Green Greetings and Summery Salutations to all!

It is dripping here after a light rain and the sun is trying to peek out and prise a rainbow. It’s the kind of rain where you can walk from the camper to the garage while carrying the big cat and not get too wet or hissy. So, why was I carrying Buffy back from the camper? We had been enticing her to try and jump out the window.

Wait. What? You say?

Let me take you back to Tales of Our Vacation.

Our first ever two week vacation.

The first after the hubster had retired, literally the day before we left.

A camping trip in Michigan. With the two cats, one of whom had a history of jumping out of the camper windows.

She waited through camping in Science Woman’s backyard. She waited through camping in the noisy, full Michigan State Parks.

She waited until we camped in a National Forest at a site with its own swamp and entrance to the four foot by two foot beach on one of twelve Pine Lakes in Michigan. It was one of our favorite sites, quiet, secluded, piney, but you probably figured that, serene and most surprising, bug free.

She waited until the hubster was asleep and I was cuddled up next to him reading my Kindle.

She jumped up on the bed, strode purposely over to the corner of the screen, muscled her way through it and jumped out into the complete darkness.

I was so relaxed and sleepy, but the heavy landing on the bed was the alarm as I turned from my book and watched her rear end bounce through the window.

Oh crapulence.

It was warm enough so I could go outside in my bare feet without a jacket, which is what I did, hurrying to try and keep an eye on her. I could pinpoint where she was by hearing her steps through the grass and her occasional look back at me, eyes glowing. I stopped about 30 feet from the trailer, called her, and felt a whiff of hope as she doubled back to the camper.

Yeah, and then she took off again, toward the swamp, out of earshot and sight.

I grabbed a chair and just sat outside the camper, waiting, thinking.

My cats are indoor cats. And as obnoxious as Buffy can be, she wouldn’t stand a chance against a predator.

But she doesn’t know this, no matter how many times I tell her.

After a long five minutes, I see her glowing eyes jumping through the tall grass, coming in the general direction of the camper.

I did say she was obnoxious, right?

Evidently she was done with her walk on the wild side because she let me catch her.

The rest of the night was spent with the windows closed. Hot.

The next day we drove 45 minutes to a pet store to buy a strong harness that looked like it was USMC approved and a kennel in case the Feline Houdini could escape.

Again, she wears the harness in the afternoon to get used to it. But by the time the hubster was asleep and I was reading in bed, I hear her start to work at the harness. I swear she used a few simple machines to pull, tug, and finally maneuver out of this harness!

We caught her before she jumped, the hubster went out to the car to get the kennel, we wrestled her into it and closed the door that she’d need opposable thumbs to unlatch.

And she cried all night. Her cry sounds like she’s saying, “Hello? Hello?” Except it comes out as , “Hay wo? Hay wo?”

All

Night

Long.

So we’re not getting any sleep here and we have one crabby cat and one confused cat.

Thankfully we decided to drive to a National Forest Campground in the UP where the high for the day was 65 and keeping the windows closed at night wasn’t a ventilation problem. We stayed there for four days and caught up on our sleep.

Shortly thereafter, we drove home. Which brings up to why we were encouraging Buffy to jump out of the window.

Well, the clue is that there was pvc “sawdust” all over the garage floor. Yep, the hubster created two pvc frames with special screen that is petproof. And we wanted to see if she could pop them out.

So far, so good. Of course, being the hubster, he made them to fit exactly into the window frames. And they look good!

I will need to try a nighttime test tonight.

********** no transition here********

We learned a lot about each other, retirement and vacationing through those two weeks. The popular phrase was “Well, THAT was a learning experience!”

For instance, find out where the festivals are going to be so you don’t end up in a traffic snarl between the midway and the food tents in downtown Traverse City during National Cherry Festival. Here we thought it would be a city on the bay like Bayfield, WI. Small, walkable, easy to navigate. I guess we should have figured that out as we came through the suburbs to get to the bay…

Or found a coffee shop with Internet and done some research first.

Another thing we learned was that the Internet and the National
Forests and the roads to said forests are often mutually excusive.

Again, find that coffee shop.

We learned that lighthouses are a great place to snag a lot of license plates that we didn’t get while in the national forests. Alaska, Montana and North Dakota were there as well as two other MN plates. (We hardly saw any other MN plates in Michigan)

We learned that if you go to a campground other than a Michigan State Park, you can still dump there for free as long as the, uh, contents of the blackwater tank were, uh, created while you had been at the previous state park. A handy little bit of info.

I learned that cotton underwear doesn’t dry very fast at 50 degrees nightly temperature. And that the placement of the drying bra on the shower rod was important to the process of brushing my teeth. (My hair snagged on the hooks as I spit.)

We learned that politics can also be part of the camping experience.

Some of the sites were unreservable or FF first come, first served. Ours was one of those. Three other parties wanted our campsite when we left. We felt an obligation to the couple who approached us three days before we left with the story that they had been coming to this campground on the south side of Lake Superior for thirty years with their kids and this was their favorite site. The guy next to us also wanted it but he didn’t ask until the morning we were leaving.

Hmmmm. What to do. Well, let’s just say that the couple who asked first got the site.

We knew what it was like to want that site.

When we first got to the campground, the FF site we chose was across the road and up the hill from the sites right on Lake Superior. It was Mosquito Central.

The people staying at the FF site across the road right on Lake Superior were supposed to be leaving the next morning, according to the white registration slip on their site post.

We got up early. We filled out two registration slips, one for Mosquito Central should we not get the site across the road, and one for the site on Lake Superior.

The hubster spied on them through the pine branches and around the side of the camper. “Get ready”, he whispered. “I think they’re packing up.”

“Why don’t you just go ask them?” was met with a stare.

“No. We have to be ready to move fast. And we have to remember that when we move the camper down the hill, we have to take the pot of turkey jerky stew out of the fridge because it doesn’t have a top on it and will slosh. I gotta go back and watch them.”

Hmmmm. I picked up my crossword puzzle book, the new registration slip, my water bottle, and the pot of turkey jerky stew, walked down the hill and asked them if they were leaving.

‘Yes,” she answered warmly.

“We’d like to get this site, so don’t mind me. I’ll just sit here by the site post, out of your way with my pot of turkey jerky stew. Okay?”

“No problem. You’ll love this site,” she smiled.

The hubster brought me a chair and I sat there for 30 minutes with my crosswords and my stew as they packed up and drove out right at the noon checkout time.

I smiled and slipped my registration slip into post’s clip as the hubster drove down the hill and positioned the camper to take over, uh, park at the site.

It was our favorite spot of the whole trip.

Yes, we learned a lot about ourselves, our expectations, the cats, how to prep for vacationing in new places on this trip. I think the most important thing we learned was that we want to keep doing this. We were already planning our next trip as we drove home. And that’s saying something.

Have a terrific rest of your Tuesday and a Wacky Wednesday tomorrow. Hug the ones you love. Drink lots of water. Don’t take any wooden nickels.

Love,

Janet