An Almost-Tragic Adventure
They say that God protects fools and children. That must surely cover my adventures with the cousins. I always have this horrible fear that this might be the road-trip during which something horrible happens; this might be the day when something wicked this way comes...
BUT NOT TODAY!!!!!
So it was Easter vacation, and for the first time in three years all six cousins had "Spring Break" (heathen name) at the same time. Even Ethan was down from Oregon. As it turned out, my cousin Mark couldn't come; he was going to a week-long Bible study, during which he read the Gospel of Mark and ran around topless in the snow. But even without Mark (arguably the coolest of the six of us) we still had to do something together. For one thing, we needed to work on our epic motion picture "The Seventeen-and-a-half Really Tall Things".
The first order of business was to go shopping. So I, brother Dave, and cousin Ethan headed out to WalMart, RiteAid, and SaveMart (in that order). In a brave counter-culture move, we decided to take the camcorder so that we could film ourselves shopping, capture our witty and insightful comments about the merchandise, and stealthily film our fellow unsuspecting customers' thighs. (When you hold a camcorder in your hand, dangling your arm by your side so as to not look suspicious, all you get are shots of thighs.) This little escapade got us yelled at in WalMart (a.k.a. "the Man"), but luckily not until after we were done shopping. Nobody in RiteAid or SaveMart even cared.
As we emerged into the parking lot, shopping cart heavy-laden with booty, we noticed an ominous portent: clouds were gathering. It had been relatively clear all day, but it looked like it might start raining, and we were doing our thing the next day! To date, we had never actually been rained on. We've had cold and hot weather, but not wet. Until this time. It started raining. It was raining (though sometimes just sprinkling) the next morning when we got up. As we were loading up the car, we took a vote on where to go: west, to the Tumeys, east to Pine Flat, or east to "that place where we went last year". The vote came up for Pine Flat. My mom suggested, "Why don't you just go to the park in town?" I love my mom, but sometimes moms just don't understand.
Here is the team, preparing to depart:
(Note: I have no idea who that taste-challenged person on the right is. I mean my right. I mean his right, the left side of the dang picture.)
We started driving. It was still raining, and very misty (like a light fog). After about an hour we arrived at Pine Flat lake:
This picture was taken from that overlook point where we always stop. It's called "Somebody's Point", I think. I can never remember the name.
Onward! Next, we stopped at the bridge, the site of our first adventure at Pine Flat. We hiked back along the "creek" to our old stomping grounds:
That's a lot of water. Everything was wet; even the path we were walking on was frequently interrupted by tiny creeks. My "waterproof" hiking boots were less waterproof than I hoped. We pushed on, and came to our original filming spot:
(Compare and contrast with how it looked on our last visit.)
We also passed the "Shrine to Food Preservation", the hotdogs site. Frequent readers of this space will recall that on our first trip my cousin Mark found a bag of hotdogs under a tree, alone and scared. They were probably separated from their herd. They looked just like normal hotdogs, despite having weathered the elements for who-knows how long. Every year, we've gone back to pay homage to those hotdogs, and every year they've looked exactly the same. It's nice to know that some things in this crazy world have the guts to stay the same. But I digress; this year, we couldn't get to the hotdogs, because our path was blocked by THIS:
(Be sure to click for a larger view. Bear in mind that the culvert in the picture is about two feet wide.) We couldn't get by to make our pilgrimage, so we left. We were, after all, on a tight schedule; we still had to find a filming location. We drove down the road, until I spotted a small turnoff by a cattle-guard. One quick illegal U-turn later and we were parked by the side of the road. A dirt trail led up into the hills. Onward!
We followed this trail for a bit, until it looped around above the road and leveled out. Some big rocks were stacked above the road in a man-made manner, and from here we could command a fine prospect:
We brought up all our supplies and costumes and combat gear and filmed as much of our movie as we could stand. If I ever get a better web host, I'll post videos. In the meantime, here we are contemplating the craft of acting:
(On the left is the pile of rocks, over which the previous picture was taken.) Just before we left, the sun started to come out.
Having had our fill of the theater, we went back to the car and drove on. Sunshine considerably brightened the mood. We stopped at a turnoff overlooking the lake:
and
are two very nice views.
We continued, turning off at the road that supposedly leads to Haslett Basin. It might; it might not. We've driven down this road several times and never seen the elusive Haslett Basin. Perhaps we simply didn't go far enough, or perhaps the Paradisal-sounding Haslett Basin is merely a myth. We stopped at a large turnout over a river (I think this might be "Big Creek"?) Most of us sat in the car and ate, but my brother Dave got out to stretch.
After about fifteen minutes I got out to look for Dave. The last place I saw him was heading down towards the river. So I went that way, only to find that the path basically drops off into the water. Not finding Dave anywhere, I assumed that he had tried to go that way, fallen in the river, and none of us had heard his screams for help over the car radio. This was followed by about ten minutes of half-panicked hunting, looking for a body bobbing in the river, when finally stupid ol' Dave walks up from the other side of the road. Jerk. He KNEW I was worried and he was INTENTIONALLY hiding over there, laughing at my anguish. What a butt.
Here's where my brother almost didn't die:
So we all got back in the car and headed home. On the way back, I thought the ride was a little bouncy. Of course, the road was very bumpy and muddy, so it was probably nothing. (After all, with all the cousins and food we were carrying 400+ more pounds than usual.) And then, once we got back into civilization, it seemed like the car was sliding a bit in the rear; but that was probably just because the roads were wet. It wasn't until we got all the way home that we noticed the softness and lowness of the rear driver's side tire. Luck or divine intervention; you decide.