Vacation Part 1: No Room at The Inn

The plan was to leave Friday
the drive from my house to Torch Lake is about 5 hours
The difficult part was that I had to close Thursday night
so I spent all day Thursday doing laundry and getting things organized
my Mom stopped over to have B clean out her car
and toss some of her laundry in with mine
and then my Sister stopped over to give us both directions

While my sister was here
since she was taking one SUV and a car
she picked up some of my stuff to take
including the tent, sleeping bags
and things like that
we only had to worry about clothes

and by the time I left for work
everything was packed and in the car
except two pair of shorts of mine that were still being washed
It felt good to be ready
we decided to meet my sister and follow her up
we would leave our house at 7am
and I would sleep on the drive

Thursday night was pretty busy and I was closing without another server
which means I have a lot of clean up after the customers leave
a lot
I rushed and rushed to get it all done
and finally me and the bartender were ready to go
here's were Murphy and his effen law came into play
somehow the end of day report came up missing
and in order to do all the needed paper work, the manager needs the end of day report
we spent at least 20 minutes looking and never found it
so we tried to reprint it
no luck
so the bartender looked it all up and wrote it all down for the manager
the manager, however, could not get the numbers to balance so we tried again to reprint
no luck
the bartender tried to get the numbers to balance and it worked
(there's more to this story...the reason the report was lost and the reason the manager could not get a balance of numbers...but you'll have to just guess)
now it's about an hour after I would normally leave on a busy night
and by my best guess I'll get about 3 hours of sleep...
sigh
As we are headed for the door, we hear the little voice of our cleaning lady
she's already done (normally we leave before she even arrives)
and she says, "I unplugged the juke box to plug in my radio and I can't get it to turn back on..."
The juke box is two days old
it is the best, pimpest juke box on the market
it is worth a lot of money
and she broke it so she could listen to some crappy country music on a 1975 transistor radio
the manager flips
he's worried the other manager is going to scream at him the next morning for the broken juke box
he tries and tries to fix it
finally
I say
"There's nothing you can do but call the juke box guy in the morning. It's not your fault she unplugged it, let's go."
but he won't
so my bartender walks me to my car
mutters something about the manager
something that I suspected too
and I arrive home at 5:15 AM
I am leaving in less than two hours


Since Aaron gets car sick I know he won't let me drive
so I hope I can fall asleep during the ride
we meet my sister
and my brother in law and are off
me in a blurry sleepy haze
the sun is shining hot and bright and leaves me unable to sleep
my dog has only been in the car a few times so he is very excited
and being that he is a German Shepherd mix
and it is July
he is shedding like a mutha
and panting his bad dog breath all over my arm
and drooling
and B is complaining that his left butt cheek is asleep because Buddy is smooshing him
and Baby G keeps asking, "how long til we get there? I have to pee. I'm hungry. I hate this song....


Finally we arrive and all is well because we arrive to this:


Torch is kind of amazing
it is blue and clear
and unlike any other Michigan lake I've been to
no seaweed, algae, or muck is on the bottom
it is all dirt and rock

and shallow

see that line of light blue in the picture?
that's how far even children can walk in the water
the darker blue part is where it drops off
and it's so deep there you can SCUBA dive
it's so deep past that line
that in order to fish in this lake
you have to get deep sea fishing gear

and the water is so perfect and amazing
my Brother-in-law took a sample to a friend who is a chemist...
the friend tested it and said, "Bottle it. It's cleaner than any bottled or tap water I've ever seen."
You know why?
underneath this lake
in the very deep parts
bubbles a spring
and the water is constantly being mixed
with fresh, new, clear, perfect untainted spring water

so even though I wanted very much to rest, I couldn't
I had to enjoy what I was seeing
and when Aaron went to put up the tent, I was going to go to bed for a few hours before the rest of the family arrived
so, he got the tent out of my sister's car
and asked casually
"did you bring the poles? they were in a box next to the tent bag?"
"don't the poles go in the tent bag?"
"yes, but I couldn't make them fit."
"ummmm....."