Greetings all!
Sunday morning dawned bright and early at Camp Moi. To be precise it was about 4am. Our bijou little home doesn't include curtains really....just a few thin cotton pieces strung over the window. Even if they had been heavier it wouldn't have drowned out the shrieking of the Loons on the lake (no I am not talking about the tea party either). Still, a well placed pillow over the top of the head allowed a few more hours of sleep sending us through to about 8am.
Once we were up and in the land of the semi living, things didn't seem quite so bad. James took a look around him and realised that maybe he had judged the placed through jaded, distant, and tired eyes. The place didn't seem nearly as dire in the daylight. Yes the sofa, walls, bed, vinyl, etc was still there. But he seemed a little more content with it all. I, the hardier one of the two of us when it comes to roughing it (yes, dear reader, I am deathly serious. You may find me at Claridges or the Four Seasons when funding permits, but I am always happy to go camping and do adventurous things...like shopping in the dollar store) just smiled and nodded sagely.
Sunday was to be an easy day. We had some chores and work to do, so we headed off to Brainerd (such an odd name). We needed to find a laundromat/laundrette, James had two hours of work to do online, and I had to wrap up my last time sheet for Cisco. So we spent most of the morning and some of the afternoon there, stopping to pick up a lovely Weber charcoal grill from Home Depot for $30 on the way home so that we didn't have to go back to the Blue Goose and be intimidated by Sherry and The Hydraulic Boobs (wouldn't that be an awesome name for a country western band?)
We did, however, go for a bike ride when we returned to Camp. It was to be our first piece of real exercise since leaving Kentucky back on the morning of July 30th. So in the heat we straddled the saddles and pushed off down the driveway for a ride into Garrison. It was very pleasant, with the exception of some fat, lard ass trucker who tried to knock us off our bikes deliberately when we tried to cross the road. A shake of my fist and an evil stare made me feel better, though I still peddled hard to make sure that I was safely on the other side of the road before he could get me. But other than that, the ride was largely lovely and uneventful. We totalled about 7 miles all told before panting back up the hill to the resort, gasping for a glass of wine. Yes, dear readers, we are destined to be two old fat knackers by the time we return to Hebron in a week. Ah well....C'est la Vie! Dinner was grilled on the new BBQ and we turned in for the night.
Monday dawned with another early start, though this time I had a horrid headache that made me retreat under the covers for a while longer. Ibuprofen and coffee soon sorted me out and we set off to enquire about fishing trips. One of the demons that James is keen to lay to rest on this trip is "The Fishing Trip with Dad". I gather that there was a trip with his dad in the dim and distant past which involved James not doing very well with his rod (ahem...) and his Dad yelling at him and calling him a duffer. Consequently, the fishing trip demon needs to be dealt with. Having asked the owner of the resort, Orin, and our next door neighbours at the site, Earl and Marty, which was a good company to take a trip with we had settled on Garrison Sports. Having been told that The Blue Goose fishing trips were always full of drunken yahoos we had figured that that would not be good for James' delicate fishing constitution. So off we toddled toward the aforementioned place to enquire about the details of "getting yer rod on....." as I like to refer to it.
Pulling up at Garrison Sports I was a little puzzled as to a sign outside that said "Bear bait here". Those of you who are Friends of Dorothy too will understand that this is not the kind of thing that you expect to see outside a fishing shop. Having been referred to as Bear Bait before, I stepped gingerely inside. Stepping up to the counter triggered a very nice lady to appear from the backroom and she smiled broadly at us both. James, instantly at ease, started on his whole talk about wanting a fishing trip and being a novice, and not having done it for years etc. The women nodded appreciatively and before too long they were getting on fabulously. Meanwhile I, the observant one, had noticed a very prominent HRC equal rights sticker affixed to the front of the counter. I hissed "James, look" and pointed to the sticker. He ignored me, as usual, and carried on with his new best friend. After a few minutes, I tried again...."James, have you seen this?" I whispered. Still I was ignored. This, dear reader, is a normal but frustrating sense of affairs. I mention something or point something out and am duly "tuned out", only for James to suddenly "discover" the thing that I mentioned and pretend that he was the one who first found it. Sure enough a split second later James looked down and saw the sticker. "Oh look", he said to the owner, you have an equal rights sticker on your counter". The owner smiled and said "Yes, my daughter is..." and stopped. You could see the calculation taking place in her brain....and then looking at both of us (who must have appeared a safe bet" continued "a lesbian". And it that point it was like everyone was family. She and James continued chatting up a storm and I was left to mooch around the store looking at the various shapes and sizes of rods and poles.
Before long, husband of female owner appeared behind the counter too. By this point James had decided that we were going fishing on the Wednesday morning trip (8am -12pm). Surprise! That was also the trip that was being captained by the lesbian daughter and her significant other. James, thrilled at the idea, was clearly in his element. All memories of "The Fishing Trip from Hell" seemed to have vanished. As husband of female owner approached, his wife turned to him and said "These two gentlemen noticed the equality sticker on the counter!" At which point, husband turned round, took one look at us, and then, in a voice that boomed throughout the ENTIRE STORE and shook the rafters, said in a broad and resonating Minnesota accent "Ah, homo's are you then?"
Now, dear reader, I am not easily caught off guard. But this is deepest and darkest Minnesota we are in. Paul Bunyon may look like an escapee from the gay bar, circa 1982, but it still doesn't strike me as the last bastion of tolerance, especially with fruit cakes like Michelle Bachmann liable to be lurking behind a pillar. A quick look around assured me that there was no one else within earshot and that we were safe. James at this point had first laughed nervously and then said "yes" to husband owner. At which point everyone chuckled and we carried on pretending that we were in an episode of The Walton's. And with that, we all shook hands and sealed the deal. Yes, we are booked on a fishing trip in Garrison, MN on Wednesday morning with a couple of lesbians. Is Garrison ready for this? Although slightly alarming at first, it was heartening and lovely that the owners had so straight forwardly embraced us and their daughter. I can't wait till Wednesday to tell her about it!
The afternoon took us off to Kathio State Park for a hike. Arriving, we checked in at the visitors office, bought our state park permit and headed on to the hiking trails. Everything was suspiciously quiet. Still, we sprayed ourselves down with bug spray (Ben's 30% deet, thank you very much) and headed off into the tundra. You can see pictures of us all ready at the start of the trail in this blog. Don't we look happy! It was, however, not to last. After about 45 minutes of hiking we realised why there was no-one else there. That reason was the bugs. I can honestly say that I have never seen or heard so many mosquitoes in all my life. Although the bug spray was doing a good job of keeping them at bay, it seems that the effective distance of bug spray is a distance of about 6 inches from the body. Both of us were enveloped in clouds of mozzies that made it seem like we were in a horror movie. Sure, they were not biting, but it was really difficult to "Keep Calm and Carry On" as we Brits like to do. So with much flailing of arms we had to cut the walk short and return to the car. Mosquitoes and Deer Fly - 1, James and David - 0. Bummer.
And so, with that, dear reader, we returned home, cooked our dinner and spent a quiet evening at the cabin. Having stopped off at the liquor store for wine we sat inside scowling at the bugs that littered the outsides of the window. I noticed that there was big spiders web, complete with large, unpleasant, hairy, hungry spider on the outside of the window next to my chair. So I turned on the table lamp next to the window and watched a million mosquitoes fly straight into the spiders web and get caught. I cackled out loud to myself, while remembering a line from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark;
"Revenge is better than Christmas",
And with that, dear reader, I bid you goodnight.
Big love,
D&J
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