Brocation '25, Pt. I

Welcome, Readers, to Summer's Greatest Adventure. . . .

Brocation 2025.

The giant van Morgan was able to rent for us from his Ford dealership.

Once again, for our sixth year in a row, The Kings of the Hill banded together for our annual, summer weekend away from wives and kids, loading up into a rented van and charging off into the distance for three days of pretending that we're still in our 20's. As always, this year's Brocation saw the return of the core group of heroes - Yours Truly (The Colonel), Erik (Big E), Morgan (Baby Driver), Mitch (The Pro), and Collier (he still doesn't have a nickname for some reason) - along with fellow Kings Lonnie (Big Balls) and Tom (Dammit Tom), and Brocation first-timers and newly-added Kings, Rob and Holty. 

As usual, I was the second person to be picked up this morning. . . .

Seeing how only five of us took part in the original Brocation (back in 2020, if you'll recall), we had discussed for months the possibility of returning to Marquette for this year's adventure. That original 'Guy's Weekend' is still heralded as the most memorable (Brocation '22's stint on Mackinac Island a close second), so we wanted to share with the newer guys some of the exploits from our previous trip: Sugarloaf Mountain, Ore Dock Brewing, the Third Base Bar, the 902, the various waterfalls, and the Blackrocks (the geological formation on Lake Superior as well as the cool brewery downtown.)

After Morgan picked up Erik and I, it was time to swing by Rob's place. . .

Mitch and Erik planned this year's itinerary, which consisted of driving up to Marquette in the late afternoon and hitting stuff up around town on Day 1, venturing up to Copper Harbor and zig-zagging our way back down towards Marquette on Day 2, and then hitting up more local Marquette stuff and then squeezing in eighteen holes of golf in on Day 3. A pretty packed schedule, but one that checked all the boxes for a Brocation - dive bars, greasy restaurants, hikes to mountains and waterfalls, and plenty of time in the car to enjoy our annual Brocation Playlist (curated, as always, by Yours Truly.)

So I'll leave you now, dear readers, with this year's epic adventure with The Kings of the Hill.

Behold. . . .

Next up as we drove around the Chestnut Hill neighborhood, collecting dads, was Lonnie Big Balls . . .

Next, we drove down the road and stopped off at Tom's place. . . which is infested with, like, a dozen frickin' cats.

As Tom gathered up his stuff, Rob had to demonstrate how he was able to stand completely upright inside the van (he stands at a commanding 5' 4".)

Tom, cramming his stuff into the trunk.

Further down the road, it was time to pick up grumpy-ass Mitch Bos. . .

Our last stop was Collier (and Holty, who had walked down since he lives like two or three houses away.) Collier has a trailer that the other guys had loaded up with their golf clubs and a couple coolers the night before, so we stopped off at his place last so that we didn't have to drive around the neighborhood hauling all that crap.

Attaching the trailer to the van (I did not help with this process.)

The Battle Wagon, ready for adventure.

Hitting the road at last.

Tom's POV from the back row (I'm in my traditional seat in the second row, as close to the stereo as possible.)

The Kings of the Hill, heading north on I-75.

Our first stop, around Gaylord, in order to fill up the van (which guzzles gas like a hog), and to secure the tarp over the golf clubs.

Running into the gas station for more beer and road snacks (we were tearing through it pretty hard on our first leg of the trip.)

Back on the highway after refueling.

Making our way across the Mackinac Bridge (which is always my least favorite thing about these UP-bound Brocations of ours - f***ing hate this bridge.)

At least it wasn't snowing.

The Mighty Mac

Lake Michigan

Steven, not feeling well at all (for undisclosed reasons.)

Stopped off at a rest stop shortly after crossing the bridge so that folks could hit up the bathroom (yet again.) Turns out we were at the northernmost point of Lake Michigan - so I guess we'll cross that off the ol' bucket list.

Lonnie, educating himself.

The (northernmost) shores of Lake Michigan.

Steven napped most of the drive up through the U.P.

We stopped off at this Clyde's drive-in as we rolled into Manistique for a late lunch. This burger joint is a UP chain, and - despite its comically-slow service - has some of the best burgers you'll ever eat in your life. 

This smash burger was soooo frickin' good. I'd eventually have another Clyde's burger on our return journey, as we'd stop off at a different Clyde's through St. Ignace on our drive home, but it wouldn't be nearly as good as this one.

On our drive up towards Marquette, we made a slight detour to stop off at an Upper Peninsula staple - the famous Kitch-iti-kipi spring.

Rob, taking a picture of a sign. Classic.

The walkway leading down from the bathrooms and gift shop ('cause of course there's a gift shop) down to the springs zig-zagged through some woods.

We had to wait for about twenty minutes, and Erik was appalled - he said he's never had to wait at all, it's usually just a 'walk straight up to it  sorta thing.

Some guy and his plaque.

Lon-Dawg, Holty, and Baby Driver.

Still waiting for the Springs.

This is seriously all this is - a platform that goes out over this water and back again, each time takes about seven minutes.

Our turn to board the platform/boat/barge/whatever-the-hell-it-is.

I have to admit that this Kitchi-iti-kipi place does have some crystal-clear water. Like, clearer than a pool - it was almost creepy how well you could see everything. Apparently, science is involved with this. . . somehow.

The view from our floating barge as we made our way out into the springs (or 'spring' - not sure if that's automatically pluralized or else it's possible to have one, solitary 'spring.')

That's not a glass bottom, folks - that's a wide open hole looking directly down into the springs. That cloudy area at the top of the pic is where the spring is - it just churns out more water and whatever-else.

See? Spring(s.)

Lots of algae and whatever in here, too - something to do with the heat of the springs, I'm told.

Erik, Tom and Mitch, checking out. . . . water.

Rob, supervising the barge.

The park ranger monitoring the barge asked the thirty or so people aboard if anyone wanted to try spinning this giant wheel in order to pull us back towards the dock. And Baby Driver was the only person who volunteered to do so. . . 

Just look at him go. . . 

Coming back into port.

Don't tell me what to do, raft.

Yes, people lose hats, sunglasses and phones. All the damn time, according to the park ranger.

After disembarking, we made our way back up the wooden ramp (the line wasn't nearly as long by the time we got off the barge.)

Loading up with another group of tourists.

Pausing to check out some informational placards on our way back up the ramp towards the parking lot.

The gift shop sucked, but some of the dudes stopped into the building on the right in order to hit up the surprisingly, disgusting, unisex bathrooms.

Steven, having a bad case of the munchies, had to get himself some ice cream from the gift shop.

Back in the van, once again on the road towards Marquette, Lonnie promptly fell asleep. To the surprise of no one.

Mitch and Tom (and Collier.)

An hour or so later, we pulled up in front of our Ramada, smack dab in the middle of downtown Marquette.

The Kings of the Hill grab the first load of gear and prepare to check into our rooms.

Morgan and I always call dibs on rooming together, as we're both clean, non-smelly, non-snoring lodgers - pick up after ourselves, our room never stinks, and we tread lightly when sharing a room with others. We've roomed together every year but last year (though that situation wasn't our fault, honestly - just how the dice fell.) This year we had more guys on Brocation than ever before - frickin' NINE of us - so we had to go three to a room, which was okay 'cause it kept the price down. So we chose Holty upon finding out that he doesn't snore.

Spacious bathroom, some handsome guy, etc.

Morgan moved our chair out of the way so I had a spot to set up my cot (after the Peace Corps, I can sleep on concrete, so I always offer to sleep on a cot if needed on these trips.)

View from our hotel room on the 5th Floor. Collier, Erik and Lonnie were down on the 2nd Floor, and their smelly, messy room was deemed the 'hangout' room at the end of the night, as we didn't want our room getting messed with. Mitch, Rob and Tom ended up somewhere on the 3rd Floor, but no one ever saw their room.

My cot (at left), and another angle of our room.

After we had unpacked our bags, Rob, Morgan, Mitch and I headed down to the van and moved the coolers and golf clubs into the back of the van (obviously not wanting to risk them being in the back of an open trailer overnight.)

After disconnecting the trailer and securing it in a side parking lot of the hotel, we met the rest of the guys down in the lobby bar of the hotel for a quick regrouping round before setting off on our Marquette bar crawl.

This was pretty good, but I was kinda pissed they served it to me in a f***ing can like some kinda cave man. This should have been in a snifter.

MacLeod, telling tales.

Morgan, Lonnie, Collier, and Erik

Waitress/Bar Wench/Whatever took a group pic for us before we paid our tabs and got the hell out of Dodge.

It was pouring rain by the time we set off on our evening bar crawl - not ideal, but at least we'd be inside for most of the deluge.

Erik takes a selfie while we sat at a light.

First stop: Blackrocks.

We each grabbed a beer and, before grabbing a table, I made sure to get a picture of Morgan with a beer: he almost exclusively drinks liquor, and I can count on one hand, over the course of the last ten years, how many times I've seen him drink a beer.

We found a quasi-empty table upstairs, and sat down next to two, nerdy, college kids (at right) who quickly left shortly after we sat down and started hee-hawing like a bunch of mid/late-40s Gen-X'ers will. That'll show those whipper-snappers.

Slainte.

Erik, Tom and Mitch

So not sure if you could tell or not, but I'm sharing some of the pics the other guys took throughout the trip in these posts (we always make a Google Photos album for these trips.) Collier - who took this one - told me he always makes an effort to include me in lots of his pics, since I take about 40-50% of our Brocation pics every year and am consequently not in any of them. He himself being a photographer, he also takes a shit-load of pictures, but not quite as much as me - probably about 30-40% of our Brocation pics end up being his. The last 10-20% of our Brocation pics are mostly Tom and Mitch, with Erik taking maybe ten pics the whole trip and the rest of the guys taking none. I don't see how folks can live like that.

Steven wanders through an adjoining alcove, housing the bar's mug club collection (one of those early 2000's programs where you paid like $50 for a mug, then they'd number it for you and hold on to it, and whenever you came to the bar you'd give them your mug number, they'd fetch your mug, then each beer you ordered would be like $1 or $2 off.) Erik still has his from his college days.

Morgan, Erik (drinking from his Blackrocks mug), and Tom.

Not sure why he hung out back there as long as he did. . .

Some interesting artwork they have around this joint, I'll say that much. That stairwell leads down to the main level (where we ordered our beers after first stepping out of the rain.)

Collier checks out this weird bumper-ball table (whatever the hell it is.)

Collection of limited release cans in some case (I've had quite a few of these over the years.)

We'd be hitting up the famous Blackrocks (the geological formation, not the brewery we're in currently) in a couple days, but not just yet.

Getting ready to set out to our next destination, for some much-needed dinner and some more drinks.

The storm clouds receding over Marquette - there'd be no more rain to speak of this evening.

Our next stop was only a couple blocks away, so we left the car parked where it was and just hoofed it from Blackrocks.

Lots of cool murals along the sides of some of the old buildings downtown, but that's to be expected in a college town like Marquette.

Erik always serves as our tour guide whenever we come up into the Upper Peninsula, so we just go where he tells us to.

Rock and roll.

Here's the local record shop that I wanted to stop into at some point in time this weekend, but never got a chance to (it had hours that didn't match up, ideally, with our itinerary - oh well.)

We drank here last time, but didn't bother stopping this time around.

We ate here last time as well, and like last time we had to wait outside for like five or ten minutes in order for a table to open up.

Morgan, Erik, Mitch, Yours Truly, and Rob, killing time outside before our table was ready.

Rob and Mitch went with wine this evening, which was kinda random - this group drinks beer or bourbon almost exclusively.

I didn't end up eating - drinking beer all day makes me feel full, so I just stuck to a few beers while the other guys ate.

Dinner went by pretty painlessly - short wait on food, conversation was good, etc. - except for Tom and Mitch talking loudly about cocaine and strippers, right next to a table with a bunch of little kids. I had to equip my teacher voice and scold them (which actually got them to stop.)

After dinner, we continued walking a short distance and ended back up at this old, familiar haunt.

This time around wasn't nearly as bad - no drunken college girls yelling at us, then buying us rounds of shots, etc. Last time I was convinced 'this was our scene' ('cause it wasn't), but this time around there were other non-20s people there, so it didn't seem so bad. Kinda cringy when you're the oldest people in a crowded bar by, like, twenty years.

We only stuck around here for a few beers - folks were starting to get kinda tired by this point, since we had been drinking since 10am, but the beers were only $2 a pint so we wanted to make the most of it.

On the walk back to the van, we popped into a party store so those who wanted to could grab some drinks for their rooms.

(No idea what Mitch is looking at here.)

Everyone but Rob and Tom - who had opted to stay at Third Base, because they were trashed and insisted on walking back to the hotel (which they'd eventually do about five hours later, after getting lost in the process) - arrived back at the Ramada shortly afterwards.

Both my roommates went to bed immediately upon entering our room, but Mitch and I went down to Collier, Lonnie and Erik's room for a nightcap before turning in.

Mitch ordered us these specially-engraved whiskey glasses for all those who wanted one (I ordered two) with our group logo on them (the font is within a beer glass, and the crown - if you look closely enough - is the beer foam.) Came in handy once the E.H. Taylor bourbon started flowing.

Towards the end of the night, we putzed around with a few UNLOADED (don't worry) handguns, as Collier and Erik never leave home without a couple.

Definitely in the market for one of these myself, but I'm leaning towards a Sig Sauer 9mm I think.

Mitch, as you can see here, is also wanting to buy one soon. Like me, he wants to go to the Midland Sportsmans Club with multiple styles of handguns (Collier and Erik have a ton) and shoot multiple rounds through several before PULLING THE TRIGGER (nyuck nyuck) on one.

The pool, right outside their hotel room, that we never once went in (despite all bringing suits.)

Heading back towards my room at the end of a long - but highly entertaining - night.

- to be continued. . . .