Into the Woods Once Again

What's up, Internet.

This weekend, while Kris was away at her annual Momcation (which pales in comparison to our much-grander and larger-scale Brocations), I headed out into the woods in order to camp out with my old high school buddies - Sean, Trevor, and Scrunge, this time around. Once again we settled on Trevor's family property (which we last frequented in February), and this marked the first time that I had been out there when there wasn't snow on the ground since frickin' High School.

This was a family camping trip, unlike our usual get-togethers in the woods, so Trevor had his wife and kids up there, and much of the Hages clan - his siblings and their families - were all up there as well.  They had all headed up there Friday morning, but since Kris was out of town for the weekend, I had to have my mom watch the girls, and she could only take them on Saturday night. So I drove up late Saturday morning to meet everyone up there, just missing Matt Lee's departure (he had hung out Friday night and left shortly before I arrived.)

Anyway, not a very long trip into the woods, but better than nothing.  Check it out, folks. . .

Upon arrival, I found about 20 people sitting around having coffee and slowly getting around - a clear indicator that the night before had been a crazy one - so I got to work setting up my tent.

Base of operations.

They set up camp in the middle of the track that leads from the main road up to the cabin (which was not used at all this weekend.)

I pitched my tent (the blue one) in the middle of the McNerney clan's tents. . .

Later on in the morning, we started motivating people to get off their ass - we were going to go lead the kids down to the creek and screw around there for awhile.

To get to the creek, you have to descend this pretty steep hill - almost a cliff.

Sean attempts to take down a flaming pyre with his wrist-rocket

The Cabin.  Not featured in this blog post.

Trevor's family are a bunch of frickin' slobs.  They've got stuff like this strewn everywhere.

Meanwhile, back at the creek. . . 

They decided to build an auxiliary fire while we were down there.  The shade and water made for a nicer hangout spot than the main campsite.

At one point, Trevor ran out of beer, so him and I decided to run into the nearby village of Rosebush in order to pick up some more.

Rosebush is little more than a populated intersection, half-way between Clare and Mount Pleasant on Mission Rd.  This gas station/party store is probably the most important building in town.

Stocking up on some essentials.

By the time we got back, it was lunch time, and Sean's sister had put out pulled pork and some various side salads for everyone.

Scrunge and I had both parked our vehicles farther away from the campsite so that we could leave easily whenever we needed to, without having to go through the hassle of having people move vehicles and all that nonsense.

It isn't camping in the woods unless you get to shoot off some guns. . .

(This is Sean's current girlfriend, by the way - I didn't bother learning her name, she won't be around by the time I hang out with him again.)

After shooting some guns, we moved everyone back down to the creek to hang out - there's more to do down there for the kids.

They had established a pretty decent setup down there. . .

Sean decided, at one point in time, that we should try and re-route the river in order to create more of a hangout spot int he middle of the river.  This was fairly easy to do because the water level - much like the water levels everywhere else in Michigan - is ridiculously low this summer.

We dug a trench to divert the water along the eastern bank, which dried out the impromptu hangout area.  I guess that was the whole point, but who knows.

We felled this tree farther up the hill and then sent it crashing down into the river below.  Pretty dangerous, but fun to watch for sure.

They used this to further dam up the flow of water. . .

Eventually they wrapped the tree with a tarp in order to prevent water from flowing through underneath it.

Spectators.

Sean and his niece.  The Hages clan is definitely a bizarre bunch.

In the early evening, we made our way back up to the main campsite, having become bored with drinking beer and damming up rivers and what-not.  Sean had previously carved this weird totem-looking figure - not sure how or when, he just randomly has stuff like this that he pulls out of his truck without warning - and he wanted to burn it in the night's bonfire. 

Sunset over this scummy-ass pond.  Frickin' gross.

Sean brought up this huge torch thingy he constructed, too - something he uses at like music festivals and stuff like that - and so of course he let the kids play with it.  'Cause Sean.

Good ol' fashioned, family fun.

They had created a treasure map with clues for the kids, having buried caches of stuff randomly throughout the property in the previous weeks.  Definitely a cool idea, and it kept the kids - ranging from 4 to 16 years of age - occupied throughout most of the evening.

Sean's weird totem figure standings guard over the beginning of the evening's fire (they had built a 'child safety rail' around the edge of the pit the night before - can't be too careful.)

(Not sure where these came from.)

Sean's totem friend meets his untimely end - that fire grew pretty big and soon engulfed everything.

Sean and I grabbed a bunch of pallets we had found farther back in the woods, and were going to add them to the inferno we had going, but Trevor - thank God - made us put them back, as they belonged to his cousins.

At the end of the night, Scrunge broke out his camera and took a few creepy pics of the scum-covered pond.  Most folks went to bed around midnight - pretty damn early for this group - so all in all it was definitely a chill day in the woods (unlike most of our hangouts.) I guess that's what I get for showing up on Day 2 once everyone is exhausted and partied out.

- Brian

Back into the Wild

Trevor, Sean, and Yours Truly.  Fall, 1996.

What's up, folks.

It'd been awhile since me and the ol' High School gang had hung out, so before the school year really picked up steam, we figured we'd try our hand at another weekend in the outdoors (while the weather was still decent.)  

Our initial plan was to revisit Trevor's family property out around Rosebush - where we camped back in February, before the Pandemic hit - but at the last minute he had to back out due to a family engagement.  This left the rest of us - Sean, Scrunge, and Matt (who had flown in from San Francisco for this, if you can believe it) - scrambling to find a place to crash for the weekend.  We toyed with the idea of spending the weekend at Lee's family cottage on Eight Point Lake (located a mile or so down the road from ours), but, ultimately, we went Sean's family property, just north of Weidman.  

Sean, Matt, Trevor, and I - Winter, 2002.

This property was little more than a muddy two-track that snaked its way along the edge of a ravine, where on all sides the land fell away sharply.  The terrain was heavily wooded and hilly, with a stream encircling the property on all sides.  Eventually, once you white-knuckle navigated your way back through the woods the you ended up in a precipice where a simple, stone-ringed fire-pit and a couple benches were set up, overlooking a sharp ravine on three sides.  

No cabin, no outhouse, no nothing.  The weather held out for the most part, and we - and our vehicles - survived the weekend.  I'd call that a win, for sure.

So here you go, folks - another stint in the woods with the High School crew.

Enjoy. . .

Sean picked up Matt from the airport the night before, and they had stayed the night out at Matt's family cabin on Eight Point.  They got into camp in the late morning, and began setting things up.  I guess Scrunge rolled in around 1pm, and the three of them hung out for a few hours until I finally arrive at 5pm (I neglected to take a day off of work for this.)

We kept a fire going non-stop the entire weekend.  Day or night, rain or clear skies, we didn't care.

As usual, we all took turns with meals for the weekend.  Scrunge was on Friday's dinner, which was steak, onion and green pepper fajitas - they were ridiculously good.

My humbe abode for the weekend.  This tent, which I've owned since 2005, is on its last leg for sure.

I was happy my car made it back into the woods - at a few points, I wasn't sure it'd be able to. There's a succession of muddy hills as you come in where you have to speed up as you get towards the bottom of one and begin rising up another, because if you slow down you'll end up bogged down in the mud in a valley.

Camp for the weekend (Scrunge's tent on the left, Sean's in the middle, and mine can be see off to the right in front of Scrunge's red car.)

Scrunge works on dinner.

A decent stack of fire wood, but it was pretty soaked through - we'd end up having to cut down more wood the following day.

Scrunge had to bring his two poodles up with him again - it's hard for him to find dog-sitters, I guess.  They're pretty well-mannered, they just beg a lot.

After dinner, we set out for a nearby hill so that Scrunge could take some pictures with his fancy SLR (Note: he hasn't shared any of his pictures with me yet, so if/when he does I'll update this post and insert his in between my existing pics, where they fit chronologically.)

Scrunge, Matt and Sean.

View from atop the hill, which stood in the middle of a wide clearing.

Later on in the evening, trying like hell to keep the fire going.  The wood, as previously mentioned was soaked, so Sean had to regularly employ his handheld air-pump as a bellows to bring it back to life.

Hell, it works. . .

It was so dark in the thick of the woods that we brought along strings of lights to help illuminate the camp site.

Now it's goin'. . .

At the close of the first night.  Scrunge and his dogs went to bed around midnight, I turned in about an hour and half afterwards, and I think Sean and Matt stayed up until nearly 4am (because they're insane.)

The next morning was chilly, so I threw on an outer flannel that I rarely wear outside of camping trips - and that was last worn by Alayna on Easter while she collected eggs in the backyard - and found this in my pocket.

We threw all our empties against one tree - in order to make clean up on Sunday morning all the easier - and so soon this tree became known as the Trevor Memorial Tree (seeing how this is what Trevor's backyard looks like.)

Scrunge, bustin' a move while he brews up some morning coffee. 

Sean and the morning fire.

The bed of this fire was so hot we didn't even have to relight the damn thing, we just threw empty cardboard on it and it started right back up.

Sean was in charge of breakfast, which was the usual bacon-and-eggs affair.

Some shots of the surrounding terrain. . .

A soggy exterior (thanks to a series of overnight showers) but fortunately the inside remained bone-dry all weekend.

After assessing the firewood situation, we decided we'd have to cut down some more wood.  There were plenty of dead trees to choose from, so Sean busted out his trusty chainsaw. . .

TIMMM-BERRRRR

Scrunge makes a friend. . .

While moving the benches back, we found a gang of salamanders - pretty disgusting-looking things.

(The goal was to create a space where you could pass between them without stepping over them.)

On our previous camping trip, I got a ton of shit from the other guys because I had bought cheap deli meat and cheese, and only brought basic yellow mustard for the sandwiches.  This year, I went all out - gourmet mustards, meats, cheeses, breads, you name it - so no one could say anything.  Regardless, the others still hadn't gotten over my last lunch menu, so each of them brought fancy mustard as well.

Some ridiculously tall trees out here. . .

Matt and Sean take a stroll through the woods. . .

The way out to the road (believe it or not.)

It started to sprinkle in the afternoon, so Sean broke out a sail - yes, a sail. . . like, off a legit sailboat - to use as a make-shift shelter.

Securing something of this size took a lot of trial and error, but eventually we found three trees that held it up taught enough.

Shortly after we had it up, Sean's dad, uncle and cousin came out to visit for a couple hours (they were on their way to another hunting property and figured they'd pop in and see everyone.)

Sean and his dad.

Absolutely disgusting.  This is why you don't wear white in the woods, folks.

Riding out the rain. . .

Once the rain cleared out, Scrunge wanted to explore the surrounding terrain once again in order to take more pictures with his camera (that he will hopefully share with me soon.)  Here's Scrunge and his dogs, making their way up the hill that we visited the day before.

An old deer blind that we found that overlooks one of the ravines.

Sean and Scrunge

This could almost pass as a machine gun bunker, right?

After exploring through different woods, ravines, swamps, and fields on the property, we ambled into a rarely-used dirt road to check out another part of the property.  This offering from the exclusively U.P.- based Upper Hand Brewery (a subsidiary of Bell's, actually) was pretty damn good, glad to have a couple of them along with me on our afternoon hike.

Heading back into the wild, entering a pine forest. . .

A quartet of elderly statesmen.  And a brace of poodles, thrown in for good measure.

Back at camp, we said 'screw it' to cooking up a full dinner (which was going to be brats) and just made up some bacon as a snack.  My cholesterol is going to be off the charts by the end of this weekend. 

Scrunge is a chef for a living, so we make him do 90% of all cooking.

Awaiting bacon.

After eating, we decided to venture out once again - this time swapping Scrunge's SLR with his metal detector. . .

Like in previous years (like when we camped at Bob Duncan's property back in 2016 and 2017), we didn't find much - some shell casings, nails, barbed wire, chains, etc.)

Looking for signal in order to access GPS.  The rest of the evening was spent drinking around the campfire one last time, so I neglected to take anymore pics (they all come out the same after awhile anyway.)  Definitely looking forward to the next adventure with these assholes. . .

-Brian