{"id":6061,"date":"2023-07-06T13:53:14","date_gmt":"2023-07-06T19:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/?p=6061"},"modified":"2023-07-06T13:57:31","modified_gmt":"2023-07-06T19:57:31","slug":"a-cabin-in-the-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/2023\/07\/06\/a-cabin-in-the-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"A Cabin in the Woods"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. The Cabin<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Paul and Jill have a cabin in the woods on a lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Paul and I knew each other in junior high, high school, and college. They’ve been there since the roads became reliably passable in May. And Doug was there, as he has been for the past two summers helping them build the cabin. Doug and I knew each other in Boy Scouts and went to high school and college together. <\/p>\n

So after the fair and industrious Trudy flew home from Minnesota, I continued into Wisconsin and then the UP, heading to that cabin in the woods.<\/p>\n

“Call me when you get to Munising,” Paul said. “I’ll meet you in the hotel parking lot on the corner in Seney, and you can follow me from there.” You see, their place is in the middle of nowhere — no address other than GPS coordinates. From Seney, it’s a long drive on narrow sand road. Easy to get lost. I was happy to follow his lead.<\/p>\n

When I got to the hotel, there was Paul in his car in the parking lot waving to me to follow, which I did. I followed his contrail thru the sand<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

to a clearing where their off-grid cabin stood shining in the sun<\/p>\n

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on the south shore of Big Bell Lake.<\/p>\n

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2. Getting Stuck On Entry <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

“Pull in over there,” Paul said, “over the ferns. You can pull way in and then back up your trailer.”<\/p>\n

That’s what I did. I pulled in over the ferns. Way in… clunk<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n

My front wheels dropped into a shallow ditch. The frame of the car was resting on the ground. The front wheels just spun themselves deeper. There was no backing out.  Before I’d even arrived, I was stuck.<\/p>\n

After a bit of failed pushing and spinning, we unhooked the trailer, pushed it out of the way, and tied our trailer hitches together with a strap. Paul was able to pull me out, although not without snapping the strap. But… disaster averted.<\/p>\n

Still what an entry, eh?<\/p>\n

3. Getting Stuck On Exit<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

After three days had passed, it was time to leave. Paul drew a map of the back roads on a grocery bag.<\/p>\n

“You can’t go wrong,” he proclaimed confidently. “Everywhere you have to turn is at a tee. (Of course, that glosses over all the lesser roads that branch off along the way. In such situations, I am fully capable of turning at the wrong place. Still, I had a map. It was a glorious drive thru the woods glowing in the morning sun.<\/p>\n

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At places, the stacked logs from a recent lumbering towered above the car on the left and right.<\/p>\n

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Paul’s map was perfect. I turned at the intersection with all the names nailed to the trees<\/em><\/span>, remembering not to follow the arrow to Jeff’s. And I was able to avoid the mistake of turning off into the woods on the many minor tributaries. And then I came to the intersection with the sand<\/em><\/span>. I knew to go left, but the intersection snuck up on me, and before I could do that, I had taken the right branch — right into deep dry sand.<\/p>\n

20 minutes into the deep woods, I was stuck. Sheesh.<\/p>\n

I put the car in reverse and managed to back up enough to get a running start at the sand. I barely made it out. (If I hadn’t who knows if I would have caught up with Paul and Jill before they drove off in the other direction.)<\/p>\n

Minutes later, I was at the big intersection. And 20 minutes later I was on civilized pavement again and on the road.<\/p>\n

I’ll try to do better next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1. The Cabin Paul and Jill have a cabin in the woods on a lake in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Paul and I knew each other in junior high, high school, and college. They’ve been there since the roads became reliably passable in May. And Doug was there, as he has been for the past […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6061"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6064,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6061\/revisions\/6064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6061"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6061"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/augerhandle.net\/blogs\/jumpingfish\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6061"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}