The One Day Vacation

Do you remember last summer when I went to Detroit, to a motel, and got food poisoning?

Well I'd paid for two extra nights, and couldn't stay I was so sick.

So this summer the motel lady, a cat lady herself, said to come up and spend a couple nights.

So I went Sunday and Monday.   Preparation was hellish with people calling me about cats right til I left.   I threw some peanut butter and jam and some bread in the car along with half an old small watermelon and a bag of baby carrots.

I arrived late afternoon Sunday.  It was overcast and hot, sometimes splattering rain.  The sides of every road were lined in cars parked, even haphazardly around No Parking signs.  Oh gosh, it was worse than I could have imagined.

I think of Detroit Lake only in terms of the summer I went there with a friend, to use one of her two kayaks.  The lake was jammed in rowdy motor boaters and one yelled at us that we better not be going out in that direction and he waved out to the main lake, or else it might not end well for us, something to that affect.  I turned to my friend and said I think we just got threatened.  That was maybe two years ago.

The boaters there are rude, to put it mildly.  I have no way else to describe them than that encounter and witnessing their behavior there.

There was no finding a way to the lake that afternoon or evening.   So I settled into the little room and watched TV.  Monday morning I drove to a campground on the far side of the lake and paid out $8 for a day use tag and walked down to some rocks.  I was intending to swim.  But the water didn't look good.  It was thick with rivelets of algae.  I hadn't seen any notices about the water.  Often Detroit gets the toxic blue green algae blooms.  I did end up swimming but was too nervous about the gunk to put my head and shoulders in, so just kicked around some while most of me was up on a foam board.  Some family came down with a dog but tied the dog up far from shore to some bushes. Someone asked "doesn't your dog like to swim" and they replied that they'd been warned not to let the dog in the water with the algae.  Oh gosh, now I was sure I'd missed some warning somewhere that this algae was the toxic blue green stuff.

Just after noon, I left to drive home and take care of my cats.  Takes a little over an hour to drive home.  I was home maybe two hours doing all the cat chores.  Then I drove back and took my kayak but it was 6 p.m. by the time I got back up to Detroit.  I had not taken my kayak Sunday afternoon since my shoulder and knee were both sore and I thought, "don't do it, you'll be sorry". 

After a day of Aleve, my shoulder was better, however, and kayaking doesn't involve leg work, not much anyhow.  So I took it back with me, to Detroit, after doing the cat chores at home.  I didn't get out on the lake until 7:00 p.m.  I drove over to the other side again, to the campground boat ramp.  It was nearly dark. Dusk I guess.  I paddled around for an hour.  Then I went back to the room, which was very very hot.  It had no AC.  Usually you would not need AC in Detroit.  It's in the mountains for gosh sakes.  I just happened to be there the days it was hottest its been in a long while.

My knee hurt badly after I laid down.  I didn't bother either night to get under the bed covers.  Just too hot.  I finally woke at 6:00, and drove back home this morning.  I just wanted my own bed and to sleep for four hours.  Which I did and then I felt pretty good and wanted something to eat besides peanut butter and jam.

I liked the little room a lot but I don't really like Detroit at all.  It's too noisy and just not my sort of place.  It attracts jet skiers and motor boaters.   I need, for a vacation, somewhere peaceful near water that is clean.  Ha!  How picky I have become, eh?    This old lady whose clothes look like those of a begger has become picky about vacation haunts.  That makes me laugh to say that.