dozed off, and upon awakenning, checked out the sharing schedule and were delighted to find that we were on it. Now that was one hell of a good day. Repeat all of the above for day two, minus the Tim Horton's coffee, the chocolate covered strawberry, the maple-pecan danish, the blueberry cheesecake, and add bacon and eggs over easy, hashbrowns, rye toast lightly buttered, and blueberry cheescake icecream. Oh, and on the way home, some deep-fried Chicken Delight. Surely, by now, you must be thinking that we are cholosteral clogged, but we work pretty hard and are in excellent physical condition. We're doing great on the emotional end of things, too, now that we're past dealing with the past. In fact, over that past 3 years (after 25 years of marriage and a whole lot of individual, personal recovery) we are begining to learn what it means to come together as a team.
All the best to you mountain maid.