We're at Terry Andrae State Park just outside Sheboygan. And it's the end of what has been a gorgeous, memorable day that included scrambled eggs for breakfast, a morning bike ride and hike along the lake, and an afternoon with Grandma, highlighted by me making another miraculous comeback to win a game of Phase 10 ...
Let me brag for a little bit. Now, I'm a virtual pro at the ol' Phase 10 game. I love the strategy of it, thinking about what cards to play at the right times, trying to out-think the other players, and finding ways to tally the lowest possible score. I'll bet I win four out of five games I play ... But this weekend, Kates called for a change. She had purchased the dice version of Phase 10 and she was determined to make us play it, no matter how much I griped. Whereas the card version is a cross between Uno and Rummy, the dice version is like Yahtzee. And I'm not a fan of Yahtzee ...
With each phase, Dad kept finding ways to advance. Everybody else kept pace. And I fell two, three phases behind. But when Dad stumbled on a couple of the final phases, the rest of us caught up. And he did reach Phase 10 first, but unlike the card game, there's a clause in the dice version that states the remaining players can stay in the game if they can continue to get their phases. If they fail, they're out. But if they succeed, the winner is determined by the final point totals ...
Suddenly, the dice started rolling my way. Once I got my 7 of one color, I got my set of 5/set of 2 on the first try and then did a Carlos Zambrano point to the sky and somehow nailed the final phase -- set of 5/set of 3 -- on my final make-it-or-break-it roll of the dice. I jumped off the picnic table, started to do a little dance and began singing "The Price Is Right" theme ... Adding up the points was hardly needed because I'd scored below 40 points on just one of the 10 phases, and I was the only player to earn the five-phase bonus midway through the game. Sure enough, I won it with 490 points over Dad's 461. Grandma took 407, Kates had 384 and Mom had 370 ...* * *
So this is Part I of our summer vacation. Part II will come in a couple weeks when I go back to Kansas City for my 10-year reunion ...
This part of the trip has been a year in the making. We booked this camp site a year ago, and I'm not sure there was anything I've looked forward to more this summer -- well, maybe Summerfest -- than this camping trip ...
See, I grew up camping at this park with my family. Of all the campgrounds we toured each summer, this one always was my favorite. Some of my fondest childhood memories were born at this park; the images remain engraved in my mind. So you can understand why, after 17 years away, I'd be so happy to return ...
Kates and I arrived here at about 5:30 last night, checked in at the ranger's office and found our camp site. A deep hollow sits behind the driveway, and the site backs up to a meadow that's just steps away from Lake Michigan. Sitting here and being able to hear the waves crashing on the beach is the best part of it all ...
Kates and I set up our tent and unpacked in record time -- seven or eight minutes tops -- and then we were off on our bikes for a ride through the camp ...
Everything was almost exactly the way I remembered it. Even the smells ...
Site No. 2 just inside the main road where I remember roasting marshmellows with Patrick, or dancing to my first mix tape playing on my first Walkman, or sitting at a picnic table with a coloring book, or playing on the hill behind the site with Joel ...
I remember almost all of the sites circling the loop closest to the bathhouse where we played and camped with Uncle David, Aunt Mary, Kyle and Ryan ...
Kates and I rode past the outdoor amphitheater where we’d gone for Sunday morning worship services. And a little further down the road at the bottom of the hill was the parking lot where I can remember watching a moon rise with Mom when Joel and I were little ...
The beach house hasn’t changed from the way it looked 20 years ago either. Except for the concession stand where Joel and I used to beg Mom and Dad to buy us push pops and candy necklaces. Now all that stands behind the counter is a couple vending machines with soda and ice cream sandwiches …
And there's the shelter, and the hill that Joel and me -- and sometimes my cousins when they came to visit -- would tear down on our way for a day of swimming at the beach …
And oh the beach. Though grasses and small trees have overtaken much of it now, the sand is just as white and soft as I remember it. The dunes have barely moved. Even a picnic table still sits under the birch tree where we probably ate dozens of cheese sandwiches and guzzled juice boxes in our breaks from swimming ...
I wanna be 7 years old again ...
* * *... What Kates and I pretty much ignored last night during our setup and bike ride were the dark clouds swirling above us. Actually, we were just finishing our bike ride around the camp and returning to our site when the rain started to fall. Quickly, we propped our bikes against a picnic table and dove inside our tent ...
Which is where we stayed for the remainder of the night. The rain was relentless, continuing to fall for hours. Even when it slowed, the pause lasted for barely a couple minutes and then the deluge came again.
Mom and Dad arrived shortly after 7:30. Dad appeared under an umbrella outside our tent, saying he and Mom actually had been parked in the parking lot for the last half hour waiting for the rain to cease so they could set up their part of the camp. But it wasn’t happening they'd decided, and they were set to spend the night at the Comfort Inn out by the highway … And they returned not much later, deciding that for $140 a night, they could afford to get a little wet.
In the meantime (Kates and I would joke about this later), I put on my shoes and made a courageous run to the car, enduring the torrential rains. I crawled into the car, grabbed the bag of food and ran it back to the tent so that Kates and I would have something to eat and ensure our chances of surviving the night …
The rain was coming so hard, so fast ... little streams of water had formed and were beginning to flow under our tent. We could actually feel the water running under our tent and when we patted the floor of our tent, it felt like we were sitting on a water bed. But the good news was our water bed, er tent, wasn’t leaking.
And then almost as suddenly as the rain started, it stopped at about 10 p.m.
No comments:
Post a Comment