What I Did On My Summer Vacation
Posted on Tuesday, Jul 18, 2006by Matt Stratton
Age 31
Carrie and I spent a week up at her parents’ lake house in northern Michigan – Elk Rapids, to be specific. We drove up on a Friday afternoon (it’s about a six hour drive from Chicago), and returned the following Friday morning.
The house is really nice. It’s right on the water, and that lake is the bluest blue I’ve ever seen. Apparently, it’s because it’s so deep (something like 400 feet deep in the middle I guess).
We spent the weekend cruising the lake on the jetski, and Carrie attempted to teach me to waterski. This did not work well. I wasn’t ever able to “get up”, as the kids say. But maybe I’ll try it again next year.
We also enjoyed a nice bike ride with Carrie’s mom, and a good walk through the cherry orchards with Becky (Carrie’s sister) and Scout. There are cherries EVERYWHERE up there – I’m not a big fan of cherries in general, but I sure did like these. We also picked fresh strawberries. Carrie made homemade jam, and we bought some cucumbers for an attempt at pickling.
Carrie’s dad just got a new sailboat, so on Monday we took it out for a day sail. Sadly, Monday was the only day of our trip where the weather wasn’t absolutely beautiful, but about three hours into the trip the sun burned off the clouds and it became a pretty nice day. I’m definitely looking forward to doing more sailing the next time we’re up there – his boat is really nice, and it was quite a thrill to take the helm for an hour or so.
On Tuesday, we drove up to Mackinac Island for a mini-excursion. Mackinac sits in-between the upper and lower peninsulas of Michigan, and it’s a quaint (read: “just for tourists”) little town. No motorized vehicles are allowed on the island, so we brought our bikes along with us.
The island is about 8 miles around, and we rode the path twice – once when we first got there, and again the following morning at about 7 AM. We also discovered that I ride much faster than Carrie does, so we’re still working on getting ourselves in sync that way.
One of the coolest things on Mackinac was the Butterfly House – for the low low price of $6, you could go into a giant room filled with free-flying butterflies. I took about a zillion pictures of them, and one even landed on me. Neat stuff.
In addition to the butterflies, we visited Fort Mackinac to watch some re-enactment stuff. And we bought candy (tourists in that part of Michigan are known as “Fudgies”, and we figured, when in Fudgietown, do as the Fudgies do…) and got a cheesy old-timey picture taken of us. The things that we do for our loved ones…and no, I don’t have an electronic version for you to all laugh at.
After a couple more days of relaxing on the lake, it was time to head home to Chicago. Scout was NOT happy about having to leave the country, where he had a huge yard to play in, as well as a giant, never-empty water dish right outside. In fact, he refused to get in the car, and we had to chase him down and carry him into the backseat.
No sooner did we arrive back in Chicago, but it was time to head to the next part of our whirlwind tour – going to the world’s largest block party to drink a lot of beer and watch Cake perform on stage. It was pretty damn hot until the sun went down, and Cake’s set was a lot shorter than I would have liked, but they still rocked hardcore, and you all wish you were me.
Upon returning home from the block party, we found a Joeycat in our living room, soon to be joined by Hedda and Swifty. On Saturday we all headed to Wrigley Field to watch the Mets do battle with the Northsiders – and discovered that Hedda had pulled some baseball magic, and we all got to go out on the field during batting practice.
It was seriously one of the coolest things I’ve ever experienced. To properly describe it, let me recap a later conversation:
Mugsy: Today was basically the best day of my entire life.
Carrie: What about when we get married?
Mugsy: That didn’t happen yet, so it’s still true.
Swifty: Yeah, and after you DO get married, it’ll STILL be true.
After the game (which the Cubs won…nice!) we joined our guests for some Chicago style pizza at Ginos East. Carrie and I headed out with some other friends to a bar, while our guests went to see the Mighty Blue Kings Big Disappointments at Ben Fest.
Sunday featured brunch in Lincoln Square with Kevin and Nora, followed by a matinee of Pirates of the Caribbean. After cooling off in the movie theater, we went back to Wrigley. At first, it was shaping up to be a hell of a day for the Cubs – Sean Marshall (the rookie pitcher, who, incidentally, Carrie and I met the day before) hit his first home run. And Juan Pierre was putting up huge numbers for one guy.
And then, the 6th inning.
The inning in which the stupid friggin’ Mets scored 11 runs, including TWO grand slams.
Stupid baseball.
Seriously, though, it was a great weekend of awesome baseball action. It was really great to go to a game or two with Joeycat and Swifty and other folks who know baseball and love to geek out about it. I think it was also good for Swifty’s health that the Mets pulled it out on Sunday; at first he was convinced he was a curse on Wrigley Mets.
Clearly, this was not the case.
The End