Ba Hum-flu-bug

Ah, Christmas vacation. My mom came to down to Milwaukee to pick me up on the 23rd. Jocelyn went to Illinois to spend the holidays with her family and since she took the car I had to get a ride. On the way home we stopped by my Aunt Linda’s to drop off an iPod I had to pick up for her. We were there for a couple hours and sampled some of the holiday food that she was making. After that I dropped my mom off and headed to Falls. I stopped by Randy before going out to drop off all the Christmas presents. I got a hold of Marti and met him and Pyrek and their significant others at The Other Place. We were there for a drink and then we headed back over to the O. I spent the rest of the night there. I ran in to Kotnik who I hadn’t seen in a while so I talk to him for the remainder of the night.

Christmas Eve day was on the couch by Rich’s. About five I was finally able to pry myself off the couch and get ready. It was the usual Christmas Eve routine this year. We headed over to my uncle Jimmy’s for a little Christmas Eve festivities. My godmother Terri gave me my usual gift of Bloody Mary mix. I used to love drinking the stuff as a kid, and I still do, so Terri makes sure I get my yearly fix. She also bought me a very nice baseball display case for the foul balls that I caught. The rack is huge though so I’m going to need to get about fifteen more balls somehow. I guess I’ll have to go to forty Brewers games this year. After watching some Christmas Story, eating some dips and meatballs it was time for midnight mass. Mass was nice as usual and it really gets you in the spirit of the holidays. After church my mom dropped me off at Rich’s and I got to bed immediately so Santa would come and visit.

I didn’t do much on Christmas day. I had Randy pick me up at about three for our family gathering. I must have been a bad boy this year because I got a lump of coal in the form of an awful Green Bay Packer team losing yet another game. After the bitter loss I washed the taste away with some Christmas wine. Dinner was very good. We had prime rib and a whole bunch of other side dishes. After that we exchanged gifts. It was the normal craziness of paper flying everywhere and toys being strewn all over the living room. After the gifts we headed home. It was pretty early, about ten, but I needed some sleep so I decided to just call it a night instead of find something to do.

The day after Christmas I had some work to do so I had to get back to Milwaukee. My mom, Randy and nephew brought me back. We stopped by Kopp’s on the way down so I added to my holiday weight gain with a burger and some ice cream. Once I arrived home I did my work so I wouldn’t have to worry about it the rest of the week. Adam and Stacey didn’t have to work the next day so they called and asked if I was up to anything. The came over and we watched the tube and had a couple beers. Jocelyn got home about nine but because she had to work she really just wanted to relax. So Adam and I got out of her hair and headed to Flannery’s. Stacey didn’t want to go so it was just the two of us. We sat there for a bit and they headed over to My Office to close out the night.

It ended up being a big mistake going out because some mongrel gave me the nasty cold bug that has been going around. I could’ve gotten it at Kopp’s or at home and it was just incubating but either way I was now sick for my week off. I planned on doing a whole bunch of stuff but Tuesday through Friday I didn’t do anything. My week off was super boring because I couldn’t do anything. I ran a couple errands to get some fresh air but for the most part I just kept my butt planted on the couch. I watched about two movies a day because daytime TV is so awful. All these channels and there is not one thing on that I would even think of watching. So, boring week off, and a wasted week off.

You Want That Turkey Well Done?

Love those long weekends, and I love them more when you know there’s going to be a massive meal involved. Jocelyn and I headed up to ‘boygan after work on Wednesday. I stopped off at Rich’s house and got the turkeys started. I was responsible for the turkeys this year and I went a bit overboard. I bought about thirty pounds of turkey. I deep fried one with Cajun marinade and brined and roasted the other. Once the turkeys were ready to go we went out to eat with Rich and Billie. We went to Brisco County grill on the lakefront. After that we headed to Falls for “the biggest bar night of the year”. The Thanksgiving night out was a little more exciting this year. It’s still nothing like it was when I was in college but the downtown had a good crowd. I didn’t see a lot of my friends out but the ones that I did hang out with were some of my best buddies. Bill surprised me and showed up at the O and Marti showed up as well. So we all hung out the entire night. We went to The Other Place for my traditional Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire karaoke. The night was spent bouncing all around and talking to Fallsians.

Thanksgiving day I woke up nice and early. That was a mistake because I was tired all day. That is the one negative of having a job, not being able to change your sleep schedule if you want. I had plenty to do though. I spent most of the day trying to set up Rich’s computer while also making roasted root vegetables and chopping up some other stuff. Come dinner time I was famished and more than ready to eat. The roasted bird turned out great but we had a little incident with the deep fried bird. Rich and I followed the instructions to the t but when we pulled the turkey out of its peanut oil bath at the 39 minute mark it was a black, charred bird. Rich and I turned and looked at each other and started busting out laughing. We took the bird inside and showed everyone and we all had a chuckle. It ended up that the sugar in the jerk marinade caramelized/charred in the cooking process. Once we cut open the skin the inside was done, moister, and more flavorful than the other bird. The meat was by far better than the brined one. The only thing that we had to do to the bird was remove all its skin. After that little incident we had a normal Thanksgiving dinner. The whole family was there and everything was delicious as usual. After dinner Terri and John stopped over for a bit. We had a bit of loud revelry then in a flash everyone went home. J and I sat and relaxed for a bit. We put in Star Wars and tried to watch it but the tryptophan, wine and horizontal position knocked me out at about ten. A pleasant Thanksgiving this year.

Friday J and I drove back to Milwaukee. J was headed to her mom’s place in Chicago but I felt like some little chill time. So she dropped me off and headed off. I watched the Badgers beat Hawaii during the day which wasn’t very exciting. After that I went to the store and picked up a frozen pizza and watched some movies. Lights off, shades down, and pillow fluffed. That was pretty much my day and night.

I watched some more football on Saturday while I got caught up on some of my side work. Not a very exciting day, but hey, it’s a long vacation weekend. At night I headed over to Chappy’s to celebrate his birthday. There was a nice gathering over there. Chappy has fabricated a very nice bar in his apartment the bartender running it, sometime times me, made great old fashions. I bellied up and celebrated Chappy’s birthday on a comfy bar stool. About midnight we decided to head to My Office for an end of night round. We played some darts, drank some cheapies and had ourselves a good ol’ time. At closing time I asked Kondo if he wanted to stay over since he had to walk about two miles to get home and I had Rau Braus and some new movies. Kondo and I watched a flick and drank some night caps. The late night was unnecessary but I had to end vacation the right way. Back to work on Monday, crap. How many days until Christmas?

Here’s The Story of The Hurricane, Aftermath

Short week for me this week. I took off Friday because this weekend I flew to Florida for my cousin’s wedding. Thursday night after work Rich and Billie came down and drove us to the airport where we all caught a flight to Ft. Lauderdale. The flight was smooth and without incident. We changed planes in Atlanta and ended up getting into FtL about midnight. We took a cab to a cheapy hotel by the airport and spent the night. On our way to the hotel we saw a lot of damage from the hurricane that had rolled through the weekend before. There were tons of broken signs and a lot of dark places that still didn’t have power. I was a little worried because I wasn’t able to get an answer from our hotel when I called them during the week I was pleasantly surprised when we drove up to the place and it was still there. The weather was hot and humid and so was our hotel room. It smelt very musty and extremely damp. The four of us were only going to be there for a couple hours so we dealt with it. We cranked the AC and went to sleep.

Friday morning we woke up early and took a cab to downtown FtL where our nice hotel was. We dropped off our luggage at our hotel and started to do some site seeing. The site seeing lasted about four blocks when we decided we were hungry and needed some breakfast. We stopped at a little diner and got some breakfast. I had some delicious huevos rancheros. The problem is my meal was huge and had lots of salsa. This would normally not be a problem but having this meal sitting in your stomach isn’t very conducive to walking around all day site seeing, I was worried how this would work out. After we finished eating we walked toward the ocean. On the way we passed a bunch of intercoastal waterways. These waterways all had mansions up and down them but the amazing part is these mansions were dwarfed by their mega-yachts parked in front. These mansions and yachts continued the couple miles that we walked to the ocean. Once we got to the ocean we happened upon the international yacht show that was in town. The FtL marina had hundreds of mega-yachts tied up that you could walk around on and dream about some day being able to afford the anchor. I keep using mega to describe these yachts because they were. You haven’t seen anything like these yachts on Lake Michigan, these things were huge. We looked at the yachts from a bridge for a bit and then continued on to the beach. Once at the beach we snapped some pictures and walked in the sand a bit. It wasn’t all that exciting, more water and sand. Just across the street from the ocean there was an open air bar/club that we went to and had a couple beers and looked at the ocean vista. The scene was very nice but the beer was very expensive. So after a couple drinks we walked by the yacht show again. We were actually trying to book a riverboat dinner cruise and their office was right by the entrance to the yacht show. Once we arrived at the office of the riverboat cruise we found out that they were shutdown due to complication from the hurricane. A little disappointed we turned back and headed to a little German themed bar that we passed on the way. I really enjoyed this place. It was literally a hole in the wall. It was hidden down an alley but amazingly there were plenty of others there that found this little bar as well. The bar had no doors and was a typical warm climate open air bar except it served fine German lagers. This bar was the definition of vacation. The wind whistled through while we sat and relaxed. Rich and I played some pool and I kicked his butt all over the felt. I could’ve stayed their all weekend but we had to head back to the hotel and meet my dad, Randy and Becky. We headed back, checked into our hotel and met up with the rest of the family. We didn’t do much the rest of the afternoon. We sat around, showered up and got ready for dinner. For dinner we walked to a Mexican restaurant a couple blocks from the hotel. The dinner was pretty good. Since we were in a tourist trap the prices were expectedly expensive for what we got. After dinner we walked down along a waterway and looked at some of the moored yachts. We then went to a couple bars and watched the Lamborghini’s and other assorted luxury cars cruise the strip. This whole time we were actually waiting for our cousin Steve to call but due to hurricane complications the cell phone network was temporarily knocked out for three hours. Once the phones were back online we headed down by the ocean to meet up with Steve. We met up with him, my other cousins and aunt at a steak house. Since we had just eaten and we were dressed worse than the FtL homeless we really didn’t want to sit around and watch them eat their forty dollar hunks of meat. Conveniently there was a bar right next door that was more our style so we waited for Steve over there. Once he was done eating he came over and we sat at the bar the rest of the night getting caught up and talking stupid. A little after midnight we took a taxi back to our hotel and got rested up for tomorrow’s wedding.

Saturday morning we woke up refreshed in a hotel that didn’t have 200% humidity in it. The wedding was at three so we had some time to burn but we really didn’t know what to do. We figured that by the time everyone got their stuff together and showered up that it would be noon so we decided to start getting ready. So everyone started getting dress but J who wanted to go lay by the pool for a bit. The rest of us got dressed up in out finest duds and a couple headed to a restaurant down street from our hotel. I had a nice sandwich and then we sat at the bar for a bit and tried to find out exactly where the church was. We found out the church was actually back in the direction of the hotel so we walked back toward our hotel. We met up with the rest of the group at a bar that was across the street from out hotel. After a couple beers it was finally wedding time. We put the women and my dad in a cab and the three brothers walked a couple blocks in the heat to the church. The wedding was nice. It was a full catholic service so it was pretty long but the priests kept it pretty interesting. One of the priests was a monsignor that the Counsells knew from Notre Dame. After the wedding we all piled in a cab and headed to the reception. This was actually a secondary reception hall because the initial venue was wrecked in the hurricane. I don’t envy my cousin Jen having to find another reception hall and getting it set up in less than a week’s time. This place was really nice though. The Atlanta Falcons were playing the Dolphins that Sunday and they were staying at the hotel. Five buses filled with massive guys got a police escort to the back door. They closed off the whole lobby and roped off an area for the team to walk through. I tried to snap an incognito photo of Michael Vick but it turned out blurry. After the Falcons excitement we tried to find the Badger v Penn State game on the lobby TV but it was nowhere to be found. We even tried to find it at a seedy sports bar by the hotel. Their cable was out so they were even worse off than the hotel, we could at least watch the Notre Dame game there. So instead of watching football on TV I had fun in the cocktail party with the family. My dad appeared to be having a good time himself as he bounced around from conversation to conversation. Finally it was time for dinner. We sat down and did the whole wedding routine, speeches and whatnot. For dinner we had a chicken breast with some vegetables, it was good. After dinner the grooves started up the cocktails started flowing a little faster. It was an open bar and I saw a guy get a Johnnie Walker and water so I got the same and continued to for the rest of the night. For about ten minutes everything in the reception hall went completely black and it wasn’t because of the whisky. The aftermath of the hurricane had struck again. They must’ve been fixing the power and cut off power to the hotel. They either fixed the problem or had a backup generator because the lights came back on and stayed on for the rest of the night. The night went by very fast. I don’t get to see the Bennett cousins very much so we had tons to talk about. My cousin Jeff had to leave the reception very early because he was running the New York marathon on Sunday so I really didn’t get to talk to him very much. Steve always makes for great conversation and a good time. The reception ended very early. It was ten o’clock when the lights came on and it was time to leave. We hailed a couple cabs and went to the same bar that we were at before the wedding. We spent the rest of the night there, just the fam. Everyone left at different points of the night and surprisingly the last ones standing were Jocelyn, me and my dad.

Sunday morning was rougher than rough. We got up at six to get a taxi to the airport. As soon as we got to the airport I laid on my bag and slept until the final call for us to board. We make it back without any problems, we had a layover in Cincinnati and got in about one. We made it just in time to see the Packers lose to the Steelers. A great extended family weekend, they don’t happen enough.

Final tally on exotic car sightings. 3 Lamborghini’s, a Rolls Royce Phantom, a Bentley, an Aston Martin, countless high end Benzes and BMWs (the Ford Escorts of FtL). I haven’t seen this much excess and filthy richness in my life and I only saw a two mile stretch of FtL. I’m really disappointed in myself because for the first time in my life I felt a little jealousy being around all the haves and I have always tried to be thankful for what I have. But seeing all the excess and knowing that I will never have a fraction of their opportunities got me thinking for the first time about material goods as a measure of a person instead of a person’s ethics and morals. I haven’t had any material jealousy since we left and I am back to just worrying about being a good person but for the first time I could see how one could be driven throughout their life by material worth instead of self worth.

The Marathon That Wasn’t

This weekend was low key for me. Friday we stayed in and watched a couple movies. Nothing exciting, but relaxing.

Saturday I woke up and made some waffles with my new waffle iron that I got from Amazon.com for $7. The waffles I made turned out great and making waffles is a lot easier than pancakes. I had some extras waffles left over and froze them so I can have toasted waffles later. After breakfast we watched the Badgers destroy Indiana. It was a great game and it was enjoyable to see the Badgers steamroll a team. After that Jocelyn’s dad and her sister came up from Illinois. Jocelyn and her dad were doing half of the Milwaukee marathon. We watched TV until dinner time and then but we really couldn’t determine where we wanted to go eat at night. We ended up going to Edwardo’s. My meal was pretty bad. I had some pasta with sausage and the sausage tasted rancid. It was very disappointing. After dinner we just went back to our apartment and watched some TV and Saturday Night Live and called it a night.

Sunday I had to wake up at 6:30 to take Jocelyn and her dad to Grafton where the starting line of the marathon was. It was kind of a downer taking them to the start because this was the day that I was supposed to run the marathon but my dumb hamstring prevented that. Oh well. They had a great day to do the marathon. I dropped them off and picked them up about three hours later at the halfway point. After that we went back to the apartment, got cleaned up and went to Rock Bottom for lunch. Jocelyn’s dad headed home after that and we spent the rest of the day watching the tube.

Monday after work I brewed a batch of beer. The Packers played on Monday night and lost again! 0-4, sigh.

O’ Canada

VACATION! I had a full week of vacation last week and to say I had been looking forward to it would have been an understatement. After work on Friday we drove to Chicago to spend the night at Jocelyn’s mom’s house so we could get going in the early morning. Friday night we had some Chicago stuffed crust pizza and the cheesy deliciousness was a great way to start my vacation. We went to bed pretty early so we could get up early and head to Canada.

We woke up at about three on Saturday morning. We had already packed the car so all we had to do was wake up and drag ourselves to the car. Marissa and Chad (Jocelyn’s sister and her boyfriend), Arianne (the other sister), J, me and Jocelyn’s mom slept walked to the car and started our journey. Jocelyn’s mom took the first shift and we were off. The first part of the trip was fairly uneventful. I have a problem sleeping in cars so while everyone was snoozing I was taking in the night scenery in such beautiful places as Gary, IN and Kalamazoo, MI. The ride from Chicago to the Canadian border seemed very short and before I knew it we were in Canada. From there we cruised by Toronto and headed straight North to Port Loring which is by North Bay. On our way we stopped at a McDonald’s for breakfast and a roadside hamburger stand for some delicious burgers. One thing that is different in Canada is the way they eat French fries. They put brown gravy and vinegar on their fries. The hamburger stand was my first exposure to the gravy fries which are called poutine. They were pretty good but my burger was delicious. After that we finished our trip and we made it to the Port Loring in about fourteen hours for the whole trip. As soon as we got into town we stopped at a little grocery store to pick up some food and a liquor store to pick up large amounts of vital Canadian lager. We had to drive the last miles down a gravel road in a car that was now packed tighter than a sardine can. At the end of the gravel road was a boat that we took to our final destination, Little Pine Isle. It took two trips to get us and our equipment and groceries over to the island. We immediately started up a fire, turned on the music and started unpacking. Once we got unpacked we some dinner. After dinner we decided to go into town for the big corn roast. I felt very at home at the corn roast. It could have been any of the summer picnics or brat frys in the Sheboygan area. The only thing that made this different is that the money we used to buy our beer was multicolored. The beer cooler behind the sawhorse bar was actually a canoe that was filled with ice and the Canadian lager. I thought it was a pretty ingenious setup. The corn roast was held at the local resort/campground and had a little lodge and a band playing on a flatbed truck trailer. Like I said, I felt right at home and felt like I was in high school again at a field party with my buddies. There were plenty of intoxicated Canadians that could have easily been mistaken for a number of my friends. After the corn roast we head into town for what was supposed to be a big closing party for a bar called Simp’s. “Closing Sept. 5th” the sign in front read. Well when we got to Simp’s there was not to be a soul to be found. Since it was closed we went to another bar that looked a lot like a basement. I think it was one of those places where the guy was sick of having his friends come over and drink all his beer so he just started charging them. We walked in and the local card sharks were having a Texas Hold ’em tournament. When we walked in we got stares like we had a third eye on our heads or something. We sat down and ordered some beers. They also had pickled eggs so I got one of those. We sat and drank our beers and low and behold Simp from Simp’s came walking over. We asked him what was going on with the big closing party. Turns out the closing party was last September and they just hadn’t gotten around to taking down the sign yet. I guess he was now a part owner of the fine basement we were in and this was his new establishment. We started laughing out loud in disbelief of what just happened. After our beers we went over to the local assembly hall where the other big event was going on, the hockey dance. Yes that is what it was called. We got there a little too early because there were only a couple drunk Canadians in there and the rest were still at the corn roast. Some guy said it was a $5 cover and told us the fun was going to be starting soon. Well $5 Canadian or American was too much for that so we packed it up and headed back to the island. On our way back we saw some drunken guys with full coolers on the front of the quads on their way to the hockey dance, very northwoodsish. Once back at the island we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

On Sunday we started the day with a little breakfast. Everyone had the normal cereal breakfast but my Canadian breakfast was a couple cans of Canada Dry ginger ale. I did try this stuff called peameal. It’s essentially a small piece of ham that you cut up to make Canadian bacon or sliced ham. The texture of the stuff was awful though. It was very slimy and besides the stuff is rolled in cornmeal to give it a grittiness. I could do without the stuff. After breakfast we headed into town so Chad and Marissa could get fishing licenses. I didn’t need one. I was planning on going fishing but you only need a license to catch fish and I knew I wasn’t going to catch anything so I kept my twenty bucks. From there we went to anther little grocery/general store to pick up some food items we had forgotten. After that we head back to the island. Once we got back we took the pontoon boat out to do some fishing. I fished for about two seconds and then got bored and enjoyed the scenery and drank some beers. Once we got back it was time for dinner. I had made some spaghetti sauce that had been simmering away so we ate that with some salad. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

Monday was labor day and I spent the day pretty much lounging. I woke up and had my ginger ale breakfast. We then took the boat to the mainland and went to for a walk. We walked the gravel road that leads to the dock which is 2.5 hilly miles each way. I worked up a pretty good sweat but I prepared and wore my swim trunks so I could swim back to the island. Unlike the water mammal Picl family I stink at swimming. I was so tired and almost drowned during the hundred or so yards I had to swim to get to the island. I made it but it was quite the chore. After that I spent most of the day in the cabin with the windows open, reading my book on the couch. It was a day of naps and reading “The Old Man in the Sea”. That is how I spent my entire day. I got up and had a couple hot dogs for lunch but that was my only movement. When the evening rolled around we took the pontoon out for a booze cruise. We saw some of the lakes and had some beers while taking in the beauty of nature. When we got back we were going to grill out but we weren’t able to find any charcoal. Luckily there is a small fire pit on the edge of the island where we could make a wood fire. So we took the grill and put it on the pit and grilled our burgers and hot dogs over some wood. It was good and everything had a nice smoky taste. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

Tuesday was actually our first true day off. Everyone had Monday off for Labor Day but those suckers all had to go back to work while we basked in the Canadian sun. There is no rest for the weary, even when vacationing in Canada. During the day we did a lot of island maintenance. We moved the old outhouse on the island to a different location. The outhouse was big, heavy and rotted so moving it wasn’t easy. So everyone pitched in and we finally got it moved to where we wanted it. After that task was complete we cleared some brush and chopped some firewood. I got stung three times by some wasps. Twice in the leg and once in the pinky. My hand swelled up but it wasn’t too bad. After the hard work we had lunch at a restaurant called Jake’s. It’s just a regular little diner with booths and a counter. The place also sells beer and booze which is always nice. For lunch I had a ‘Banquet Burger’ which was essentially a burger with everything. But it came with my new favorite food, poutine. I explained it early (fries w/ gravy and cheese) but this place actually did it right with thick brown gravy, yummy. So after lunch we headed back to the island for my afternoon nap. After my nap Chad and I went fishing. There are some high rock areas that have buoys marking their location. We figured we go to one of these areas to see if we can coax the fish out. On my second cast I managed to hook one of the ropes holding the buoys in place. So I pulled the boat over toward the buoy and saw that my lure was really stuck in the rope. So I started yanking on the lure and in the process slipped and drove the hook all the way into my hand. It went in just above my fingernail and under my cuticle. The thing went in all the way and the barb of the hook was no where to be seen. We were now in a bad predicament. I had a hook stuck in my hand which was tangled in the buoy rope so any drifting of the boat would tear my finger open because the only tether between me and the buoy was my hooked finger. I was trying to untangle the lure but I couldn’t because my finger was bleeding and I was using my other hand to hold on to the buoy rope so we wouldn’t drift away and tear my finger open. So Chad came over and got out the razor knife and started slashing at the rope. The razor by my hand made me nervous and I told him to stop. Something had to give here so I gritted my teeth and pulled the hook out. The barb pretty much tore up the inside of my finger and I started bleeding even more. After I got the hook out of my finger I got the other barbs untangled from the rope and we were free at last. That was only my second cast and I knew Chad wanted to fish so I just put my hand in the water and kept fishing and bleeding with Chad. I did get a bite but the fish jumped off the hook. So I took my wasp stung, finger mangled self back to shore where it belonged. For dinner we had some delicious black bean soup that Marissa made. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

On Wednesday we had a couple more chores. We had to take our garbage to the dump. So we loaded up the boat and took the garbage to the local dump. I was hoping to see a bear there but I saw nothing more than a French speaking dump keeper. After the dump we went to a pottery place about twenty minutes away. We got there and as our luck would have it this was the first week they had their off season hours in affect so they were closed. After snapping some pictures and looking around the grounds of the pottery we hopped in the car and drove to another crafts store. We all picked up some souvenirs and headed back to the island. We had lunch and then I had my daily nap. After my nap I did a little fishing off the dock and got some sun. Then we took the pontoon to a really cool waterfall area on the lake’s corner. We walked around the rocks and took some pictures and just enjoyed nature. Once we were finished we headed back to a beautiful sunset. For dinner we had Italian beef in a crock pot and some salad. After dinner we watched some TV, drank some beers and went to sleep.

Thursday morning we went on a canoe ride to another beautiful area that was very quiet because it was only accessible by canoe. We took two canoes and paddled for about twenty minutes to get to a small lake. Jocelyn and I had Arianne in our canoe. Once we got to the lake through the reeds and lily pads we arrived at a lake that was unbelievably still and smooth as glass. It was very quiet and beautiful. Chad did some fishing and caught a fish. We just sat in our canoe and took in the scenery and nature. We then headed back. I took a picture of some lily flowers on the way. When we got back we lounged on the doc for a while and took in some sun. It ended up being a pretty hot day so I jumped in the lake and we had some fun frolicking in the water. I was able to get in my afternoon nap right before dinner so I was rested for the evening ahead. We went on a little booze cruise before dinner. We saw some loons as well as a beaver. We had some homemade pizzas for dinner. After dinner Chad and I were getting a little sick of just watching TV so we sat in the kitchen, listened to some music, drank some rum drinks and played chess. I was awful and lost all three games. I got sick of losing so we ended the games and called it a night.

Our last day in Canada we went on a hike. We took the power boat over to a hunting lodge that looked a like a Unabomber shack. We docked in front of the shack and hiked through the woods to get to a couple hidden lakes. There were no paths of any type so there were a couple branch face whips and stumbles but we all got to the lake in one piece. Once at the hidden lake we sat on the rocks and enjoyed the scenery and Chad did some fishing with his survival knife. He actually caught two rock bass with nothing more than some line and a baitless hook. After some time in the sun we hiked back to the boat and headed back to the cabin. We had some lunch of random leftover groceries. After lunch I took my afternoon nap and then started to pack up my gear. Friday night we went back to Jake’s in town and had our last meal in Canada. I ordered ‘Da Clubhouse’ which was pretty much a BLT with turkey on it. It was very good because you could tell the tomatoes were fresh and in season. I also had a couple Labotts and a large plate of poutine. Once dinner was over we headed back to the island and finished packing things up for the head home. I drank a couple more Canadian beers and we hit the hay and prepared for the long ride home.

We left at about four in the morning to beat the Port Loring traffic. Once we got everything loaded I crammed into the back of the car and was actually able to sleep the first three hours of trip. That took us to just outside of Toronto where we stopped at an Oasis and got some gas and food. From there we were able to get all the way to the border where we stopped at a McDonalds and then hit the duty free shop. There was some sort of protest going on outside the shop but that didn’t stop me from getting my discounted booze. I picked up some Crown Royal even though I really don’t drink whiskey. I can easily pawn the stuff off on my friends. After the duty free store we piled in for our trip across the border. The border guard and customs was pretty painless and he let us right through. After we were back in the US we found some good ol’ American football. We put on the Michigan v. Notre Dame game, checked our voicemail and continued our journey. Our last stop was a Subway/gas station where we got our last road meal and refueled for the last push. We arrived in Chicago about six and our journey was technically complete. Jocelyn’s dad came up from Peoria and we ate at a German restaurant that was right down the street. I had a patty melt and some Oktoberfest which was satisfying. We returned to the house, watched some football and fell asleep about ten.

We woke up Sunday morning and took Marissa and Chad to the airport and continued home. Sunday we watched the Packers lose to the Detroit Lions,  this is going to be a long season. It was back to work on Monday but it was a great vacation. It was too fast and not long enough but what vacation ever is long enough.