Hey everyone. A month or so ago my dad had the idea to get a cabin in May and invite his sons (my brother and I), and last weekend was that weekend. It was about 2 hours north of me and 1 hour north of him, and there wasn't much of a plan (just getting together for some guy fun). Getting set-up was a pretty simple affair. Primarily we just had to make sure we had enough food and all the camping equipment we would need. My dad brought eggs, hash browns, brats, bacon, and ground chuck and bacon steaks, and I brought homemade chili, biscuits, chex mix, and pringles. For fun I brought some board games and an analog TV tuner to see if we could find an analog signal, and prescription bottle stickers and paperwork that I wouldn't be able to put in my shredder to burn, and my dad brought a wood burning experiment. I got everything ready and out in the living room ready for the trip.
Friday was the drive up day. I packed up my stuff and kissed mskate goodbye. The drive up was long. I hit traffic, and it wasn't very fun. Another thing that happened is my subscription to satellite radio ran out as I was driving, so that wasn't very fun. I thankfully had some comedy specials downloaded to my phone so I listened to them. I got there around 5:30 and we immediately started heating up the chili. I unpacked all my stuff as they cooked. After it was heated we served it up. Everyone really liked it, which made me happy because this was a new recipe, one where I forgot the chili powder. After dinner we had some of the chex mix and pringles, and everyone was happy I brought the chili in a mason jar because we used the jar to transport dish cleaning water from the spigot to the camp site. Now for the fun wood burning experiment. My dad saw someone make a thing where you drill a main hole in a 4X4 piece of wood, and then angled holes along the side, pour in lamp oil, and then you get fire to come out of the holes. He didn't have a 4X4 or lamp oil, but he did have some birch logs and sterno, so we drilled some holes in one and tried some different things. Here's the video.
Once the wood experiment was done we used the burning wood to build our camp fire. It was a fun time. We chatted as we sat around the fire. Nothing super spectacular, just talking about life. We did this until about 11 PM when the fire burned out and we went to bed.
Saturday was our main day. We woke up and had the hash browns, bacon, and eggs. Dad and I also had a biscuit. Since the forecast called for rain we went to one of the cities that was close to the camp ground. We explored the city and looked for some stuff to check out. We went to a farmer's market and I picked up some beef jerky and dark chocolate raspberry bark. It then started to rain, so we took refuge in the freighter watching building (because the city was along a shipping rout). We sat at a table and just waited out the rain. My crocks were filthy from the rain mud and campground pickups, so I left them out in the rain to get cleaned off (it helped a little, but not much). We went close to the border see if we could pick-up a TV signal, so I pulled out the tuner, set it up, and started trying to get something.
I like to say I was trying to contact the mother ship. Unfortunately I didn't get a signal, and I went through the entire VHF and UHF band (2-89). We went back to the camp ground to eat lunch after I wasn't able to find a signal. We had the brats and some of the pringles. After lunch we decided to go on a little walk down by the lake. There wasn't much of a beach, but there was a shore line, one with a lot of rocks. My brother found some flat stones and started skipping them. I then started looking for some good stones and went skipping too. Dad just sat down on a down tree and watched us. We did this for maybe an hour, just skipping stones and chatting. I managed to skip one about 14 times, but most of the time I either got 2-3 skips, or failed just went plop. My brother had pretty similar luck. Then there was one stone that I found, it was perfect for skipping; flat, slightly convex bottom, completely flat top, almost circular, and light. I was talking it up, and when I threw it, it plopped, not even a skip. That got quite the laugh out of everyone.
After stone skipping we decided to explore the other city near by. This is when I went thrifting. I found a habitat for humanity restore and a goodwill. I looked at all the VHS tapes looking for lost media, and then I went to the toys looking for American Girl Doll stuff. Unfortunately I didn't find anything, but my dad and brother enjoyed the restore and all the home equipment. After thrifting we went to the main street. My dad had been there in the past with my mom on get aways, but it was always so busy that they weren't able to explore the main street. This time since it was before memorial day it wasn't very busy, so we were able to got to everywhere. There were a lot of cool little shops, mostly tourist trap like knick knacks, but since we were tourists it was fun. What was really cool though was the city general store, a place that sold a little of everything. I picked up some pickle hot sauce, and here's my quick review from later that night.
Another cool thing was Wimpy's Hamburgers, a little restaurant that is based off the Popeye character Wimpy. That was really cool since Popeye is probably my favorite golden age cartoon. I didn't eat there since we already had all the food plans made, but if/when I go back there I need to eat there (and get more of that pickle hot sauce).
We walked a little more down the road and went to the brewery. Dad and bro wanted to go there and have a beer, but unfortunately they were closed down, so we just went back to the car and went down to the pier. They had a beach and a wave breaker set-up, and bro and I walked the wave breaker while dad just rested in the car. It was pretty cool, there were waves crashing on the boulders and it sounded like something from a pirate cove in a movie. When we got to the end of the wave breaker there was a light house beacon thing, and it was covered in graffiti. I was expecting the standard, "Jack and Diane 4 ever" and "Tim was here," and while there was some of that, most of it was religious inspiration, like "you're looking for a sign of God's presence, here it is" and "Jesus loves you." I was very conflicted as to how I felt about that, because while it is vandalism and that's something He generally frowns upon, there's also something about painting over this form of evangelization that just seems wrong. Whatever, not my moral dilemma to solve. We walked back to the car and went to an antique store on the drive back to camp. I like to go antiquing, and even though I typically don't find stuff there's always that "what if." Plus, I like to just look at all the nifty old stuff. There was a lot of decorations and toys, but what caught my attention was the room of records. Normally I'll find a half-full apple crate of albums at antique shops, but this was like an entire mini-record store, so that was cool. Then there was one thing that REALLY caught my attention, Mad Magazine the board game. I played this back in kindergarten in latchkey, and I remember the satirical humor being way above my head. Now that I'm an adult and developed a taste for Mad back in highschool, I wanted to play it again and see what the humor really meant. Unfortunately I didn't have $30 worth of want, so I passed.
Now we're back at camp, getting dinner ready. We had hash browns and the ground bacon chuck steaks my dad made. What it was was ground chuck roast with bacon ground in with it, shaped into a patty. It was really good, but could have used more bacon. I put some of my new pickle hot sauce on it and that gave it some really good flavor. Now it's time for day 2 of the fire project. Since we tried some different things the night before, each of us got a log and had the opportunity to do what we wanted. I wanted to try 4 holes a 12, 3, 6, and 9, each of different sizes. Bro wanted to try some holes on the side in addition to the top. Dad just wanted to put a bunch of holes in his, and drill in to get more sterno. One thing we all agreed with though, is we needed something to cover the main hole that we put the fuel in. Lucky for them my alcohol of choice comes in bottles, so I flattened out some bottle caps and made little lids. Here's the video of the events.
While we were having fun with our logs, we built up a fire, this time using proper technique so it wasn't quite as tedious as it was the previous night. Then when the logs were done, we just kicked them into the fire. I burned all my prescription stickers, so that was good to get done with. Like the night before, we just talked about life and how great this campout was, and that we need to do this again (but maybe get a cabin with an attached toilet). This went on until about 10, then Dad and I went to bed. Bro handled the fire for another hour since he has some trouble sleeping.
Sunday was packup day. We ate the rest of the hash browns and bacon and biscuits, and then we packed up all our stuff. After we said our goodbyes I went to the church that was right there down the road from the camp ground, and their mass was at 10 AM which was right about the time I got there. Talk about convenient. After mass I began the trip home, until I had the bright idea of going an hour out of my way to go to a city that the FCC has listed as having 2 analog stations. I put the college that's close to the city in my GPS and started my detour. I got there and tried to contact the mother ship, but nothing. I then put the GPS coordinates of the broadcast tower into my GPS and it took me to nothing. I went to one last open location and tried it on the 1980s TV I brought with me, and nothing. That's when I drove home defeated. On my way home I got mskate a beanie baby happy meal toy. They didn't have the owl she was looking for, but I got her a penguin and she liked it. All in all, great trip. I had some great guy time with my family, and the only thing that could have made it better was finding one of the last analog TV channels. Oh well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.
Oh, and thank-you Max for your continued patreon support.
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