To celebrate Memorial Day weekend 2007, I went camping at Hickory Run State Park with the three Matt Ks (hereafter known as Mykroft, Kriebel, and Mash), the two Lauras attached to a Matt K (hereafter known as Kemmerer and Morkowchuk), Ryan and Lisa Michaluk, and my lovely wife. I’ve been asked to document the experience, with illustrations by Mash. My memory is never good, but hopefully this is close to an accurate account.
Kriebel, Morkowchuk, and Mash arrived in the late afternoon on Friday and started setting up camp. While staking down their tent, Morkowchuk asked Kriebel for the hammer, thinking he would bring it to her. He threw it in her direction, assuming that she was looking to catch it. Because neither assumption was correct, the hammer landed business-end first on Morkowchuk’s foot. Kriebel also managed to injure his thumb, but I do not recall how. We had two sites across a field from each other, and both in a generally open and unwooded area. One site had a tent for Mykroft, Kemmerer, Ryan, and Lisa, and another for Mash. The other site contained a tent for Kriebel and Morkowchuk and another for Chad and Rachel, as well as the picnic table and fire circle that we used.
Mykroft and Kemmerer arrived later in the evening, and then Ryan, Lisa, Rachel, and myself even later. By that time, we had the joy of setting up our tent in the dark. Fortunately, I was able to remember the proper operation and with many hands and lanterns we soon had the setup finished. We spent the rest of the evening sitting around the campfire, trying to avoid too much smoke inhalation.
I had foolishly allowed myself to be convinced that nights would be warm, and ended up awake most of the night shivering under a thin blanket. Sleep eventually found me, but sadly everyone else was used to getting up earlier than 10:00 am. After a breakfast of apples, nectarines, and pop-tarts, and a failed attempt at making coffee over a campfire, Morkowchuk wisely suggested that we go visit Boulder Field, an 1800 x 400 foot expanse of rocks deposited by retreating glaciers. We all went about halfway, then Mash, Rachel, and Lisa waited while the rest of us continued to the end and then returned. On this return trip we experienced the third minor injury when a rock slipped beneath my foot and I scraped my lower leg on the way down.
Upon our return, we ate a lunch of sandwiches and salads, then played an incomplete game of Phase 10. When the heat became too much, we sat in a circle in the shade. At Mash’s bequest, I got out my guitar. We failed to find interesting in much of a singalong with violin lead, so we played “name that tune” with me playing the chord progression to classic rock and folk-rock songs and others trying to determine the songs. The group didn’t do very well, either because thousands of songs use the same chord progressions or because I’m a bad musician (most likely a combination of the two). When my fingers were screaming in pain, we played a board-less game of Trivial Pursuit. Even with Rachel answering three medical questions, the team of Kriebel, Morkowchuk, Mash, and Lisa somehow defeated Ryan, Mykroft, Rachel, and I.
As the afternoon ended, we feasted on kielbasa, baked potatoes, and corn-on-the-cob, with mountain pies for dessert. Afterwards, Ryan, Lisa, and Rachel returned to their respective homes. Mykroft handily defeated me in a game of checkers and then a game of chess, while the weak ones showered. When they returned, we enjoyed the fire until 11:00 or so and went to bed. The following morning came just as painfully early and Mykroft drove home to perform. The rest of us played a few card games, hiked to the lake and back during the morning, then ate tacos for lunch.
Afterward, Kriebel tried to learn to play the guitar while I collected extra firewood and Kemmerer went home to join Mykroft for another concert.
Dinner consisted of potatoes, chicken, veggies, and a Kriebel-Morkowchuk fight, all wrapped in aluminum foil and baked in the fire. After some time the Kemmerers returned with a story of a deluge in Bethlehem. As usual, we sat around the fire cooking smores while Mash and Kemmerer led us in singing the Beatles catalog. Then we went on a picnic, taking asparagus, bacon, coconuts, donuts, explosives, filet mignon, a go-RIL-la, heartworms, an illustrated cookbook, a jackrabbit, etc. As we were about to add a van, our picnic got rained out. We ran around cleaning up, then went to bed. The rain stopped almost immediately, but started again later at night.
After breakfast the next morning, Mykroft and I tended the fire while Kemmerer, Kriebel, Morkowchuk, and Mash hiked the Shades Of Death trail. When they returned, we packed up our things and ate a lunch of fire-cooked hot dogs. Good times were had by all.
