Salty Besos: Labor Day

It’s Labor Day and I am in the office. I don’t have to be, but I am banking my holiday so that I can use it in two weeks when we go to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. So, today it’s just me, FaceBook and the coffee pot, staring out the window on a gorgeous day, while everyone else plays in the sun and grills brats and burgers. I’ll try my hardest to write some kick-ass grant proposals and get rid of the growing stack of paperwork that is threatening to eat me, but more likely than not, I will spend an indecent amount of time surfing the web and avoiding doing anything of real substance.

In two weeks we’re heading up to the UP of Michigan to backpack in the Porcupine Mountains and canoe camp in Sylvania. We’ll hike three miles in to a cabin in the state park, located on the shore of Lake Superior.

Here we’ll spend a couple of days hiking around and avoiding bears. I’ll do some grousing about how cold/hot it is and how there aren’t any flush toilets/showers/Ethernet jacks. Jay will probably walk through poison ivy and Ella will insist on eating unidentifiable objects covered in dog hair and rolled in spider poop right off of the floor. When we get back I will no doubt declare it the. Best. Trip. Ever. Because I have a bad memory and will have by then forgotten all about the poison ivy and spider poop finger foods.

In all seriousness, this should be a fun time. For this trip, we bought a coffee percolator, which I am stoked about, because it means no more instant coffee on camping trips. (This is ironic, because my Dad, who doesn’t have an electric coffee maker at home because he actually prefers instant coffee, is “camping” right now- and using a drip coffee maker each morning in his RV. Roughing it, indeed. My parents are also doing laundry as I type this, convinced they are primitive camping because they left the fabric softener sheets at home. We are a family of hard core out door enthusiasts.)

After leaving the cabin, we’ll head down to Sylvania, where we will park the car and canoe to our campsite, about a mile or so away. We’ll spend a few nights there, canoeing around, hiking and watching wildlife. I’ve never canoe camped, so this should be an adventure.

Owing to my bad memory, I will probably forget my camera. So, what I’ve decided to do is pre-post my vacation pictures, so that when I forget my camera and can’t take actual pictures to share with everybody, I can refer to these.

Here’s some place in the Porcupine Mountains that we’ll probably see. When we see it we’ll be all, “Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhh, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”.

Here’s another picture of that same place:

Here’s a trail that we may or may not hike on. I am sure I will have some story about running into a skunk or something.

Here’s a dramatic picture of the shore of Lake Superior, which we will see but probably not at this time of day, which may or may not be sunrise. If it is sunrise, we will definitely not see this: