Camping 2021 Adventure

Hey everyone, it's that time of year again, the time when I go camping with my family and friends. This is the first time I went camping as a married man, and got my own camp site. I would normally stay with my parents either in their hotel or on their site, but now that I'm married and we asked for camping equipment on our wedding registry I got my own pokematic site with mskate. In the week leading up I gathered up pretty much all the equipment and supplies, and mskate packed our clothes. I also took the Friday off so we could get there right at check in time, and do some shopping at the outlet mall on the way there.

 Friday started out pretty basic. I loaded up all the gear in our SUV and treated it like pretty much any weekday morning. Around 11 we got on the road. I needed to get my allergy shot and pick-up some things from my parents, and since they are on the way we stopped there. It was just a quick little stop, nothing big. After the parents stop and an hour of driving we went to the outlet mall. We were going to stop at the Coleman store since we needed table cloth clips and wanted some spare tent steaks, but the Coleman store was no more so we had to skip it. We did stop at the Pepperidge Farm store and got some goldfish crackers and millanno cookies, and some iced tea bags. After Pepperidge Farm we went to the Adidas store because mskate needed new tennis shoes. I've never been shoe shopping with mskate before, but I know what the comedians say about women and shoe shopping, so I brought my Nintendo Switch in and sat at one of the benches. It didn't take her very long, but I wanted to be sure, and I did get some animal crossing in, so that was good. The last store we went to was a new hot sauce place. The clerk asked if I needed any help so I asked him for some recommendations. I settled on fusion garlic and pepper hot sauce, and that was our shopping trip. After shopping was lunch. We were going to go to this restaurant that gives you big portions and is good for getting camping food, but unfortunately they had a line out the door so we went to a burger place. I got a pizza and fried pickles to get left overs, and mskate had a bunless burger. After lunch it was back on the road.

After about another hour of driving we arrived at the state park. Since I went camping with my dad and brother earlier in the year (link here) we didn't need to get a recreation pass. I checked us in and got our site. We pulled up and started the set-up process. This was the first time setting up our tent, and even though it was my first time I'm a bit of a tent expert so I did it no problem. Well, only slight problem since it kind of requires 2 people to get the poles all set right, so my godfather helped me with that. After the tent was set-up I pulled the air mattress out and started inflating it. Fun fact, I somehow ended up with the air mattress pump my parents used for 20 years when they camped, so I used that on our air mattress. After I got the air mattress inflated mskate set-up our sleeping bags and the clothes. Since we didn't have table cloth clips I improved with bungee cords. With everything set-up we visited with my godfather and his family. For dinner we had walking tacos, primarily because it has minimal clean-up (just need to clean the electric skillet after heating the taco meat). I forgot our extension chord, but thankfully one of our friends had an extra one I could borrow. My parents brought up an extension cord when they came up on Saturday. I also somehow forgot the dish soap. I don't know how, I had it out with everything, and I swear I had it in the car, but even after unpacking everything I couldn't find it. We got some from the camp store, and now that's part of our camping equipment.

Friday night was pretty low key. Mskate brought pot holder materials for making finger weaving crafts. She showed my god-siblings how to do it and some other camping friends, and everyone really enjoyed it. After dinner we went to the ice cream store that's just outside the camp ground. Mskate had a special vegan gluten free sunday, and I had a mixed ice cream thing with brownie bits. We had a camp fire at one of our friend's site later in the evening. Just a calm first night. I was going to take a shower that night but the water was too cold, so I said "I'll try this tomorrow." The air mattress was a little under inflated, so when I got in mskate shot up, and when I got off mskate sunk low. The following day I inflated the air mattress more so it would be more comfortable.

Saturday started out pretty basic. For breakfast we were going to have hash browns and bacon. I brought a box of freeze dried hash browns and basically figured hydrating them would be similar to other freeze dried hash browns I've had in the past (hydrate in the box), but they were "hydrate in the microwave." No big problem though, I just took a bowl of water and heated it in the electric skillet, and then when they were hydrated I took them off the skillet and fried up some bacon for the grease; who needs butter or oil when you have bacon grease. The hash browns and bacon was good. After breakfast mskate and I drove to some different showers and they had hot water. When we got back I told everyone in our group that the other showers had hot water. Between breakfast and lunch we primarily did the finger weaving and pot holder craft. I made us 2 pot holders and mskate made a 4 foot finger weave. Mskate and I also went on a little walk, just down the beach trails so nothing really big.

My parents got up to camp around lunch time, so we said our hellos and got lunch ready. Mskate had hot dogs and I had a ham and cheese mini-sub. They heated up something on our skillet, but I don't remember what. After lunch it was time for the beach. I didn't really feel like swimming, but I put on my trunks and went out to the beach. I brought my metal detector I bought last year on black Friday and combed the beach. Unfortunately all I found was 3 bottlecaps, but oh well, I helped clean the beach some. After metal detecting I read another chapter of my Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest manga novel. After a chapter I decided to join everyone else in the lake. It was REALLY cold and I only went up to about my waste. I visited with the group, but went back in pretty soon after. After some relaxing mskate and I went around trying to book a Disney vacation. We went to the camp store to use their wifi, but that wasn't working well, so then we went to my parent's hotel to use their wifi. We had to use my dad's laptop since mskate's ipad and both of our phones weren't working right with the website. We were able to book our trip and it's going to be over our 1 year anniversary. That will be fun.

It's now approaching dinner time. My mom and mskate went to pickup the pizzas that everyone ordered over the morning. This is when things got fun. No one really planned it this way, but everyone started to gather at our site, and mskate and I ended up hosting our first dinner party. After dinner I started setting up the campfire on our site. When I got the wood and paper set-up it was time for ice cream. Mskate got a different vegan ice cream thing in a gluten free cone, and I think I just got some basic seasalt caramel. When we got back I got the fire started, and then did a little treasure hunt with my youngest god-brother. I took the bottle caps I found earlier and buried them in the sand just below the surface, and we dug them up after finding them with the metal detector. I knew when I was his age I would have really enjoyed an activity like that, and he enjoyed it too. The fire was fun, and it was cool hosting everyone.  I brought some potatoes wrapped in foil to make in the fire, so I put the potato in the fire and made a baked potato. Everyone was really impressed by it and the idea of doing a potato bar next year was floated. Before I went to bed I decided to give the showers a try, and they were warm enough to shower in, yay.

Sunday was a pretty low key day. I had a chocolate muffin for breakfast and then got dressed for church. We all went to the spot in the back that we always sit in. It was perfect for our group when we were much larger since we would pretty much fill the entire section, but now that we've shrunk significantly in size we only filled up about 1 pew. On our way to church I saw a garage sale advertised, so on our way back I decided to stop there and see if there was anything good. There was an Indiana Jones brand machete for sale, but I had to pass. When we got back I pulled out our food to share with everyone. I had a ham and cheese mini-sub and some bacon. I gave everyone else the rest of the sub buns, ham, and cheese (because I didn't want to bring it home). After brunch we packed up our stuff and got ready to go. Since we had the party at our site the previous night there was still a lot of other people's stuff at our site, so I made an announcement to get your stuff since we're checking out. I wasn't able to get the tent back in the original bag, and I tried when I got home but I just wasn't able to get all the air out and it just didn't fit back in the original bag. When we get a yard I'm probably going to try to get it back in the bag since I can do it on the grass, but for now it's rolled up as best I can and in our camp bin. Overall it was a fun trip. Next year we'll bring more finger weaving stuff and probably foil wrapped potatoes since that went over so well. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Campout 2019 Fun

Hey everyone, it's that time again, family campout with my camping friends. It's always fun seeing the camping friends considering we only see each other a few times a year (not because we're anti-social, but because we all live so far away now and it's like the only time we can see all get together). I packed everything on Thursday and went over to my parents house for the night. When we were planning things on Wednesday my mom asked me what time I would get there on Friday, and I said "well I was planning on coming over on Thursday night," and that made things a little easier because we were able to practice pack. Then at night I watched SpongeBob using my parents slingTV subscription. I have playstation vue and don't get Nickelodeon, so it's great watching Nickelodeon at my parents house. I watched SpongeBob's Big Birthday Blowout, and I need to do a review of this, because it's the 20th anniversary special and it's basically an apology for Truth or Square, one of my first reviews. [Editor's note, I did do a review, here it is]. We went out for pizza on Thursday for family fun. That was basically Thursday night.

Now for Friday. We packed-up the perishable things (cooler food) and that was it since we packed all the other things the night before. We drove a while and stopped at the outlet mall. Normally we stop at the pepridge farm store because I like goldfish crackers and millano cookies (and it's always fun to see what kind of other things they might have), but since I still have a bunch of stuff from last year we didn't stop there. We did stop at the Colman store and I got a cooler and my parents got my aunt a cot. After that I just kind of played my switch and slept while I waited for us to get to camp.

Now we get to camp. We were squatting on my godfather's site this weekend. We arrived before them, so we spent the time waiting for them to show-up visiting with the others that were already there. We gave my aunt the cot and not too much longer my godfather and his family showed up. I helped them set-up their tent, and being the tent expert I am, it went up quite easily. While I was working on the tent, my godbrother was on top of the car helping to unload the cartop carrier. Watching him do that, I was quite jealous, because my parents never let me climb on top of the car for any reason. After helping them set-up camp, we had lunch. I had a hamburger and spam sandwich, with cheese. Yum. This year I didn't have to share my burger with my cousin's dog Louie, because he was far more comfortable this year. Here's a picture I took with him.

After lunch we went to check into our motel. It was pretty uneventful, just unload our night bags, sleeping stuff (my cot and sleeping bag), and electronic stuff for at night. After check-in we went back to camp. Since it was so hot and I brought my gold rush nugget buck, and I read there was trace gold in the area, and that it's recreational gold panning is legal in my state, I put on my swimsuit and went swimming for the first time in years. My goal was to go into the lake some, dig down to what I thought was black sand (I remember from as a kid if you dug deep enough you'd get to black colored sand) and hopefully find some gold. If nothing else, just have fun playing on the beach. I didn't find anything. A lot of my camp friends asked me what I was doing and wanted to watch, and I have experience panning the dirt I buy online so I kind of know what I'm doing, but there wasn't any gold in the lake. Doing a little more research on where to pan for gold, I figure a lake is a pretty bad spot since you want basically "1 way water flow to wash away lite sediments" instead of "2 way waves layering the lite stuff on top of each other." Oh well, it was all for fun anyways.

[time skip in writing]

Woops, I must have said "I'll come back to this after a break" and then 3 months go by. I'll do my best to recall what happened, but it's going to be a little more fractured.

After swimming we had dinner and a camp fire. It was a fun time hanging out. When it came time for the squatters to leave we went back to our motel. The rooms didn't have air conditioning, so we were hot. I remember waking up like 4 times throughout the night and drinking 4 cups of water because I was losing so much water. Breakfast was pretty typical. I had a muffin and bacon at the motel before we went to the campground.

Saturday was pretty eventful. The morning started out pretty tame, just hanging out, catching up. One of the gen 2 girls teaches Zumba and brought her music with her, so she led a Zumba class for anyone that would join in. My mom was one of them, as were some of the other moms. I also did some dog sitting for Louie while his owners went swimming. He had some separation anxiety (because he was rescued off the street), but when I took him for a walk he got really happy and enjoyed the exploring. I brought some manga with me (Splatoon volume 2 and Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man's Chest) and decided to read it after lunch. Well then it started raining, and I was REALLY glad I brought my manga because otherwise I would have been really bored. Everyone huddled under various dining flies, and some people brought out cards for different card games. I had a few people look over my shoulder to see the manga, and I had a little fun explaining why it read backwards. I think around 3PM my parents said "lets go back to our motel," and we did. I did some web surfing and watched TV, and we waited until it was time for mass.

Mass was a little different this year. Normally we go to this church that's kind of out in the woods on Sunday, but this year we went to a church that's in the city on Saturday. That meant I wasn't able to watch the sign language interpreter, because the woods church has ASL. Afterwards my mom ran into someone she knows, apparently an old friend of the camping group. She introduced me as "remember my eldest son? This is him now." That tends to happen quite frequently with me; not as much as when I was in middle school and such, but still happens occasionally. After church we went to the pizza place for dinner. We've been going to this place for about 10 years now, and this year we decided to eat in the restaurant. While we were planning to eat in the restaurant, it was really good since it was still raining. While I was there I found this little sign.

I thought it reminded me of Sarcastic SpongeBob. wE wAnT yOuR cOmEnTs

By now it had stopped raining. We had a camp fire with the wood we kept dry and the chairs we kept dry. We also burned some card board boxes. One thing I did was I brewed decaf sun tea all day, because that night I was going to make my special cocktail "backwoods arnie." I made up some shots for everyone that was old enough to drink and interested, and a lot of people were and thought it tasted really good. My godbrothers also wanted some to drink, so I let them have the decaf sun tea. I made sure to tell their dad it was just decaf sun tea, because I didn't want him thinking I was giving his 11 and 6 year old alcohol, or caffeine before bed. When we went back to the hotel we realized we should probably open the window, and that made things much better.

Sunday was pretty low key. Normally Sunday is church day, but since we already went we didn't go. We had a communal breakfast where we had pancakes, bacon, French toast, and whatever was left over that people didn't want to take home. After breakfast we said our goodbyes, packed-up our camp chairs and other things, and went back to check-out of the motel. After that we started our drive back home, and after unpacking all their stuff I made my way back home. It was great to see everyone again. This has been pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2018

Hey everyone, I went camping with my family over the weekend. This is the annual camping trip that we do with a group of friends every year. Here's the run down; my parents and this group of friends met in a singles group 32 years ago, one year they decided "lets all go camping," and they've been getting together to go camping ever since, bringing their spouses and children with them as they started appearing. Most of us "2nd generation" are close in age, so it's fun growing up together and catching up every time we have a gathering. Many of us 2nd generation are adults now, and some are married bringing their spouses with them and have kids of their own bringing in a 3rd generation. Now that you're all caught up, here's what happened.

On Friday I went over to my parents house early in the morning and we began our trip up. Since my grandpa is kind of on the way, we set-up a quick visit. Dad and I put salt in the water softener and had lunch with him. It's always fun seeing him since he lives kind of far away. After our visit we made it up to our motel. My parents used to camp in a tent, but as they got older they said "we can't do this anymore, there's a little motel not to far from the camp ground, we'll sleep there and just visit for the day." They sleep in the beds and I sleep on the floor on an egg crate mattress and sleeping bag, so it's kind of like camping.

Now for the big fun, seeing everyone. When we showed up one of the first people to greet me was my 10 year old godbrother (my godfather's son). He was quite happy to see me, and I was happy to see him. Soon after that I said hello to my aunt and her kids, and made my way to say hello to everyone. Our group has shrunk over the years, so it's a little easier to remember everyone and spend time with everyone. Last year we had our first 3rd generation baby; first of the 2nd generation to get married, and first to have a baby. This year she was a little older and able to stand (albeit assisted). What added to the cuteness is my 6'5" cousin rescued a chihuahua from under his neighbor's truck 2 weeks before. His name is Louie, and he's really friendly, with everyone. Like, I expected him to be at least nervous around all these new people, but no, just walk right up and asked to be picked up. He looks kind of funny when my cousin holds him, because he's like half the length of his forearm. Now, when we put our little 3rd gen toddler with Louie, it was something else. I think I was holding Louie and her dad was holding her, and both of them wanted to play with each other; like, both were reaching for each other and it was pretty clear they wanted to play. Both us "adults" were careful "our babies" didn't hurt each other; the dog didn't nip or scratch the toddler, and the toddler didn't squeeze or "pet" the dog too hard. But no, both were well behaved and enjoyed each other without problem. There was a little sadness when we said "play time was over," but whatever. It was really cute. There was a little problem with Louie though; because he was so new to his new life, camp was a little overwhelming and he didn't want to eat. Now seeing that chihuahuas are naturally tiny little dogs, and this guy was recently rescued, he really couldn't afford to not eat. Since he didn't want to eat his dog food, I said "lets try peanut butter, dogs like peanut butter." Mom was a little worried that peanut butter wasn't the healthiest thing for a little dog (there's a lot of added sugar, and it's not something dogs should have a lot of), but my cousin was in agreement that "it's better than nothing." Welllll...Louie didn't want to eat the peanut butter, even after we smeared some on his snout where he would instinctively lick off and show "see it's good." Since that didn't work, I suggested cheese, the go-to "hide a pill" for all dog owners. He didn't want that either. It was around lunch time, and I was having bacon with my lunch. I said "lets try bacon," and that thankfully worked. Granted, cured salted meat isn't all that good for anyone, but if it gets him some calories so he doesn't starve that's all we need to worry about. I also gave him some of my hamburger, so that was good.

After that fun, I played corn holes with my godbrother. It's the picnic and camp game where you throw bean bags at boards and try to land on the board or in the hole. It was quite fun. I teamed up with his other godbrother and he teamed up with one of the other "adult 2nd gen." We had a lot of fun. After dinner we went to the ice cream stand that's not too far from the camp ground. I had a soft serve raspberry flavor of the week. It was good, but it was a "sorbet" and not "ice cream," and I wanted some ice cream. Because I didn't want to have another full ice cream cone, I got the smallest thing on the menu, a doggie sunday (little cup of vanilla ice cream topped with a dog biscuit). Since they don't give spoons to dogs, I didn't have a spoon to eat it. After taking off the biscuit I ate it like a dog (or like a cone, it's not completely against social norms to eat ice cream with one's tongue). I tried to give it to Louie, but he didn't want to eat it, so I gave it to a lady who had a dog with a doggie sunday. Our friends thought it was kind of weird I was eating a doggie sunday, but it's just an extra small vanilla ice cream dish. Fun time. After ice cream I brought out my moonshine. I made plans with a couple of the 2nd gens at New Years we would bring different alcohols since we didn't have much at New Years. I brought lemon drop moonshine and captain morgan long island. I like to make what I call a "Backwoods Arnie" with the lemon drop, but I didn't have any iced tea so I just shared some strait moonshine with anyone who wanted it. I didn't get many takers, but whatever. My 4 year old godbrother wore a Spiderman costume that night, and he wanted me to make him "fly like a super hero." I corrected him and said "Spiderman doesn't fly, he swings" as I picked him up by his hands and started swinging him around. He really enjoyed it. It's fun being the semi-responsible young adult; the one that pushes you really high on the swing and will have rough and tumble play, but at the same time is careful enough to make sure you don't get hurt. I had some adults like that when I was little, and it's great that I'm able to be that adult now. When it got late we left for the night and went to our hotel.

Now for Saturday. I started with breakfast, and it was good. Unfortunately it was rainy, so to pass the time Dad and I went into the local town. They have a St. Vincent DePaul thrift store, and sometimes there's good stuff. Unfortunately there wasn't anything this time. After St. Vinnie's we went to a grocery store. I wanted to pick up some iced tea and disposable cups for later that night, because I wanted to make Backwoods Arnies. I was able to find a half gallon of iced tea and little disposable shot glasses. It was perfect. Because of the rain, we went to Saturday evening mass, and then to pizza dinner at a local pizza place. We've been getting pizza from them for a couple years now, but it's always been take out. This is the first time we ate at the restaurant, and we overwhelmed them. They lost my family's pizza order, and it was like an hour before we got our pizza. At least we got to spend time with each other. It was good pizza, we got 5 toppings; ham, pepperoni, banana peppers, pineapple, and mushrooms. After dinner, I made Backwoods Arnies for whoever wanted them. I had more takers on the cocktail than the strait liquor. Unfortunately the iced tea was really thick and didn't mix with the moonshine well. It's a good thing I had the shot glasses because the only way to enjoy it was to just shoot it. It went over quite well, so come new years I'm bringing my own iced tea that'll mix better with the moonshine. It was fun. Once it got late we went back to our motel.

Come Sunday we had breakfast and said our goodbyes. On Sunday we basically pool our left overs and have a community breakfast. I brought the last of my bacon and some bread and an egg. It was fun. I said my goodbyes and it was alright. On our way home we stopped at a Pepperidge Farm outlet store and I bought $75 worth of goldfish crackers and other snacks. Since it's an outlet store, things were significantly discounted, which meant I brought home a lot of food. I ended up filling an entire cupboard. It was a really fun time.

Now for some miscellaneous. One funny thing was how the little kids entertained themselves when it was raining. I don't quite remember what I did when it was raining when I was little, but I know it wasn't "casually annoy the young adults." I mean, when I was between 4 and 10 all the "adults" were "parents." Now, all the "parents" are older, and most of the "kids" are adults. Then again, all the "kids" were also between 4 and 10, and a little older and younger, so we didn't have to "annoy the young adults." I mean, it's not like they were causing problems, we enjoyed their company because they're fun and remind us of camping at that age, but I know my parents would say something like "Pokematic, find something else to do than ask the same questions over and over again." Then again, we also had fun with the answers, so it was all good. I also finally got to finish my Mallard Filmore comic book. I started reading it last year, and haven't read it since last year. I should review it someday. I also finally delivered our friend's "home movies" DVD, after 2 years of converting and waiting for my editor to edit it. That felt good to finally finish that part of my unemployment project. I also didn't take a #vidmewashere picture this year, because vidme is sadly no more. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.

Family Camping 2012

Hey everyone, just came back from camping with friends that I have been camping with since, well forever. Mom and Dad were in a singles group, where they met, and they've all been camping together for over 20 years every year. We've grown and shrunk over the years, and this year seemed much smaller. I used to have trouble keeping tack of everyone's names, because we would have like 10-15 families all with kids and I only saw them a couple of times a year. This year we had 6 families, all of whom have been constant in coming to most gatherings. I know their names, except for a few who still trip me up.

Well now for the fun. We arrived Friday where we helped our friends who we were staying with set up their tent. Mom and Dad didn't want to do full camping so they stayed in a motel while we stayed with some friends in their tent. Friday tends to be a day where we all just kind of hang out and catch up. It's also the day when we go to the ice cream store that's right within walking distance, and is affordable, and as what happened a couple years ago, has onion water. I had crunchy munchy peanut butter. It's vanilla ice cream, with chocolate chunks and peanut butter. Really yummy.

Saturday is typically beach day, and this year was no different. We spent time at the beach, and since the friends we were staying with brought their dog, we spent time at the dog beach. The other time their dog came, 9 or so years ago, she was afraid of the water. This time, she went all the way in, with a little coxing, but fine, and had fun. I went toobing, and was able to stay in, until they made me turn around, then I kept falling off. The toobing was taken on the way to the sand bar with the drop off. It wasn't to too special. It was kind of on the other side of the lake with a bunch of people docked there. I swam off the drop off, and it's like a 45 degree angle. I did see drunk people partying on a pontoon boat. My friend that also went toobing didn't see much with the sand bar, so we just hung out on the boat and chatted about things. One drunk guy swam up to the boat and asked if we'd take him toobing in exchange for the rest of his beer. Friend handled it well with "this isn't my boat so not my call." He was like "OK I can respect that, but if you want to just find me." Well that was our fun on the beach and on the lake.

It was nearing dinner time, and Saturday dinner is always the big dinner with everyone. We have had different dinners over the years. This year, we had pizza and bread sticks. I had my pieces and we just had fun visiting. Our group has a Bob and a Larry, both dads, and they have young kids. As good Christian families, we all love Veggie tales, so Bob and Larry both have Bob the Tomato and Larry the Cucumber T-shirts respectively, and their respective kids have shirts just like their dads. We got this really cute picture of Bob and Larry with their "little Junior Asparaguses." I would upload it but I don't know if they would want it up for the world to see. Just take my word for it.

Sunday, today, was go to church together, pack up, and say goodbyes. We're all Catholic, so we all go to church together. It's a nice church, and to my knowledge, we've all sat in the same spot since we can all sit in this one area. We normally go out to breakfast, like we did back when we all went to the same church and before everyone started moving away, but we had to get my brother to boy scout summer camp and had to miss it. To bad, it's normally quite fun. Well this has been Pokematic signing off and bu-bye.

Camping was fun

Hey everyone, good news, my swagbucks was reactivated. Aparently because I did a bunch of searches at one time it thought I was a bot. Note to self, use bing for a while. And I'm sorry about not uploading any videos this summer. The busy excuse holds some ground, but I probably did have time to but forgot. Oh well, on to fun stuff.

This weekend was the 25th camp out my family has gon on with a bunch of family friends. Being 18, I oviously haven't been on all of them because it's a once a year thing. This year was kind of crazier, and crazy as in fun. We caught chipmunks, went to a local river festival where I shot a pellet gun, BTW I did decent, went swimming, played with my godbrother and godsister, had a fire, slept in a tent, went to Tony's on I-75, collected bottle caps and pop can tabs, went to the icecream store that's close to the camp ground, read my book, and some other miscilaneous things.

The chipmunks probably need some explaining. Well one of the families brought a can of peanuts to give to everyone. But then the chipmunks got into them by chewing through the lid. They ate half of them and we couldn't eat them because of deseeses and stuff. So what did we do? We used the bad peanuts as bait to catch some chipmunks. We set up the stereotypical trap of bait uner a box that is held up by a stick with a pull string. The oldest of us stupid enough to mess with nature people was the one with the pull string and the one that went over to release the chipmunks after capture. Here is what there was: a box, a tent stake, a half eaten can of peanuts, and a string. To my suprise, it worked really well. We captured 2 chipmunks, and I was waiting for the chipmunk to jump up and start trying to eat the one guys face. We were going to do it later, but the chipmunks ate all the peanuts. Oh well we had our fun.

The river festival was fun. We wanted to go primarily for this poorly writen event on the flyer. We had this flyer that told us all the events at the festival, and it had this event called "youth shooting sponsored by the NRA." OK, it wasn't worded exactly like that, but that's what we kept calling it because it emphasised "youth, shooting, and NRA." We weren't able to find it until the end. They had a bunch of venues where people were selling their art and some other stuff. There was some good stuff, but the shooting was the best part. Oviously it wasn't shooting youths, but designed to get the youth into shooting. It was pelet guns, shooting into a trailer that is basically a portable indoor shooting range. I won't bother describing it because if you don't know what an indoor shooting range looks like, go to one, rent a gun, and go shooting. It's really fun.

Tony's on I-75 is more than a restaurant, it's a destination. It has been on both food and travel channel many times. It's like many other restaurants with specialties and atmosphere, but the kicker is the portion size. You order eggs, hashbrowns, toast, and baccon, you will get 3 giant slises of toast, 3 eggs, a pound of hashbrowns, and a pound of baccon. You order a roast beef sandwhich, you are getting a mound of roast beef. You order icecream, you're getting a half gallon. They have giant portions. We went there becaue of the left overs you get. Get leftovers, put them in plastic bags, put them in the food cooler, and warm them up for a meal later. We got full breakfasts and lunches for our family of four out of those leftovers, and when camping, that's easy.

Now for some miscilaneous details. We're a group of maybe 7 families that have been doing this for 25 years. We started out huge, but slowly shrunk. Earlier I mentioned my godbroher and godsister. I just call them that because they are the children of my godfather. The lake had this dog beach put in where we would alwayse go to for the beach because we are almost alwayse in the same area each and every year, and we plan it like that. We prety much took over the dog beach. And teh lake water is really clear because of the zebra muscles. They are an invasive species and bad for the environment, but good for us tourists who want a clear lake. It's almost as clear as a pool of fresh tap water in a clean container. I have a book that I'm reading so I read there. I'll talk about it after I finish it. There's this ice cream store that's with in walking distance from the camp ground. It's good. I think that covers most everything. It was a fun weekend. Now if you'll excuse me, I needto go sandblast my feet. Only bringing crocks to a dusty sandy campground was a bad idea. Laters.

Pokematic goes to black friday

I did something cool recently, black Friday shopping. I went to Walmart at 10:30 and spent 1 and a half hours camping out in front of the dvd section. I brought my psp with many hours of downloaded videos from Crackle, mainly Big Guy and Rusty.

Pokematic Goes to Walmart Black Friday - Funny video clips are a click away

Pokematic Camps Infront of the Dvds - Click here for the funniest movie of the week

DVD Black Friday Frenzy - More free videos are here

Pokematic Marvles at the People at Black Friday - The top video clips of the week are here

Pokematic Marvles at the Line - These bloopers are hilarious

They didn't upload properly, no matter what I tried, sorry.

Because of the trampling, Walmart did something different. This year, they let everyone in early and then had all the deal items wrapped in a cellophane tape thing. I was in front of the dvd section waiting to get Superman Doomsday, Batman Under the Red Hood, Batman and Superman Public Enemies, Green Lantern First Flight (or whatever the subtitle is), and Mr. Beans Holiday. I go all 5 of those movies for about $10. What a great deal, and that's $10 all together. I also got proof that PS2 is still alive and well. They were selling NEW games in the cellophane. I have pictures to prove it.

After Walmart, I went to Kohls. I waited outside for about an hour. I didn't need to go in since I was just holding the spot for my mom and her friend. I hold a spot in line, she buys me stuff of Christmas, it all works out. Sorry, no video or pictures for this part. Hope you enjoyed my Black Friday blog. This has been Pokematic, signing off, and bu-bye.