Due to a number of circumstances outside of our control, my wife and I took our last camping trip a couple of weeks ago. Fall is actually one of our favorite times to camp. Many of the parks throughout the state are basically dead once the kids head back to school, and the cool days and cooler nights are the perfect recipe for sitting around the campfire. It's not uncommon for 
Unfortunately, due to some medical issues with one of her family members, we have found ourselves spending more time focusing on that. I mean obviously, that's the most important thing right now, but as we were talking about it the other day, we decided it wasn't going to be worth it to try and squeeze in another camping trip. I'm honestly surprised we went on this last once since the day before we left we spent most of the evening in the hospital.
The family member was adamant that we not change our plans simply because of them, so with a bit of hesitation, we headed up to Otsego (ott-see-go) Lake State Park just south of Gaylord, MI. Actually, the hesitation in leaving wasn't just because of the family member. As we were getting ready to pack up and leave, I discovered the trailer slide was not working properly. If you can't get the slide in the right way, you really shouldn't be towing the trailer, so I knew it had to get fixed.
I crawled underneath the trailer and realized the lag screws had rusted out from one of the slide arms. When I was pulling in the slide, only one side was coming in which made the whole thing crooked. I quickly ran down to the hardware store and got what I needed to temporarily fix the slide. Then we were off.
As we were driving down the road,
"What do people do who aren't able to fix things themselves?"
I said, if that were us, we probably would have had to scrap the trip and try to take the trailer in to the repair place. Either that, or have someone come to our house to look at it. I'm sure it would have cost a pretty penny. I'm glad I was raised to know how to be a bit dangerous with tools and fix a lot of things myself. It's sad that a lot of those skills are fading away.
Due to our late start, we arrived at the campground later than we usually do, so we decided to get some take out for dinner instead of making our own. We ended up going to a local BBQ place that I don't think either of us was overly impressed with. In fact, I can't even remember the name of it and I wouldn't even waste your time with it. The pulled chicken tacos my wife got were okay she said, but the BBQ platter I got was pretty unimpressive. The brisket was more like pot roast, the pulled chicken was pretty dry, and the ribs were just kind of meh.
I'm glad we tried it, but I wouldn't be going there again. At least not by choice.
Believe it or not, it's not always easy to find a camping site that has trees which are conducive to putting up my hammock. I got lucky on this trip however, and I was able to bust it out for the first time in quite a while. I spent the majority of Friday afternoon laying in the hammock reading one of my latests books. It was wonderful!
We had a site right near the water, so we were able to walk down and see the sunset the first two nights we were there. On Saturday night the clouds moved in and we actually spent part of the night inside the trailer because it started to rain. This was the weekend that the big lunar eclipse happened, but we didn't get any good photos because there were too many trees in the direction of the moon. Plus, I didn't really feel like staying up until 1 in the morning. I'm getting old!
It's always a bit bittersweet when we close out another season of camping. It feels like we just started the other day, but here we are getting ready to winterize the trailer before the snow starts to fly. We had some really great memories this Summer and I know I will find myself going back through my photos and remembering them fondly. I can't wait to make more memories next summer. Hopefully I find some better BBQ too!
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