Camping story #1 - Lyre River

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So on Wednesday I left home about 9:00 AM, picked up Molly at Rick’s shop and went to the Lyre River campground. It’s a free campground managed by the Department of Natural Resources. There are about 15 campsites and two, um, outhouses, shitters. It’s only 25 miles from my place so it is quick to get to.

The natives called it Singing Waters but when our ancestors came and started taking it away from them a Captain Kellett changed the name to the Lyre River, after that ancient musical instrument. Just after arriving there I spotted a quarter so I figured that as a good sign.

There weren’t many campers there so I picked campsite #1 at the end of campground, figuring that at least I wouldn’t have other idiot campers on both sides of me. Idiots on one side of me is about all I want to tolerate. They are fair sized campsites so no one is real close to other campers anyway.

I bought my tent some time ago but had never put it up before, I just bought it in case I needed it for emergencies, if my place burned, earthquake, company, etc. Because I had a big boat in the marina this is the first time I’ve gone camping since moving here.

So I pull it out of it’s nice case and spread it out to put up. This is not a 30 second pop-up tent, it takes some work to put it up. So I fiddle with it for about 20 minutes and think to myself, “Hum, I’d better look at the instructions”. LOL, I’m not such a frigging idiot that I won’t read instructions when I need to.

It starts going faster until I get to were they say, “Have a person go inside the tent and hold it up”. WTF? I’m alone here except for Molly who is only 10 inches tall and a stupid dog. So I get out my folding camp saw and cut a straight branch about six feet long to hold it up while I install the fiberglass rods on the outside that supports it all. Once it is put up one time it’s pretty easy to do it the second time, I’ve put it up on Helen’s lawn for it too dry and then I will clean it and put it back in it’s carrying case.

One stupid thing about this tent is the “brow”, the flap over the doors. It doesn’t stick out far enough and when it is raining the rain runs into the tent when you open the door flap, or if you don’t have the bottom zipper closed. I rigged up an extension to the brow and will have Rick sew on a better one.

One of the first things Molly managed to do was rap her chain around one of the cover ropes and stake about three times. But I will write about Molly in another post.

By noon I had the camp set up pretty well and Molly and I spent the rest of the day goofing off and going for walks. Along toward evening Molly and I took a little walk and I spotted a rig with Illinois plates on it so I stopped to ask the man were he was from, Chicago. We talked for a while, he is just bumming around checking out the country, then I started a small campfire and just enjoyed the evening and blew some soap bubbles.

So the Singing Waters is a fast moving river and I wasn’t used to all that noise at night when sleeping and I kept waking up, but I got used to it after a few nights. I’ll be doing a number of posts about the camping trip, a single post would be way too long.

And, the vice president of the local chapter of the Insane Chicks Society called last evening and I’m going to her place for lunch today. I don’t think she can get on my journey with me so I reckon it’s pretty much a waste of time, but being the fool I am I will go.

Hey, have a great day, hugs…. BBC