So Molly and the kids (5M and younger) and I were on vacation last week. Did you miss us? (OK, strike that question; I learned long ago not to ask questions I don't want to know the answers to). We went to the same cabin Up North that Molly and I stayed at for our 25th Anniversary Second Honeymoon. It was our first family vacation in three years, and only our second since 1996, so it was well-appreciated, and probably more than a little overdue.
Our being there actually had a certain ironic twist to it. The cabin's owner, who is a friend of ours, offered our family the gift of his cabin to honor 4M, because 4M had, over the years, done quite a few odd jobs for him, including a few weekends 'opening up' and 'closing down' the cabin at the beginning and end of the season. And also to honor 4M for his recent high-school graduation, with high honors. And of course, we were duly grateful. But last week was the only one which would work for our family's schedule, and also the owner's. And last week, 4M was on his mission trip to the Dominican Republic. So 4M didn't actually participate in our friend's gift to our family in his honor. Such is life, I guess. . .
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Weather-wise, I suppose you could say that we were a bit star-crossed. Except for the Sunday at the beginning of our week, and the Saturday we returned home, the weather would best be described as crappy. It rained all day Monday, and the rest of the week was cool and gray and overcast, and threatening rain. But it really didn't keep us from much. To the extent that it 'forced us inside', we turned it into family game-time, which wound up being really happy for us; we really had some nice fun together (not unmixed with copious quantities of bickering, but I'm aiming at accentuating the positive here). 5M turns out to be a pretty darned good Scrabble player, and 7M won the weekly Yahtzee series (though I gotta tell ya, it'll be a while before I'll be ready to play Scrabble or Yahtzee again. . .) And we threw in a few card games (mostly Hearts), just for variety. . .
Our cabin was not far from the Cross in the Woods, a sweet little Catholic shrine tucked away in the northwoods of Michigan. We went to Mass there on Sunday, and a couple other times during the week. There is also a small 'side shrine' to the Holy Family, which touches a special place in my heart, and Molly's. The Holy Family sculpture there is just a lovely piece of artwork, and evocative of all manner of familial grace and love, most especially of a husband/father's care for his wife and children, so I bought a miniature copy of it to keep on our dinner table back home. Just to remind us all of the love that's supposed to be at the heart of our family (and when family life gets, um, intense, we just ask Mary and Joseph to pray for us, that our family can be holy like theirs was). At least, that's the theory. . .
We also drove to the Upper Peninsula (in part because 8M had never crossed the Mackinac Bridge) (but the UP is just a cool place to visit, in its own right). About 15 miles west of the bridge, there's a spot where US-2 runs right along a beautiful sandy Lake Michigan beach for a couple miles, so we stopped there. I just waded in the surf, but all four of the kids couldn't wait to dunk themselves in the big lake. The air temperature might have been 65F; the water temperature might have been about the same. It was one of those days where the water initially feels icy-cold as it touches your toes, but five minutes later, it's perfectly comfortable (or maybe you just get numb; I don't know). Anyway, we spent about an hour there at the roadside beach, the kids body-surfing and splashing in the waves, and me wishing I'd had the foresight to bring my swimsuit along (*sigh*). . .
Another day, we took a short drive to Ocqueoc Falls (that's pronounced OCKY-ock, for you non-locals), which is the only significant waterfall in the Lower Peninsula, and really, one of the hidden treasures of our state. There are three significant sections of the falls, over roughly a half-mile of river, and each falls has a little pool dammed off below it, making for nice little 'swimming holes', of which our kids were only too happy to avail themselves, which included jumping off the falls (all of maybe four feet) into the pool below (I'm actually a little surprised that some lawyer hasn't told Presque Isle (presk EEL) County to tear out the stone dams, and forbid swimming near the falls; which is part of what makes it a hidden treasure). We had actually visited Ocqueoc Falls on our last family vacation, but it had been 90F that day, and the, uh, bracingly cool water of the Ocqueoc River had been most refreshing. On a 70F cloudy day, however, it was mostly just cold (at least to my aging bones; the kids were just fine).
I took my bike with me, and got in a couple rides of 30-or-so miles. And I want to tell you, Up North Michigan has some hills the likes of which we simply don't have around OurTown. I got down into gears that are mostly for show on my usual routes, but Up North, they were eminently practical. I hadn't seen hills like that since the last time I rode DALMAC (well, there was that one on Mackinac Island). Nice to know I can still climb 'em, though. . .
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On a more 'personal' level, 6F 'borrowed' Molly's cell phone, and learned how to send text messages to her friends back in OurTown. Molly bought some kind of Giant Super-Saver pack of Twizzlers for the kids, and what they all remember is that 5M got a chunk of Twizzler stuck in his throat, and ended up puking to get it dislodged. And 8M cut his foot most bloodily on a zebra-mussel shell.
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So, all in all, we wish the weather had been nicer (and the brilliantly sunny departure Saturday just seemed cruel), but we had a good time. Our family needed the time together, away from our 'normal routine'. We're in a bit of a 'transition time' right at the moment - 4M is heading off to college in the fall, and even though he'll be living at home with us, he's transitioning out of the family, and into a more independent life. So 5M is transitioning into the role of 'oldest' among the kids still 'fully at home'. 6F is transitioning into 'High School Girl' (which Molly and I are still trying to wrap our minds around), and we're also realizing that our 'little kids' are 11 and 7. So it's good to sort-of 'reset the levels' for the updated family configuration.
But mostly, it's good for us to be together, learning how to love one another better. Our kids can bicker like world champions (I blame Molly and me for being emotionally high-pitched in the first place; so our poor kids get both our DNA and our less-than-fully-helpful example), but they also love each other, and they're getting better at asking for and giving each other forgiveness (now if they could only start treating each other so as not to require asking forgiveness in the first place. . .). When you get to the bottom of it, family vacations are all about the us-ness of Us. We know each other better than anyone else knows any of us, and it's just nice (mostly) to just be Us together. . .
Showing posts with label Up North. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Up North. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Cold and Snow
When I woke up this morning, the outdoor temperature sensor on our clock informed me that it was -5 degrees Fahrenheit outside (for Flutterby and my Canadian friends, that’s, like -20 Celsius, which are like ‘metric degrees’, or something like that). And immediately, my kids were all excited, bouncing with glee at the possibility that school would be called off, because it’s so cold. Which hasn’t happened yet this school year, but has happened roughly once or twice a year for the past few years.
Excuse me, but. . . what the hell?
It’s COLD. I get that. But, the school’s got a heating system, right? I mean, if the pipes froze and burst, I’d get that. If neighborhood vandals broke all the windows, and there were snow drifts in the classrooms, I’d get that. But – no school because it’s COLD? Sorry, I don’t get that.
I could see that it’s too cold to send the kids out to the playground for recess. So, keep ‘em inside. I get that. But to close the school, just because it’s cold? What's that about?
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My goodness, when I was growing up, Up North (and here I am going to begin shamelessly channeling my dad, which is a little weird, because he’s still alive) I remember one time, when I was in 7th grade, when I had to wait for the bus (along with 20 or so other kids who had the same bus stop) in -30F one day (which, in Celsius, is still colder than hell). For two hours. Because none of the buses would start. Because it was minus-freakin’-thirty out. After an hour or so, the lady whose house was nearest the bus stop opened her garage door for us, so we could at least have a little shelter. But, by golly, once they finally got one of the buses sufficiently thawed-out to come and take us to school, we went to school. Which had been open, even before we got there.
And when I was in college, we’d trek a mile or more across campus in negative temperatures, and everybody would look about forty years old, because their breath would frost off on their hair, so it looked like they were going gray. You had to be a little careful about how you placed your notebook for the first 10 minutes or so of class, because the ice would melt off your beard, and you’d soak your notes, if you weren’t careful. . .
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Now, Up North, we had snow days. We had LOTS of snow days. ‘Cuz when, you know, the janitor can’t even get to the building to unlock the doors and turn the lights on, well, you know, you can kinda understand why you might need to call off school.
Heck, one year, we had ten snow days; at the height of the winter, they had to dig tunnels to get to a couple of the entrances to the school. And the ten snow days included five-and-a-half in ONE WEEK! We’d had a teacher’s strike in the fall, and in order to make up the lost days, the administration scheduled a few Saturday sessions, in order to bring us up to the minimum number of school days mandated by the state. We went to school on Monday, but by noon, it was snowing so hard that they decided to send us all home while the buses could still get the rural kids to their homes. It snowed hard all day Monday, and most of Tuesday – 24 inches in all. Wednesday, the whole town was digging out, and we expected to go back to school on Thursday.
But it started snowing again Wednesday night, and it continued snowing all day Thursday – another 18 inches. And I gotta tell you, that was one of the character-forming experiences of my – and my brother’s - youth, shoveling 42 inches of snow off our driveway in one week. And, let’s be clear, I do mean ‘shoveling’; snow-blower technology was still in its infancy in those days, and besides, my dad figured he had a couple teenage boys, who he had to feed anyway, who could provide all the snow-removal motive force that was required. Anyway, after a certain point, our capacity to clear the driveway threatened to be limited by our ability to throw the snow over the piles of previously-removed snow, which, by Thursday evening, towered high above our heads. And I won’t even mention the mess at the bottom of the driveway when the plow finally came down our street Friday afternoon.
So, school was closed on Friday. And it so happened that that Saturday was one of the ‘added days’ from the strike. Which were not terribly popular with the students OR the faculty (but, you know, the law’s the law). And, since the ‘back-county’ roads were still being dug out, school was called off for Saturday, too. So we had five-and-a-half snow days in one week. Which must be some kind of record, or something.
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So, I understand snow. Heck, when I was in college, my mega-university closed for snow, for only the second time in its history, when we got an 18-inch blizzard in January of ’78. It pretty well shut down most of Lower Michigan. And do not underestimate the capacity of college students, whose classes have been cancelled, for some monumental feats of stupidity.
A group of guys on the top floor of our four-story dorm decided (with plenty of, uh, ‘lubrication’, you can be sure) that it would be really cool to jump out of their windows into the 8-10-foot-high snow drifts that had piled up against the wall. So, for an hour or so, guys were lining up to jump out of 4th-floor windows into the huge snow drift. They would let out a yell while they fell, and then they’d land with a muffled ‘WHUMP’ in the snow. And the snow absorbed the energy of their fall quite nicely. The drift extended all along the outside wall of the dorm, so, as the drift got beaten down in one location, the jumpers just moved progressively down to the other rooms on the 4th floor. After a while, the supply of willing jumpers began to dwindle, and they started to grab guys out of the shower, to throw them, wet and naked, into the snow drift below. It was the very picture of drunken college hijinks.
Until one of the jumpers inadvertently discovered the bike rack concealed beneath the snow drift, which left him with a few broken bones. After that, the mood was kinda killed. . .
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So, yeah – snow days, I understand. But closing school, just because it’s COLD? Sorry; I don’t get that. . .
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Edit, Jan. 16 - The kids didn't actually have a cold day yesterday, which was a bit of a bummer, at least as far as they were concerned. But today, it was -12F, and the phone rang at 6AM (does anybody else get robo-calls from their school district, giving them the daily attendance report, announcing PTA meetings, etc?), with the word that school has been called for today. I've learned since yesterday that the criterion for 'cold days' is a wind chill below -20F. Apparently, it doesn't take much wind to get there, when the air itself is already minus-12. . . (*sigh*)
Excuse me, but. . . what the hell?
It’s COLD. I get that. But, the school’s got a heating system, right? I mean, if the pipes froze and burst, I’d get that. If neighborhood vandals broke all the windows, and there were snow drifts in the classrooms, I’d get that. But – no school because it’s COLD? Sorry, I don’t get that.
I could see that it’s too cold to send the kids out to the playground for recess. So, keep ‘em inside. I get that. But to close the school, just because it’s cold? What's that about?
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My goodness, when I was growing up, Up North (and here I am going to begin shamelessly channeling my dad, which is a little weird, because he’s still alive) I remember one time, when I was in 7th grade, when I had to wait for the bus (along with 20 or so other kids who had the same bus stop) in -30F one day (which, in Celsius, is still colder than hell). For two hours. Because none of the buses would start. Because it was minus-freakin’-thirty out. After an hour or so, the lady whose house was nearest the bus stop opened her garage door for us, so we could at least have a little shelter. But, by golly, once they finally got one of the buses sufficiently thawed-out to come and take us to school, we went to school. Which had been open, even before we got there.
And when I was in college, we’d trek a mile or more across campus in negative temperatures, and everybody would look about forty years old, because their breath would frost off on their hair, so it looked like they were going gray. You had to be a little careful about how you placed your notebook for the first 10 minutes or so of class, because the ice would melt off your beard, and you’d soak your notes, if you weren’t careful. . .
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Now, Up North, we had snow days. We had LOTS of snow days. ‘Cuz when, you know, the janitor can’t even get to the building to unlock the doors and turn the lights on, well, you know, you can kinda understand why you might need to call off school.
Heck, one year, we had ten snow days; at the height of the winter, they had to dig tunnels to get to a couple of the entrances to the school. And the ten snow days included five-and-a-half in ONE WEEK! We’d had a teacher’s strike in the fall, and in order to make up the lost days, the administration scheduled a few Saturday sessions, in order to bring us up to the minimum number of school days mandated by the state. We went to school on Monday, but by noon, it was snowing so hard that they decided to send us all home while the buses could still get the rural kids to their homes. It snowed hard all day Monday, and most of Tuesday – 24 inches in all. Wednesday, the whole town was digging out, and we expected to go back to school on Thursday.
But it started snowing again Wednesday night, and it continued snowing all day Thursday – another 18 inches. And I gotta tell you, that was one of the character-forming experiences of my – and my brother’s - youth, shoveling 42 inches of snow off our driveway in one week. And, let’s be clear, I do mean ‘shoveling’; snow-blower technology was still in its infancy in those days, and besides, my dad figured he had a couple teenage boys, who he had to feed anyway, who could provide all the snow-removal motive force that was required. Anyway, after a certain point, our capacity to clear the driveway threatened to be limited by our ability to throw the snow over the piles of previously-removed snow, which, by Thursday evening, towered high above our heads. And I won’t even mention the mess at the bottom of the driveway when the plow finally came down our street Friday afternoon.
So, school was closed on Friday. And it so happened that that Saturday was one of the ‘added days’ from the strike. Which were not terribly popular with the students OR the faculty (but, you know, the law’s the law). And, since the ‘back-county’ roads were still being dug out, school was called off for Saturday, too. So we had five-and-a-half snow days in one week. Which must be some kind of record, or something.
-------------------------
So, I understand snow. Heck, when I was in college, my mega-university closed for snow, for only the second time in its history, when we got an 18-inch blizzard in January of ’78. It pretty well shut down most of Lower Michigan. And do not underestimate the capacity of college students, whose classes have been cancelled, for some monumental feats of stupidity.
A group of guys on the top floor of our four-story dorm decided (with plenty of, uh, ‘lubrication’, you can be sure) that it would be really cool to jump out of their windows into the 8-10-foot-high snow drifts that had piled up against the wall. So, for an hour or so, guys were lining up to jump out of 4th-floor windows into the huge snow drift. They would let out a yell while they fell, and then they’d land with a muffled ‘WHUMP’ in the snow. And the snow absorbed the energy of their fall quite nicely. The drift extended all along the outside wall of the dorm, so, as the drift got beaten down in one location, the jumpers just moved progressively down to the other rooms on the 4th floor. After a while, the supply of willing jumpers began to dwindle, and they started to grab guys out of the shower, to throw them, wet and naked, into the snow drift below. It was the very picture of drunken college hijinks.
Until one of the jumpers inadvertently discovered the bike rack concealed beneath the snow drift, which left him with a few broken bones. After that, the mood was kinda killed. . .
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So, yeah – snow days, I understand. But closing school, just because it’s COLD? Sorry; I don’t get that. . .
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Edit, Jan. 16 - The kids didn't actually have a cold day yesterday, which was a bit of a bummer, at least as far as they were concerned. But today, it was -12F, and the phone rang at 6AM (does anybody else get robo-calls from their school district, giving them the daily attendance report, announcing PTA meetings, etc?), with the word that school has been called for today. I've learned since yesterday that the criterion for 'cold days' is a wind chill below -20F. Apparently, it doesn't take much wind to get there, when the air itself is already minus-12. . . (*sigh*)
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