Small Town Wren

I hit the motherlode.  My friend Katie and I have an ongoing game that we’ve been playing for a year now. It’s the Tractor Game. Apparently they play it in New Zealand.  You spy a tractor, you get a point.  Spy a moving tractor and you get two. It started on a ride down from Devil’s Lake when her GPS took us through some very rural parts.

Well, during our camping trip to Pere Marquette, I hit the motherlode.  I present to you a moving tractor on a ferry.  A moving tractor on a ferry that promptly drove into the bar right next to the ferry.

We settled that this was worth at least a hundred points in the game.   And I got to ride the ferry!

I’ve been a little mean lately. I’ve been really relishing calling Daniil an old man ever since he turned 28 on Wednesday. But in my defense, he is an old man.

He didn’t actually want anything for the occasion, and I had class on the actual day, so I had the genius idea to go on a bike ride. It’d been awhile since our last ride, so it seemed like a great idea. I made sandwiches and everything. Sandwiches full of tomatoes. The sandwiches themselves were delicious, and the ride was really fun.

It was also really cold.

We rode through Fermilab, which is always beautiful this time of year. Past the bison, past the seed harvest, through the village… We made it to Blackwell Forest Preserve in no time and had our freezing, freezing picnic. Technically we were in an area that was closed since we were near the campgrounds, but we missed the sign entirely.

It started to rain on our way back, which just added to the hilarity of this misguided ride. Cloudy, cold, miserable, and raining. But it was incredibly fun. It was the thought, anyways.

Of course the sun came out as soon as we got home.

Camping at Devil’s Lake was an absolute blast. While some of our hiking was less than ideal in that we got a little lost and ended up scrambling down a vertical boulder field, it was all-in-all a successful trip. I felt a little unsteady in my new Keens (still too used to being barefoot) so Daniil convinced me to screw the shoes and play out on the cliff outcrop with him. It’s a shame the pictures of Daniil, Erica, and me from here were never posted. Ah well.

In places where the consequences of falling weren’t quite as dire, I ventured out in the shoes.

Others, such as Daniil, were far braver than I. Granted, they have far more rock climbing experience than me. Both Daniil and Hannes made it all the way to top of Devil’s Doorway. They were the Crazy Foreigner Contingent of the trip.

Photos courtesy of Hannes van Rooyen and Daniil the Russian.

I’m off to Devil’s Lake for a weekend of hiking and camping. Naturally, going rock climbing with the gang was the obvious choice for a pre-camping gear up.

Photo courtesy of Daniil the Russian.

Can we marvel at how much of a pimp I am in this picture?

I went canoeing from Ayers Landing with a whole bunch of folks yesterday. Yes, it was cold, and yes, it was dreary, but we all had a blast. I got to play Lazy Canoer by staying up front (which also meant I got the privilege of pushing branches out of the way when we went through some foliage.

We did twelve miles down the Fox with a stop for lunch and a (very) brief stop at a cave. Our group was about twenty, and we passed another group of twelve around Mile 6 who were extremely drunk. They kept trying to get us to drink beer with them, and while some of us obliged, most of us just wanted to paddle.

It was cold, but tons of fun. It’s been far too long since the last time I was on a boat of any kind (Staten Island Ferry not included).

Photo courtesy of Ken Blaszak.

I’m going to Guatemala.

Yes, you read that right. I’m going to Guatemala. I bought the plane tickets earlier today, which is incredibly exciting. I’m going to do a week of Spanish immersion with my sister in Xela. This is the first time I’ll be leaving the United States for any appreciable amount of time and to any place that isn’t, like, Canada. I’m psyched! I don’t even know what else to say beyond “EEEEEE!”

I still have fake blood under my fingernails. It’s really wedged in there and I still haven’t been able to dig it or wash it out.  No worries: it compliments my bruises well.

I must confess, I did not spend Halloween in my small town. I flew to New York City to visit friends and attended the Best Party of the Year: Hallowmas.  Hallowmas is the show the World Inferno/Friendship Society plays on Halloween every year, and it’s always pretty awesome.  This year was no exception.

My sister and David (previously mentioned) have been going for years. I joined in while I still lived in New York. I couldn’t dream of missing it this year, and flying across the country with my sister is always a trip. It started out with a Toasters show and ended in a pool of sweat, exhaustion, and euphoria.

I broke my stagedive virginity at this show. Three times. The feeling of leaping into the hands of total strangers, praying they will catch you, is a total exercise of release. You relinquish control and judgment and just fly. And when they catch you, and suddenly you are swimming above a moshing crowd, all fear is gone. You are entirely in the moment.

That is why I love mosh pits so much. It is all those reasons and more. You cannot fight the pit, only let it take you where it will. No one has control of the pit; it is the sum of it’s parts. You dive in and just go. Yes, you will get bruises, and I have many, but they do not hurt. It’s total surrender.

This Hallowmas brought the return of old friends and meeting of new. Max came to this show, and he’s been at ever Inferno show I’ve been. New friend Eoin was introduced and I hope he will return again soon. My sister and friends found him in London. It’s just a shame that the day after had to be spent calling out some people for questionable morals.

Photo courtesy of Konstantin Sergeyev.