The North Woods!

This blog is coming to you from the North Woods! Well, kind of. I am writing it on my laptop, but there is no internet, as I am in the wilderness, so I will post it when I return on Sunday…I think.

Mon favorite taunt, por sa anniversarie, desired coming up to the cabin that she and her husband share in the Grayling area. So, here I am, like any good Godchild, along with not-so-straight-cousin, who is my fave! Though not the child of the aunt and uncle of this same adventure.

Everything is great. We eat healthily, and enjoy the north woods. Ma taunt has m.s., but no worries, she has the good kind and only suffers minor numbness de temps en temps. It’s nothing so serious as the President that the World needs! Not yet, at least.

In any event, two eventful things have befallen that are not birthday related, though she did have a good, fun birthday, and we are ensuring a good, fun birthday weekend.

They own two cabins on adjacent parcels of land, both on the bend of the creek, which feeds into the Au Sable river, so if I didn’t know any better, I would think that they had a lot of land and decided to build a second cabin on it. They rent out the green cabin, and as such, it is currently occupied with a boys’ weekend. This is fine. We were sure to go Kayaking before the boys got up on Friday, and I am far beyond my years of being unable to share. The problem, dear readers, comes into play when the guy who knows my aunt and uncle stars to hit on me. A lot. I’m not just being a silly 21 year old who is in the presence of a friendly 30-something year old man. No. He genuinely wants to get into my pants. I am at a loss! Overprotective uncle actually went over there after a super awkward encounter to plant the seed of “She doesn’t want you, and even if she did, it would not be happening on my property.” Yay!

In happier adventures of my life, Overprotective uncle and I went midnight kayaking last night! It was a beautiful full moon. On the creek that runs a bend around their property, there are two practical, doable paths. The first begins at the cabin and winds about until the creek pours out into the larger, slower Au Sable, past the whirlpool, and up to the boat launch/pick up. The second begins at a bridge and winds around until the traveler hits the dock at the cabins. Overprotective uncle and I took the latter path in the moon light. While I brought a flashlight along in case of an emergency, I am very pleased--and frankly shocked--to report that I did not use the flashlight once during the journey. And we must take this time to pause and explain what I mean by creek.

The widest part of the water flow is about 15 feet, the narrowest scrunching to around 6. The Kayak is about 2 feet, if that, so minimal worries. The reason for the change in width of the river? Fallen trees. There have always been felled trees and branches in the river bed, and the depth clearly changes based on like…rocks, and undergrowth and such. This past fall, in the Grayling area, a tornado touched ground and decimated the area near the Au Sable. The passage has changed, getting narrower and more challenging. While the DNR has gone through in order to clean-up the debris and make the creek passable, they have bigger fish to fry. Did you know that their small allotment of officers is meant to cover the entire county? Yea…they have a lot of work to do.

In any event, kayaking on the creek is challenging in the daylight. I typically wind up in the pucker brush, mildly scraping the kayak and avoiding branches to the face. I have NEVER, however, biffed it and tipped the kayak. I have always maintained the perfect mixture of prudence, skill, reflexes, and pure dumb luck required to stay afloat, dry, and inside of my kayak until I reach my final destination. In the moonlight journey, while there were glorious stretches where the river captured the light of the moon through the trees and, turning around to see the glory of it all, I was nearly blinded, there were also stretches where the trees blocked the moon from our view; its light could not shine to aid us in our journey. As luck would have it, these were the difficult parts where many obstacles lay closely together.

Imagine my shock at providence, then, when I made the entire 45 minute moonlight journey without hitting a single patch of pucker, without spinning around and maneuvering wildly to save myself, or even bumping against something that would ding the kayak. It was the perfect journey. I made it through entirely unscathed, all by the light of the moon.

This was a very spiritual, moving journey for me as well.

Yay!