Off the Grid- Spring Catch 09

Somewhere into the Great North Backwoods we plunged, leaving the city life and M-72 behind.
It was dark, bumpy and anticipation was high for some deep woods river solitude. I must stop and go back a bit and talk about the ride up from SW Michigan. After arriving at MC's house and unloading my stuff for the second time (I had driven over to MD's and he drove to MC's) we surveyed the packing up situation in MC's ride. We knew some stuff had to go already as Brad was still to come with all his stuff. We all had our stuff; coolers, clothes, waders, guns, sleeping bags, on and on. We literally were packed to the gills and were off before 4:00PM. Tunes and conversation kept things lively and the next thing we knew were stopping in Ashton, near Reed City, to get supplies and Brad could get his beloved Blatz that was sold there. They even had Oberon at this little party store. So with munchies, Mega Millions tickets, and beer in tow we were off. Our next couple of stops were of the interesting northern bar variety. It was somewhere along this stretch that Brad became B-Rad for the remainder of the weekend. A story only a few can tell. A bar in Manton called The Shamrock was a quick pitcher stop and then the famous Dingman's off of M-72 where stories were told of previous visits with the legendary Bailey and MC's father, the patriarchs and stewards of the property we were headed to. Burgers, Karoake and more beer had us primed for the jaunt into the woods. (I should mention that I recognized much of this area as my sister S and husband J live not too far away. I recognized pie place. Other sis Su lives up the road in Mancelona).
It was a long, jousting drive back to the river and the cabin, luckily there was not much water in the deep ruts we drove through or limbs blocking the road in.
Once there we had much to unload and do to get the Off the Grid cabin ready for us. Wood fire in the stove going, water pumped, canoe removed from living room and sleeping assignments made. This night would be early to bed as we were tired from the long and eventful Friday it had been. To keep this a bit short I am going to bullet the rest of the trip:

1. Beautiful Saturday Morning-MC made huge B-fast. It was windy and a bit cool but mostly sunny.
2. MC took us on hike of newly surveyed property and surroundings.
3. Came back and for some it was B-Latz thirty, fishing was a bit cold-no bites.
4. I got out my portable I-Pod player and we listened to River songs watching the river flow.
5. The others fished but no bites-more beer, whiskey and brandy flowed. More hiking.
   
6. B-Rad shot his rifle MD and I shot some Blatz cans with his pistol.
7. MD made this great dinner of Bloody Mary's,Ribs, taters, salad and some venison that B-Rad brought.
8. Collected wood for fire by the river and the BS flowed like the Manistee. B-Rad even did some wild air guitar to the sounds of MC's off the grid lantern-music-player function player without falling into the fire. The old weathered dock became the centerpiece for the fire and kept us warm in the crisp spring air off the Manistee.
9. We retreated to the cabin where B-Rad made a B-line for the couch and crashed early.
   
10. Good Mike and Bad Mike ganged up on little old flatlander me and I was the Biggest Loser of the poker game. The bloody mary shots helped ease the pain.
    
11. Off to dreamland we went like the Walton's riffing off the wall, off the record, off center and finally off to sleep.

Sunday, we did a Trout Town breakfast in Kalkaska, toured some more of the area, threw a couple more lines out along the river (couple nibbles but no catch), basked in sunshine as it was warming up, cleaned up the area and packed up. On the way out we saw an Osprey looking for some prey off the trail. Always a positive- a hawk sighting.
Trip back went fairly fast-tired we were from a great north woods river weekend-a thank you to MC and his family n friends for making it possible. It was one for the memory banks with fodder for tales to come. I look forward to a return someday.