Ok now, what to do with the rest of the day? If I were to tell of all my adventures here, I could have a book, but I think it’s best to just highlight a couple of the more interesting ones instead.

Just then a chorus of     applause and cheers arose up from across the way, and down the shore from camps that I didn’t even know existed, guess they had it with these  rappers too. But it took an old mosquito bitten mad man gone wild, to step forth in pure blind insanity, and armed with weapons, derived from mistaken intent, and  caused peace to arrive for many, and so that second night ended.

Next day as the blinding sun glazed its way into my tent I heard people talking and walking on the path behind my tent. I looked out and realized that my desert island was now invaded by what seemed to be a Eagle Scout group. This was ok with me as long as they didn’t need special survival training from an old expert in outdoor living? They were on some kind of a training test mission and were often made curious with some of my antics. One was that I would slip on swim fins without them seeing this and I would then be able to swim half way across the channel in three seconds and they would stop what they were doing and watch this old bearded man zoom through the waters and I awed them with my extraordinary swimming ability.

This time I thought to get an early start on exploring the east fork of the Detroit Lake and began paddling across the channel to the eastern side before to much time went on. There is a river that comes into this end of the lake and along this fork of the river there are a few homes with some nice beaches and docks. I paddle along this far edge trying to stay away from the camps on the other side. Hey this was easy and rather nice and just might take a few pictures along here.

Photo #5: See that growling dog, its either a Doberman or a Rotwhiler but its coming at me. I thought I better snap a picture of it for insurance purposes or maybe my wife might want to see what I saw in my last moments. Sometimes its better for partially sighted people to stay in their boats rather than explore interesting beaches which belong to X-Prison Wardens or government assassination agents. But hey, I only wanted to take a nice picture of this snarled old tree with the river in the back ground and the sun shining through the trees, but oh no, this mad guard dog had to get all pushed out of shape and think to do its job! Well, narrowly escaped that one when the flash went off and the beast halted just for long enough for me to leap into the water and drag my canoe away and that was close.

They say that fear is the beginning of wisdom thus fear of mad guard dogs and the winds made me wiser to life this day and before the time of the terrible winds I headed home. Spent the day smearing peanut butter onto my sunburn.

Hey now, this was in one of my survival manuals way back when. I think it was actually on the back of a Skippy’s peanut butter jar, published by the company years ago. But it seemed to cool my burn down and maybe it would stop the blistering. All was going well until I had a few Eagle Scouts dressed in their uniforms stop by my camp, wanting to introduce themselves but stopped short when they saw what looked like possible manure smeared all over my face. I had forgotten about this “oil of peanut” on my face and stood up to greet them but suddenly they were gone and that was it for my relationship with the Eagle Scouts.

Wow I thought, now if I can somehow show my face to those rappers (if they ever showed up again) this just might do the trick.

That night the moon arose brilliant again, only further to the east and an hour later but it was worth waiting for.

Ok, it was about five  days gone now and thought I’d better call home and report in. Checked my batteries, dialed and let it ring. Immediately the answering machine answered and my wife’s voice came on saying…“Went shopping, spending husbands inheritance, won’t be back for a week, staying at beach in excellent 5-star hotel, if you need anything, find husband on desert island in Detroit and tell him your needs, thank you, call back in two weeks!”

With this, my battery warning light went off!

Two weeks, hey if that is what you girls want, then that’s ok with me. Wait a minute, I only got another 100 burritos and that ain’t gonna last but another three days if I don’t die first?

That’s life and that’s my wife! Ok, got to get serious here, better measure out my food supply, now I wonder why she borrowed my last twenty from me, probably making sure I didn’t have enough money to call home.  I guess I could become the lakes canoe beggar. Just show up at different camps along the shore and beg for money. No worries man, its gonna be ok I thought and went for another swim.

Well now, the last exploration trip I took was up the north fork river on a Saturday, totally the wrong thing to do, absolutely wrong, really bad and very wrong, can’t stress this more! Oh well, maybe not for those who have at least an ounce of vision to assist them but as you know by now, this is not my case.

Now let me tell you about Saturdays on this lake. I’m sure this is a prison worker population and Saturdays is when they are all pardoned, and for sure it’s a free zone for drunks and freaks to literally go nuts behind the wheel of a boat. Nothing is held back  and everything is game; try and kill anyone and everyone that might get in their way and special prizes for all kills,     and especially those in canoes!

So in all naivety, I paddled two hours trying to     reach the north fork, but before I got there, I was nearly sunk three times by boats going at least fifty in the slow zone, and this was the Coast Guard!

Ok, passed under what turned out to be a bridge; discovered that when the entire structure shook, rumbled and swayed all around me and scared the kahooties out of me but was shocked to find myself in the midst of a parking lot of boats. These boats weren’t floating still but were all moving around in tight circles like sharks waiting for gas. It was too late before I found myself right in the middle of this fiasco.

Huge boats filled with naked screaming people or what I thought were naked people for when they hung over to scream at me I couldn’t see any thing but teeth and wide open mouths. They would putt right up to me and look down into my boat and scream “How freaking cute, should we kill this lake rat?”

All this abuse, and several dumped their trash into my boat thinking I was a lake bag person and the music  got worse!

That so called music blasted from every boat and bounced off the canyons and everyone was partying and screaming obscenities at one another. At one point I had to get out of my canoe and walk it along the shore to escape the waves and prevent a sudden tip over.

I would have turned back but it was that time of day already went the sun blared brightest into my eyes and I thought to maybe hang out up river until the afternoon, regardless of the wind and then try and make it back.

Then after all this, the real fun began, when some stupefied lady came rumbling down the narrow river channel, and played Russian Crash Your Boat First, but was forced by a bigger boat to turn and got stuck on my muddy sand bar. Guess who became the blame for her stupidity, you got it! She was soon swearing up a storm, and within moments another boat full of her drunken  friends showed up and all  of them wanted to help their queen in distress. I guess one of these guys was the rightful owner of the boat and his blurry eyes were looking at me. He said something about kicking my donkey and I’d better get ready!

“Ok sir, going right now, no need to get hostel about this, after all it was your drunken good for nothing rotten stinking ugly loser queen that got your cheap broken down boat stuck!” Truly this wasn’t one of my finer moments but hey, a man in a little canoe can only take so much, right?

Well immediately it seemed as though the entire river went silent as this gang of rumblers jumped into the river and began to sludge towards me. Now I’m not real smart but know when the odds are fixed against me, and so pushed my canoe into the deeper water and let the current take it, while I dove under water, sort of pulling myself along the muddy bottom.

I came up on the other side of the queens boat and just hid there. Wasn’t sure what to do but I learned long ago that distraction works wonders in situations like this.  And so reached down and grabbed up a huge handful of really sticky mud and then whispered up to the woman, “Hey you ugly mama queen, look here,” and when she did I splatted it right into her face!

Holy moly, all the under world broke out. And sometimes confusion can be used as a great tool and so more mud went flying. Shock was the first reaction as the drunks tried figuring out where the flying mud was coming from. Soon  a few of the hunters were tossing mud at those who they thought had splatted them, and soon they were yelling at each other and within moments they were all throwing mud at each other. Within a minute or two, a full fledged river riot had broken out and soon other boats joined into the mud fight. I saw several groups of people on shore come running over to the fracas and they got splattered, and soon they were joined in, throwing mud in all directions.

I thought it best to go into a disguise mode and simply smeared my face with a good glob of mud and drifted down stream and started looking for my canoe. I washed off my peanut butter and mud compress from my face, and asked someone on shore if they had seen a drifting canoe; and they pointed further down river on the other side somewhere.

I swam as hard as I could across the channel and just as I reached my canoe the Coast Guard came hauling up with some weird siren going, woo-woo, wee-wee! I was out of there in a few paddles and pretty well scraped a few nice boats on my way out, but told everyone to get out of my way, for the mad lake man was coming through and I was now screaming Woo-Woo, Wee-Wee!!

 

Photo #6: Sort of a blurry shot here, but was on the move. That is not a car lot in the background but its an actual view of the number of boats crowded together. That brown blurry area above the boats in my opinion is the flying mud and I caught it as things were cooling down. The odd wall on the left is the side of the one big boat I scraped.

You can see the marks along the side but to bad. And if you look close enough you’ll see my buddies the Coast Guard trying to get their boat through the parking lot.

    

Ok, I might have exaggerated this a little but mud and boats, anger and that Woo-Woo, Wee-Wee were all there on Saturday and I made it back to camp weary, exhausted and ready for more burritos.

Another moon filled night came and went and I began to wonder about this desert island thing. I hadn’t talked in normal terms with anyone else for a week now and a man can only enjoy so many moon rises. I took inventory of my self and of my supplies and found that I was running low on burritos , down to about 40 and some of those were growing moldy. For myself, well this old man had lost about 20 pounds, most of that was from loss of blood by mosquito bites and fingernails and much of my outer skin was falling away in huge patches, which made me look like a leper. No problem, this was one of the highlights of my summer and the only thing that worried me was the stomach and lower intestinal pains, which were now coming on a regular interval.  

My indecision of staying for another week or to call my wife to come pick me up was solved that day when my buddies from the Coast Guard came by, and through their bull horn, warned me of heavy winds and a lightening storm that was to arrive soon. They kindly asked me to evacuate my camp site and head for safer ground. 

I explained to them that I had nowhere to go, my wife was hiding out at the Hilton on the beach, my youngest daughter had spent our family budget on peanut butter and my older daughter was sleeping until next week, and no way would she wake up for her father in distress. They asked me if there was anything they could do for me, I just told them to not worry, I had made my last months payment on my life insurance policy, and to leave me be for now, I’d find my way.

While pondering my dilemma and eating one of the last untainted burrito delights, my cell phone suddenly rang. At first I didn’t even recognize it, you know its been a week now. Finally found the right button and saw that I had about two seconds left on it and heard a garbled voice on the other end saying something about maybe or today, storm…and then my battery went dead!

I knew it wasn’t my wife or daughters, it had to be my life insurance agent, just checking up on me. Well if my agent cared that much for me, at least I could oblige him by heading for safer ground and so I began packing. It was really hard saying goodbye to my excellent camp site and the swamp bugs, but soon I was packed up. You know, when your finally finding happiness and growing in experience, its hard to say goodbye; but I stood there and thanked my camp site, the bugs, mosquitoes, crows  and other strange animals  for so many grand memories.

 

Soon the canoe was floating full, but not so deep in the water this time, for there were no more burritos weighing me down, I had fed the last 40 of them to the birds and bugs.

Photo #7: This is a lake view looking up to my camp site. That is not really a cloud There but it’s the first wave of mosquitoes sent in to feast on me. Those shiny tree trunks are not painted that way but are slick from dripping sap. You might be asking why I left such good ropes still stretched between the trees, well, they were now stuck and glued to the trunks with the sap and couldn’t get them off, nor the sap from my face and hands. Those dark spots up in the tree, they are crows, squirrels and a few other strange creatures that were now expelling large  quantities of gas…told them that they’d pay!

And finally, if you look real close you will see dark splats along my pathway, those are the places marked with my blood when I slipped and fell and most of them made just a few minutes ago while carrying my stuff down to the canoe.

It was still about a hundred degrees and the long hard paddle along the island was somewhat easier. For this time I wasn’t so concerned about disturbing fishermen, swimmers or skiers, guess experience toughens up a real man, right?

After a good hour the sky still looked clear and there was little wind and so stopped for a refreshing swim on the west side of the island. Pulled into a tiny cove that I alone only knew about and dove into the clear cool waters. When I came up a voice startled me, “Hey aren’t you that blind guy who is camped out in that forbidden camp site on the tip of the island?”

What the heck I thought, I didn’t see anyone in my little cove but asked, “How do you know I’m blind and what do you mean forbidden camp site?”

This guy in a very familiar boat leaned over and began telling me that everyone on the lake has been alerted to an old bearded man, somewhat odd, a little crazy, goes around talking to stumps and his wife is trying to find him!”

All I could say was, “Sheeet, so much for privacy…right Dear, but thanks for caring?”

Then as I climbed into my canoe and pulled his fishing hook out of my shorts, asked, “What about this forbidden site thing?”

“Oh yeah, everyone knows about that, thought you had to be a real greenhorn to not realize it yourself.”

“What the heck you talking about sir?”

“Well that area is a National Reserve for the new breed of power eating Mosquitoes, didn’t you read the signs?”

“Well, not really, did see a few signs but thought they were just have a good stay welcome signs,” I coolly replied.

He then added, “Didn’t you get acquainted with those National Guard guys that were testing for new chemical repellent sprays in the last few days?”

“Ah, na, didn’t really have the chance,” I thought back on the Eagle Scouts as I replied.

“By the way sir, how did you know I was blind?”

He looked over at his wife and said, “Remember that first day when you came paddling up to the south end,” I nodded yes, “Well we saw you squinting and zig zagging all over the place and when you paddled over our lines and began talking with those stumps, well we figured you might be a little short sighted and just let you be. Normally we shoot all those who cross our lines but in your case, we felt to give you a break and maybe you’d just go away and you did!”

I thanked the man and his wife for not shooting me, scratched my arms a few times, and paddled out of my little island cove, never looking back, as if that would do any good anyhow. With the sun at my back I headed for mountain number two and off a little to the right (my memory markers) and sure enough, just as I got to the middle of the lake the blue haired freaks came roaring at me again but this time they saw who it was, turned down their rap crap and made a wide curve around me and the waters remained still!

Within an hour the shore came into view and so did a hundred boats all launching from the boat launch. Made my way to shore and took bearing of my position.

Hey not to bad this time, I was only off the mark by a half mile and so paddled south to the new dock. Here there were more people, swimmers, boaters, sailors, jet skiers and fishermen, than you’d fine at a sporting show, but I made my way through, around and among them.

For some reason everyone became somewhat obliging to me and many asked if I needed some help. I first thought that maybe there were some good folks in the world, but then I realized what I had to look like, and for sure, people had no choice but to ask someone in my condition for help. I looked like I had been ground up under a boat propeller and tied under water for a week to be fed on by the fish, and then tossed into the bushes for the bugs and monster mosquitoes to eat the rest. Then there was the flaps of sunburn skin hanging down and so there I was!

I also heard a few telling others that this was the guy who camped in the Mosquito Reserve and had attacked those rap dog freaks all on his own. And when I heard this, I made it known that I was a serious wildlife biologist and was paid great sums of money to observe and count the new breed of environmentally     protected swamp mosquitoes, and everyone stopped asking me if I needed assistance.

I climbed out onto the new dock, took stock of my situation and wondered what next to do here. Suddenly I heard a familiar horn honking and looked towards the parking area.

Then I heard my wife’s voice calling out, “Dear, I’m over here, just walk straight, stay to your right, and don’t bump into anyone and watch out for those guys backing there boats up, you can make it, just let it be a challenge!”

Of course, everyone for a hundred miles looked around to see who was being “challenged” and guided away by a hidden voice in a van?

So with my lovely wife parked behind a few trees, she says that this was to stay in the shade, but I knew it was because she didn’t want anyone to know that I was acquainted with her.

I loaded up the canoe, tossed in all my camping junk and climbed into the van utterly exhausted. My wife looked over at me and asked,” What the heck does the bear look like Dear?”

She then smiled and handed me a bag and said, “Here Dear, I made these today, especially for you, I knew you would be coming home today and you’d be hungry.”

I looked in the bag, and you got it right, it was BURRITOS!

Photo #8: That is me behind the hairy burnt mess, I’m actually smiling, see my teeth! This would make a great picture if all those other people weren’t standing around gawking at me, wondering what the heck I was? And yes, that thing in my hand is a huge three pound bean burrito freshly made by my lovely wife, who cares so much for me.

Thus, this ended my summer canoe trip on Lake Detroit, and I can’t wait to get back next year!

Experienced and written By actual Experiencer

Michael M. Michaelson

August Summer of 2005

  

Note: Michael is now opening up a Tour Guide Service, feel free and safe to call!

More Adventures To Soon Arrive, SEE…you soon!