2018 Camping Post #5 - A Short Day and a Memory

I am finally posting about the last full day of our camping trip in July. It was a slow leisurely day. Not usual for us, but maybe we are finally realizing that vacation should be about sitting around the camp fire instead of running around as much as we do at home.  

 After lunch, we took a ride to find some waterfalls. All we did find were rapids and dams. But they 

are still fun to visit.

 But here’s the thing, heading to each of these three spots, we discovered something else new and note-worthy.

 On the way to the first one, we saw what I thought was a beautiful, clear-cut field, with just enough lone trees to make it picturesque.

 On the highway just above where the second falls was supposed to be was a sign about the location where Father Menard was killed.

 And along the road to the third, we found a monument to the men who were killed in the worst mining accident in Michigan history as well as the church and remains of the town of Mansfield.

 See what you find when you get off the beaten path.

 After we got back to camp, I headed out to walk around the entire campground. I found the site where my sister Pat and I camped back in 1980, site number 65. I think it was, anyway, because I remember debating about that site or the one across the road and the one across the road actually looked more familiar, but I am positive ours was on the right side of the road. That was 38 years ago, so how much are these trees really going to look the same? But whatever the case, wherever we were, I sat down on the picnic table and tried talking to her. I think because she is in heaven, with Mom, Dad, Aunt Helen and everyone else, she can’t communicate with us. I think that only non-believers really think they can talk to the dead. If you are in heaven you are in such a good place – I can’t think of a way of saying it without sounding like people are jerks once they get to heaven. But really, I don’t think they have any connection anymore with us left down here on earth alive. I think once you are in the arms of Jesus, everything you left behind on earth, all your loved ones, maybe even all your memories evaporate. I think it is all a fresh start in heaven. But we will still all be there together one day. But sometimes it would be nice to just be able to be with Pat, feel her presence, hear her voice, sense that attitude, that grit, that spunk. But I do feel it all the time. It is still what keeps me going a lot of the time, in times when I just want to give up and I think to myself, “what would Pat do?”

 I returned to our campsite, and the next morning, by six am to beat the rain, we packed up camp and headed home.