So the first thing I noticed when I struggled out of my tent in the darkness to go hit the loo was the skeeterfest. They may have been happy to see and taste me the night before but in the morning they were positively overjoyed! It was uberSkeeterfest. Dismantling my tent in the darkness was one thing but also going through my overstuffed crappy bag to get clothes on and all that was.. superb. Once again I was working in 15 second bursts, hitting the button on my iPhone for light. Later on it would be pointed out to me that the iPhone has a built in flashlight feature. D'OH! Sadly, Ranger CutiePieDanger was forever gone from my life. Not even a morning driveby to warn me with a sexy smile that if we didn't clean our site we would be shot in cold blood. Oh well. #OppertuneLost.
One thing about camping struck me that I will pass on. It deals with the impossibility of physics. Any camper will shrug and say "yep," but for those who don't know.. putting the camping item (sleeping bag, tent) back into the casing it came out of.. is nigh impossible. Even in broad daylight!
I don't even know how I finally got my sleeping bag into its case but, sorry planet Earth for the pure rage that flowed out of me during that process. I didn't really mean to curse the ground I was rolling around on nor nature itself. I was just in need of vision and coffee. And the case was mocking me. The tent part I did the best I could with but it was overflowing and had items sticking out. Oh well it worked..
On we went! The night before I had eaten a huge pile of spaghetti and there was water so I was good to go.
My first run was about 6 miles. Absolutely Beautiful Scenery. And the course was OK too! Hey-o! I will just mention it once but this event had more beautiful women (and men, I am sure) than any event I have ever been at. I think I got better looking briefly just from being in such close proximity to all of these people. Anyway the leg I ran was fantastic. The only problem was I was in no shape for it. I had been nursing sore Achilles tendons and possibly some PF and this was a freshly cut route. Thus, the ground was of varying consistency for the entire route which meant each footfall either sank in or met hard ground and there was no rhyme nor reason. So my feet were killing me! I was hobbling. A gal and two guys passed me on this course. Sorry team :|.
During the day I got to know Melissa better. She was a true trooper. She had brought oodles of food and water and was the driver of the vehicle I was in that day.Which was vehicle 1. According to one sheet of paper.
Did I mention that the vehicle Melissa drove was Vehicle 3 on that day? Because it was. According to another sheet of paper.
Wait, just to be clear, let me back up.. the vehicles were colour coded. This was listed in every booklet. I believe the vehicle I was in was.. Tope'? Aqua? Mauve? It was a base color but Don had one of those fancy schmancy color names for it. Apparently Roy G Biv was not good enough for our leader. Berkley guys.. all stuck up and stuff!
Let me just say, looking back and hindsight is 20/20.. the vehicle I was in was NOT vehicle #2. I am sure of this. Or.. hmm.
Melissa Drove the Jeep and I rode in the Jeep.
You see, our team Captain, Don, I am convinced, was out to break us. He had maps. He had lines on these maps. Lines of different colours. Runners paths, different vehicle paths and I believe the path a northern gull with medium wingspan would take if the wind was coming from the north during the solstice. I admittedly was over my head on this trip but every time I looked at what Don was doing, with the lines and the colours and the explanations of what car was what, I lost a little more of my understanding of both numbers and colours. He was like General Patton, furiously planning and plotting. He would say he was plotting the next steps, I would say he was possibly plotting on how to make sure everyone was equally confused. Oh, he had explanations on why the car number was different in one place than another and for the colour code of both the vehicles and the lines... and those explanations made sense to me for.. a good 3-4 minutes before they leaked out of my ears and I was once again utterly confused.The only thing I was convinced of was that Don knew what things meant, and that Melissa could figure it all out. The other drivers.. I supposed if they drove our team off of cliffs and into lakes we would just find a good place to drink sleep eat and shower and move on with our lives! That was my game plan anyways.
Another diabolical factor in this was the course description pages in the booklets. At the bottom of each leg's page they had directions to get to the next one. They didn't stand out or anything. Which proved to be my downfall.
I was copilot of car #1/#3/MuaveTopeQaJeep and as copilot I was.. lucky to not be thrown out of the vehicle.It went a lot like this:
Melissa: OK we are going to A4.
John: Got it. Turn left in .7 miles onto yet another one of these roads with no actual name just a fricking number.
Melissa: You mean right
John: Oh sorry! Right! Yes, not left
Melissa: By the way you are looking at the bottom of A4 which is the directions to A5. You need to look at the bottom of A3 for the directions for A4.
John: Oops! A3 for A4, not A4 for A4. Because A4 is A5. Got it. Sorry! um, take a right in ..4 miles
Melissa: You're the worst navigator ever!
John: I'm working on it! Hey how come when I look at me I am suddenly in car 1.. didn't you say you are car 3?
Melissa: I thought the cars were colour coded. Wait I would say 'color' not 'colour.' I need some good coffee! Did I mention that?
So I got my left and right mixed up only once but I repeatedly made the mistake of looking at the bottom of the page of the leg to get to it, instead of the bottom of the page of the previous leg. Luckily for me, Melissa would look over after I spoke and point out my idiocy and correct it and I would be apologetic and grateful that she didn't ask me to leave the Jeep and hitch. On the plus side I entertained her and got to know her and her story. She brought too much food, she said, because that's how she rolls for camping. She demanded an air mattress and a pillow and brought along a lot of hot pink items to make her statement. I was on board with that, if my girlfriend was coming along to drive a bunch of sweaty weirdos she had never met around the UP and Upper Lower all day for 3 days I would pretty much give her anything she wanted! And Michael did.. we were all quite grateful for Melissa. Also I feel we made a good navigational team, the chick who didn't need a navigator and the guy who couldn't navigate worth a damn! But I could hold the maps? Bottom line is, she didn't kill me and dump the body in the woods because if she did, who woulda known? I reveal this now, and am glad she didn't know this until now.
Another fun thing about Melissa was her dog Rose. Rose sat right in her lap and was so calm that.. you could completely forget that Melissa was driving through rough UP roads with a frickin dog in her lap. The only time that dog was concerned in any way was when one of us blew an air horn. Sorry Rose! In my defense I never blew an air horn!
So my second and last leg of the day was 4 miles.I felt I had something to prove on this one. It was 4 miles down a sandy path and I seem to remember no breeze. It was an optical illusion of a run where there were trees on both sides and I swear it felt like I wasn't even moving.. but I did pretty well on this leg actually. Near the end this cute young girl ran up beside me and demanded we finish the race together. I told her she was probably faster, to run ahead, but she actually insisted! So we both picked up our speed and we rocked the final .. quarter mile? And I was done for the day! That was actually a touching moment for me, two runners sharing the running spirit in the heat of the moment (oh shut up, I have something in my eye! I'm rock solid man) and I will always remember that. Especially since there is a photo of us blazing the final stretch! How cool is that eh?
Aimee had done the leg right before me on the same path, it was broken into two so we compared notes on how monotonous it was and just .. tough. Still, at least I didn't feel like every step might sink down 6 inches on me! So I finished the day on a very satisfied note.
My leg was the final leg and we had started running concurrently so once we were all done and met where I was at... we went to a magical place called "school grounds" where they had one of the most delightful inventions of mankind. A "shower." This was a damn good thing to have. I realized then that I only had one pair of shorts and.. about 6 shirts. I am such a good packer. So I washed my shorts as well as took a shower. And we all returned to our human forms and went off to dinner after I proved to myself that I cannot put up a tent in daylight either. Michael was kind enough to spare the .01 seconds it took him to do it, while blindfolded, handcuffed and submersed in a tank of water Houdini-style.Or, I think he could have. After I spend 15 minutes flailing around. I actually felt I was closer this time to the ever sought after secret-of-camping, and felt hope that someday I could put up a tent, maybe for my grandchildren (my kids are 10 and 12 so I have time to work on this).
Speaking of camping and travelling.. here's a handy tip. A fun thing to do while heading out to dinner is to open up beers in the vehicle as the driver figures out where to go. And, if you are driving a carload of people with open intoxicants to a restaurant after a long day of running you might want to pull into a parking lot quick to look at your map and figure out where to go. Well, I recommend that you do *not* pick the POLICE STATION parking lot to pull into for this task! I think all of Dons maps and colours and numbers were hypnotizing him but luckily we pointed out just where we were parked .. Don got wide eyed for a moment and then we exited that parking lot VERY CAREFULLY but without lingering.
So off we went to the Mackinaw Grille and Waterfront Pub in downtown St Ignace. I got to try a beer called a U.P.A. What's a U.P.A? It's an I.P.A made in the U.P, eh? I feel like I have a total license to say that, being Canadian and all. You're welcome.
Stay away from U.P.A, eh, it's not worth it. Two Hearted Ale is much better.
I will close on the story of the over-eager waiter dude. This guy was oozing eagerness for tips and I swear he kept offering us all either Giraffe or Craft waters and when he would say it his eyes would light up, and I suspected he was mocking the concept of Craft Beer with Craft Water, or else was going to bring us glass Giraffe creations full of water.. must be a U.P. thing? I didn't know they were indigenous! Or, he just didn't know how to say carafe of water because that is what he brought us. Gallons of water showed up at the table.
He was very consistent in screwing up my order with Bill's order, he stuck to his guns and got everything about us wrong with 100% accuracy. From beer to food to the bill. I gotta admire a guy who sticks to his guns. All water Giraffes aside though, my food was delicious. I had a hamburger with macaroni infused into it somehow.
After dinner we headed back to "school grounds." I was overjoyed to know that I did not have to get up the next morning at 4am this time around!
Coming soon to this blog: Day 2!
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