After a wonderful (almost) long weekend of cabin-camping with my entire immediate family, and then some, I am reminded of why we don’t do it more often. It’s not that we didn’t have a good time, because we did. It’s just that my wife and I really hate being on anybody else’s schedule. When we are on vacation, we make the rules (or lack thereof). When we are on vacation with 10 other people, the rules are made be random committees, or sometimes they appear out of nowhere (“Well, I heard that dinner is at 5, and so-and-so said this, and…). This can be very frustrating, especially when you are sharing a cabin with your parents, and your brother.
When you only have 3 days to cram a whole lot of visiting in with people you only see every few months, things can be hectic. Everybody wants to do something, and trying to fit it all in can make you crazy. Everybody else that was there was staying for a whole week, so they had plenty of time after we left to just relax and enjoy the beautiful scenery and the wonderful weather. Again, I am not complaining, just thinking out-loud about how to enjoy this better next year (and, yes, this trip happens every year for the last few years-this was just the first time we have been able to join them).
My wife and kids got to see all my favorite spots of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, while I stayed home and worked to fund their little jaunt through nature. Lucky little ungrateful snots. I merely joined them for the aforementioned 3-day trip to the lovely Curtis, MI.
The highlights of the trip? Getting to canoe the Two-Hearted River (Not the Big Two-Hearted, for that is just a fictional representation of some river in the U.P. Many think it was actually the Fox River, some say it was the Two-Hearted River, but it really doesn’t matter). Although 6 hours on the river without a shirt lead to second-degree burns on my back that are now peeling and generally feeling icky. Also, we got to see where the wildfire had swept through just recently. And we got to see planes from Minnesota’s DNR scoop water out of the lake we were camping on. Very cool!
So, what is the final culmination of my incoherent ramblings about family vacations? I don’t know. I just needed some time to babble incoherently. If you read this post, I am very sorry for your luck. Please see Marge on your way out the door. She will refund your entry fee and give you back the five minutes you wasted here today. Thank you and Come Again!
