4th of JULY

This Fourth of July weekend my friend, Jimmy, and I decided to take a few days off of work and have a four day camping trip.  I reserved two different campsites at Algonac State Park; one site was rustic, out in the woods and the other was right on the St. Clair River.  Neither of us had much of a budget, so our food consisted of just the basics, meat and adult beverages.  Well, the first two nights were a blast; we pretty much played on the beach, fished, barbequed, and listened to music.  The first night we simply just cooked hot dogs over the fire.  The next day, I cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

It’s a little different cooking at a campsite then it is at home. We only had the fire and a small propane burner.  I made it work; we had eggs and bacon for breakfast, BLTs for lunch, and cheese burgers for dinner.  Jimmy was supposed to show me up the next day and cook up some steaks; however, we never expected the worst to happen.

Saturday night, there was a small chance of rain, but we didn’t pay much attention to it until the clouds started rolling in.   It seemed like in a blink of an eye, God unleashed hell!  The winds picked up and the rain was coming from every direction.  The radio reported hail the size of golf balls further north.

While everyone else was relaxing comfortably in their RVs, Jimmy and I were frantically trying to salvage anything and everything!  We took the tent down and through everything in his SUV. Originally, we strategically packed the SUV with all our provisions, but in a crisis there really wasn’t much time to think, so we did what we could.  Jimmy and I rode out the storm in the SUV and sadly watched our campsite be destroyed....

After the storm cleared, we dried out the tent as best we could and did an inventory of what food we had left. At this point it was passed midnight and we were starving!! The only things that made it were the canned food and the adult beverages.  So we built a fire to warm up and decided to cook some beans.   The only thing was we couldn’t find a can opener!  So we ended up pounding on it with a hammer.  Finally, we got it open and we were ever so grateful.  God unleashed hell, and we a made it!

Dining with Mark has its highs and lows just like life.  Not everything can be sunshine and rainbows. This trip made me realize how sometimes it’s easy to take so many things for granted, like food and shelter.  Jimmy and I were at each others’ throats at times, but we were glad we stuck it out and the rest of the trip turned out just fine.  Enjoy the simple things in life! J