August 2012

August is camping month for us. Through hard-won experience, we have finally learned that by August, many of the nasty biting creatures have departed making camping more bearable. The awful sand fleas that crawl up your pant legs and leave red welts as a parting gift, the tiny black flies that are said to have driven normal men insane, and finally, the bane of the North Woods, mosquitoes, have generally departed leaving us in blessed peace for a month or more before the start of cold weather. Accordingly, we camp in August. We just finished a short camping trip of four days with our granddaughters. This was a vehicle-based camping trip in our 5th wheel. We camped at Rodgers City along Lake Huron at Hoeft State Park, named after wealthy lumberman Paul Hoeft . The heavily wooded park has a one-mile long beach that watches over the sun as it rises from Canada to Michigan, illuminating heavy stands of Moose Maple and Hemlock trees nestled among the more common birch and spruce. The granddaughters had a blast digging in the sand at the beach. Grandpa and Grandma got hernias chasing after them as they ran to the beach each day. The best-known feature of Rogers City is its calcite operation. Calcite, the chemical name for calcium carbonate, is the primary constituent of limestone. Limestone is quarried at Rogers City at the largest calcite operation in the world. The limestone is shipped around the country from Rogers City, primarily by Great Lakes freighters that regularly load at the deep-water port at the quarry. Rogers City celebrates its heritage and economic mainstay with a weeklong Nautical Festival held each August. We scheduled our camping trip to enjoy the festival. The granddaughters watched the nautical-themed parade, chased after candy from the fire trucks in the parade, watched an air show and spent one late night at a sensational fireworks display. They also ate oversized hamburgers, burnt marshmallows, S’mores, and hobo pies that we roasted over the campfire. Did I mention that the Mrs. and I enjoyed all those things, also? The only difference between us and them is that she and I gained weight from our excesses while the little ones seemed to need food all the time. Maybe the excitement at the parade, the beach, the playground, the fireworks and the campfire used up all the calories they consumed. It isn’t fair. Our next camping trip in August will be a little harder as we visit the backwoods without a vehicle or electricity at our beck and call. We will be making our customary once per year trip to the Canadian forests and waters east of Lake Superior. We plan to spend a week in the backcountry using a canoe as the means of transport. I’ll let you know how we fare and whether we have been able to lose the Rogers City calories and hernias.