Camping Food

What do you eat when you go camping? Got any ideas for me? It’s not that I don’t enjoy the food we eat when we are out in the middle of nowhere, with ice melting in the cooler and feeling like I just will not get these burgers cooked before they acquire a strain of botulism.

Here is our menu for an entire weekend.

Friday night supper – A macaroni salad we brought from home, maybe something made of actual meat. Must eat these quickly as the Miracle Whip and any raw meat will not last in the cooler over night, per my mother.

Saturday breakfast – Pancakes, known when we are camping as Pannekuchen (our sorry German translation).

Saturday lunch – A can of Spaghettios if we are at camp. Sandwiches, carrot sticks, applesauce or fruit in a cup if we are off bumming somewhere. A while back we discovered these tuna snack pack things. There is a packet of tuna, packet of mayonnaise, packet of relish, six crackers, a mint, a spoon, a napkin, even a handi-wipe, all in a clever tray to mix it all together in. This is our usual on the road lunch these days.

Saturday supper – Macaroni and cheese, hot dogs (I believe hot dogs can survive several weeks without refrigeration due to the amount of chemicals they are injected with), a can of vegetables.

Saturday around the campfire if we managed to get one going – S’mores. Duh, that’s a no brainer.

Sunday breakfast – cold cereal, maybe pop tarts. By now the milk is getting warm, and I have to finish it off or dump it.

Sunday lunch – We are often heading home by now, so will usually nibble graham crackers or what’s left of the pop tarts as we go.

Honestly, as boring as this sounds (because it is the same every time), I love this food. It takes me back to a little dome tent pitched along Lake Superior. It brings back all kinds of warm memories, memories of cold wet mornings, memories of loons calling to each other in the night, memories of laughter and love and goofiness.

But that food sure nauseates me at home.

The Gene I Lack

As I was driving home from work tonight contemplating this blog, I had a sudden revelation. I was recalling how I just cannot back up our pop-up trailer and how I overcame that deficit the first time my sister Judy and I went camping in it.

It was June of 2000 and we had chosen Luna-White Deer campground in the Nicolet National Forest as our destination. A beautiful place, I know I have mentioned it before. Peaceful little campground between two crystal clear lakes.

I brought my then fourteen year old son along just to back the camper into the site I had chosen. Then I drove him back to his grandparents’ in Crandon for the weekend.

I always knew that something was wrong with me. How can my kid who doesn’t even have a driver’s license back up a trailer. Obviously he has the “Back Up The Trailer” gene. Obviously, I don’t, along with a lot of other women I have talked to.

Now, if you turn that gene’s description into an acronym it will make perfect sense to you, just as it suddenly made sense to me this afternoon. Most men have this gene; quite a few women do not. I’m not trying to start something; I’m just sharing my observations.

First Camping Trip

In the spring of 2000, I finally talked Himey into going camping for the weekend in our old pop-up camper. I chose Wells State Park near Cedar River, Michigan, even though I had never been there before.

It wasn’t a bad state park, just a little crowded. I had also forgotten that May is the start of the black fly season in the northern Great Lakes, so there were flies everywhere. And to top everything off the weather was cool and dreary.

We towed the ancient trailer to Michigan with our equally abused Mazda extended cab pickup. It was a great truck, really, but it had seen better days. That particular spring it was in need of a muffler. The bonus there was that our canned vegetables were sitting right over the hole in the exhaust. After we had set up camp and finally started cooking supper, I was pleasantly surprised that when I opened the can of green beans, they were boiling hot. Hmm? Way to multitask, Mazda.

We spent the weekend taking lots of walks in the woods and along Lake Michigan, playing catch next to our camp, playing cards and napping.

Sunday morning we headed home, stopping at Goodman County Park. In my ever continuing quest to see every waterfalls in the upper Midwest, I insisted on seeing Strong Falls. I also wanted to see Eight Foot Falls, Twelve Foot Falls and Eighteen Foot Falls and not just because it sounded like something from a Dr. Suess book. Himey convinced me however that they were more like rapids than waterfalls.

Someday, though, I will check them out.

Who will carry our burdens?

In the languages of the Native Americans, there are different translations for the word “friend”. One such translation would be “one who carries my sorrows on his back.” What a wonderful thought! We all need a friend who will carry all of our sadness, all of our burdens, who will be there no matter happens, no matter what we do. We need someone who will be there to bail us out of any trouble we get in, who will defend us and buoy us up when we are down. That friend will give us the shirt off his back, will give us his bed to sleep in, will give us his last meal when we are hungry but he is hungrier.

Hopefully you have that sort of friend, ideally a couple of them. I am blessed to have a husband who fits that bill on every account. I have a friend in Minnesota who would do anything for me; the distance is occasionally the only setback. There are a few others I could turn to and when the chips are really low, believe it or not, I lay my burdens on my dog. Yes, Dino the Wonder Dog. It would seem he couldn’t do anything to change my situation, but just the perked ears and tilt of his head, is often all I need to put a smile on my face.

It is sometimes easy to forget, though, who we can always look to in any time of trial. Our heavenly Father is always there for us, He hears our every prayer, He knows our every need. We can place our every sorrow on Him and He will carry the load.

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior, who daily bears our burdens. Our God is a God who saves; from the Sovereign LORD comes escape from death. Psalm 68:19-20 (NIV)

(Also, I just want to let you know that I spend half the time working on this blog just trying to find the perfect picture. As alot of them are, this one is from my daughter's trip to Kenya last year. She has so many fabulous pictures, I wish I could just show them all to you.)

The Mystery Light

The light appeared slowly at first, just on the horizon in the far distance. It started as a small twinkling light which grew in size and intensity over the next few minutes. Then, just as it had emerged, it faded away and was gone.

I’d been there before, but it was still always fun to go back. Oh, when my husband and I went, we didn’t really go to the see the Light. We went to watch the people and listen to them, see what they think the Paulding Light is. One time we met a woman who told us she had been there over fifty times. She had pictures she wanted to show us, pictures of the Light coming right down over her car. I think she also had pictures of Elvis at the 1994 Rose Bowl.

I don’t, however, believe in ghosts or spooks.

I do believe in the oddity of human nature. People had been coming to see the phenomenon in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan since the late 1960’s. Referred to usually as the Paulding Light, it appeared most nights near Dog Meadow, between Watersmeet and Paulding, off of Robbins Pond Road.

Some theories claimed it was the ghost of a railroad worker who had met some tragic end and was continually signals others of trains which no longer ran on the nearby railroad bed. Others would tell the story of a mail carrier who had delivered the mail via dog sled in the winter. One night he and his dogs had been found dead in the area, their throats all slashed. The light could be coming from car headlights on Highway 45 or from the electric lines overhead or from swamp gas.

In August 1999, my dear sister Judy had made plans for us to stay, with only our husbands, at another resort in the Northwoods, and that Saturday evening we had driven up to the UP to see the famous mystery light. It was interesting, as usual; I don’t think it has ever been a wasted trip.

The rest of the weekend Judy and I were in the kayaks or splashing in Seven Mile Lake or just laying in the sun. We took a hike around the lake with Himey and Claude. We even stopped at a casino on the way back to the resort from the Light. A nice peaceful weekend. Quiet. Slow.

I need more weekends like that.

Return to the Renaissance

Wow, I see that I have already taken you on two trips to the Renaissance Festival near Jordan, Minnesota, and I haven’t told you a single thing about it. Have I ever even peaked your curiosity?

The Minnesota Renaissance Festival is one of the largest and oldest such festivals in the country, having just finished its 40th year as I write this. I tried to glean the necessary information off of their website or from brochures we have picked up over the years, but neither proved as helpful as I had hoped. I can say the grounds are on somewhere between 15 and 30 acres, depending on whether or not you count the big hay field of a parking lot. Many of the buildings are permanent to the grounds, but a fire several years ago (which I could again find no information on) burned many of them. I believe they have all been rebuilt and just these medieval facades are worth seeing.

But perhaps I should back up. Do you know what a Renaissance Festival is? It is a gathering of people who share an interest in anything medieval, from jousting to falconering to wearing kilts or tights or long flowing dresses. There is sword fighting and swashbuckling and belly dancing. There are wenches and peasants and kings and queens. There is food like you wouldn’t believe – turkey drumsticks and ciabatta turkey sandwiches and corn on the cob and lemonade and beer. Oh, and lots of big crispy pickles.

Throughout the grounds are various stages where you can watch comedians and magicians and pirates and jugglers. All over the place are vendors selling handmade crafts, from paper to dresses to paper dresses, from paintings to swords to paintings of sword. Many of the vendors offer demonstrations as they create their crafts.

Wow and then there are the animals. The horses they use in the jousting are massive Percherons and Belgians, which is a good thing because they are wearing armor themselves as well as carrying armored knights with ten foot long lances. The falcons, hawks and eagles are equally impressive, displaying their magnificent hunting skills. Then there were camel rides and elephant rides, along with a petting zoo of cute furry creatures and a non-petting zoo of wonderful creatures like pythons and crocodiles.

I don’t even think that scratched the surface. An entire area is dedicated just to younger kids to play in a huge fairy tale land all their own. One year there was this gnome walk, or something like that, where this trail through the woods and through a swamp would take you past the homes of imaginary creatures like hobbits and dwarves.

It has really been too many years since I have been there. Getting back on track with the journal of my travels, August 1999 was the first time that my husband Himey had come along with the kids and me. He had an amazingly good time. I was impressed with him. He especially liked the turkey drumstick and the fact that he didn’t get sunburned.

What I did New Year's Eve

I’ve been debating whether or not I wanted to write this blog about the New Year. Is there anything I could write which has not already been said? Last evening, I was reading one of the books I got for Christmas about Christian writers. The article I read was about where to find inspiration and one of the items mentioned was to write about something that has happened in the last week.

Hmm? I thought. Dare I share how I spent my New Year’s Eve? The sorry details? Or is there, just like so many things that God hands us in life, true inspiration in these events?

How did I spend my New Year’s Eve? In the bathroom with both vomiting and diarrhea. Not very pleasant. And I had not had a single drink, I swear. (Anyone who knows me is going to know that I am not lying.)

I don’t know if it was something I ate or if it was the stomach flu. Whatever the case, there was something in my intestinal tract that my body did not like one bit. And so my system worked hard through the night to get the intruder out. It was maybe not at all pleasant for me, but I had to let my body do its work. Instead of feeling despair all night, I should have felt relief that my digestive organs were so effectively defending themselves. They were fighting a battle, which they would win, when my entire system was emptied of the enemy.

I was maybe left drained by morning, but my health would return soon enough.

Unfortunately, other intruders invade our bodies and we are not so quick or brutal to eradicate them. We let jealousy into our hearts, we allow our minds to dwell on past grievances, we don’t ask for forgiveness and we don’t offer forgiveness when we should. We keep all kinds of festering sores locked up in our hearts and minds. They eat away at our very souls and we let them.

We need to rally our bodies for a fight to purge ourselves of these intruders. We need to ask the Holy Spirit to come into us and cleanse us of the many thoughts and emotions that are eating away at us. We need to let out all these sins of the spirit and just flush them down the toilet.

The spirit of a man will sustain him in sickness,
But who can bear a broken spirit? Proverbs 18:14 (New King James Version)