[stylist] Old Blind Mikes Famous Canoe Challenge!

[Robert Newman]

Mike

I also read your piece. And in general, you are a good and funny story
teller. And as I saw Chris's comments, he makes a couple of good ones, the
same as I intended to make prior to seeing his take on this. And that is: If
you were to clearly make this piece reflect that it was one of those "ahHuh"
moments, where you finally realized you needed to learn blindness skills to
help you function when your sight was not good enough, then I could endorse
it as a great and funny learning piece.


So yeah...we within the NFB really do try and educate the world in general,
that blindness is workable and for those of us with some vision, that we can
do better than the old McGoo image. 

Again, as a writer, you have talent. And I super appreciate you taking the
time and being open enough with us to share this piece; you, being somewhat
nervous about how we'd react to how you portrayed yourself, the blind guy. 

You know where this would be a great story to be read? In a training center
for the blind. Having the students read and discuss it. It would lead up to
be a great philosophical discussion. In fact...may I share this with a
training center or two? 

-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Michael via
stylist
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2015 6:49 PM
To: stylist at nfbnet.org
Subject: [stylist] Old Blind Mikes Famous Canoe Challenge!



Old Blind Mike's
Island Trip Of Challenge
In His Tippy Canoe!


 


This is a True Story from Old Blind Mike's Journal of adventure!

This is one heck of a tale about a one week canoe and camping trip On
Lake Detroit in Central Oregon and how a near blind man survives this
self inflicted ordeal. It reveals a real insight to a blind mans personal
experiences by facing real on site and in the water challeges. It will
certainlly enlighten all sighted readers to how a near blind man comes to
deal with a real outdoor adventure, all on his own.













Introduction:

No big deal here, just a simple excerpt from my Fun Journal to keep alive
a few good memories of times gone by. Hope you the reader, whoever you
might be will find some humor in this old mans adventures and also gain
some insight to a partially sighted(near blind) mans challenges. Please
have a fun read and know that I left out all the really good stuff.

A week prior to this challenging canoe jaunt I had just returned from a
one week trip to Montana and Canada Glacier National Park with my old
friend John. We were suppose to head into Canada and maybe up into Alaska
for at least 3 weeks but due to the high cost of gas, our being caught
unprepared (John forgot his money and I didn't have any) and our
inauspicious disorganization (departed in a haste, forgot to take our
camping gear) we returned home. This was rather disappointing to me
because I had planned to be gone for those three weeks and my family had
made plans around my absence and suddenly I'm back; oh no, this was not
good!



Ok, through this time of shock for my wife and daughters I tried to stay
calm but was rather restless, full of unspent energy and had to get away.
 This had nothing to do with the fact that my wife kept on asking me why
I had come home and why don't you go out back and cut those fifty acres
of wild berries down?  I really wanted to do something with my lovely
wife but due to her ill health and getting ready for school she had no
time for me so I borrowed my fishing buddy's 16 foot canoe (don't want to
give his name here, due to events in this story) threw my stuff together
and had my wife drive me and the canoe up to Lake Detroit. It was simple
enough, no real planning or testing or gas or disorganization, I just
unloaded the boat, dragged it into the lake, packed it up, said goodbye
to my wife, jumped in and off I went. 

About all the photos you won't see in this journal; well, had a brand new
camera, one that I just bought for this trip and just as I was finishing
up my first roll, I had the misfortune of getting to close to a speeding
boat, it just missed me and a splash washed over my boat and thus the
camera got its first soaking. After about an hour of beating it on the
edge of the canoe I was able to get most of the water out of it and it
seemed to work fine after that. But then in all my brilliance the next
day out I tied it onto the cross bar of the canoe and once again, while
involved in a lake fiasco and in some hard and heavy paddling, the camera
must of come undone and slid to the back of the canoe, just where all the
inside water happens to collect and there the camera set for the day and
it was finished for sure this time.
   
Therefore, each picture that I wanted to place herein will thus be a
descriptive overview of a once beautiful photo that is now lost in
bubbles and moss! 

Photo #1: That white guy you see sitting there in the canoe who looks
like a white chicken waving, is me. This is the sole planner and
expedition guide waving goodbye to everyone. The day is blue and hot, I'm
loaded down good, got on my outdoor broad rimmed hat and the island is
off in the distance. The photo was taken by my wife. I look a little
irritated  because my wife is making this great big scene, right there in
front of all the boaters and beach folks. Hey, I just wanted to get in
and go; oh no, she's suddenly Mrs. Photographer, and she has got to make
sure the distant island is in the picture. This means that she can't move
two feet over, but tells me to paddle over to the left, then right, and
then back again,  and line myself up just right. I paddle, everyone is
now looking, now she says this is not good, "hey, just take the stinking
picture," I say, but she tells me not to get huffy now. 

By now there's a few other folks standing around and watching the
possible catastrophe that just might be arriving soon. For its been about
8 years since I've been in a canoe and this one is not only huge, its
really loaded down with tons of my vital camping stuffs, and water is
lapping at the gunnals.  

Finally, she makes the shot and everyone gives their applause, and now I
got to get out of the canoe and retrieve the camera from my most 
considerate wife who can't possibly get her feet wet, and besides she
wants me to kiss her goodbye in front of the curious crowd. So with the
photo and kiss shoot accomplished, I get into my rocky boat and head out
across the lake. Of course, just as I'm feeling balanced and got my
bearings (finally going in a straight line) about 20 good strokes out, my
wife cups her hands and in all her loving voice  she yells, "can you see
the island Dear? Are you sure you can find it alone? Do you want me to
call the coast guard to help you with this trip?" I know she does this
just to make me really mad and not come home for at least a day and it
worked just great. 

The thing is that no one really knows that I'm blind and this is a
challenge for me, but does she have to tell the world?
Without looking back, it won't do any good anyhow, I can't see but about
5 feet in any direction so I lift my paddle, wave and head for deep
waters. 

The south end of the island is only about a quarter mile off to my left
but I got to cross the main ski and speed racing channel. This normally
wouldn't be any big deal but I'm a little nervous about being so loaded
down and besides my wife is still yelling out directions to me. "Can't
she just leave me alone and go away?"

A few ski boats flash by and roll a good sized wake at me but with all my
canoe skills I think to turn into it but over compensate and it slams me
up the side and woe, I almost flip, or so it seems. 

The sun is really hot and I'm a little over dressed for the long paddle
and begin my search for my camp. In fact I'm a little disturbed because I
forgot my bathing suit and got to wear these really hot jogging pants and
wow  am I ever Sweating.

Here comes a second boat, this time its full of punk blue harried freaks
who scream by me and swish a huge wake that nearly rolls me but again
everything works out ok, except that all my camping gear is now sopping
wet but hey, this is getting exciting!

The island looms near  (I'm sure) and I can no longer hear that overly
concerned but irritating voice behind me, off in the distance but I'm
sure that is her honking the horn as one final warning not to call her
for at least three days. Now the worst time of day for my eyes is from
about sunrise to sunset and around noonish is the worst of that time. The
sun is brilliant and due to my balancing act and near three swampings,
I've already lost my sun glasses and the sun is glaring really bad but so
what, I know the island is out there somewhere, I hope?

About three quarters the way to the south point I realize that I'm an old
man and this paddling stuff just might give me a heart attack and start
to worry and so much for a peaceful get away.

The early afternoon wind begins to pick up and I'm blown off course down
the west side of the island. This is not where I want to go and got to
really work hard to stay on course. If anyone is watching me, they must
think that I'm some sort of zig zag freak, going for a record in zigging
and zaggin in the record books  because I'm going left and right and back
and forth like a sail boat tacking but I'm only a canoe. And a canoe is
built to go straight and straight I ain't going.

I decide, well really the wind decided for me, but I arrive at the wrong
side of the island and need to paddle back against the wind to the south
point. 
This south point used to offer a pretty nice camping site. You could tie
up your boat right there, and you got some forest to put your tent in and
it was a nice spot at one time. Well I finally get around to the point
and there is someone anchored off shore fishing right where I wanted to
be, can you imagine that?

Ok, I'm trying to squint my way around the stumps and logs, don't know if
anyone is on shore fishing and sort of paddle along playing Mr. Cool and
dumb at the same time. Can't see if anyone is looking at me from the
boat, but I'm sure they are, it's only thirty feet away and I nod just in
case their wondering. 

I suddenly hit the island, take my bearings and with all the grace of an
experience  outdoorsman I pull up to a huge old stump and think to step
out of the canoe. But, being so long seated in the near impossible canoe
paddling position , now stiff legged and hunched back my legs won't move.
I begin to cramp up and ah sheet, this hurts! Oh please this hurts but
got to be cool now, so I sort of flip out of the canoe into about two
foot of cool refreshing water. My legs go num and I got to rub my cramps
away and as I'm doing this, I fail to hold onto the canoe and it drifts
into the peoples nearby fishing lines. I now got to wade out into deeper
waters and grab the dang thing and pull it back. I hear someone cussing a
little but say my sorriest excuses and work boat back to rocky shore, and
stumble out of water in soaking jogging pants but I'm still a smiling,
just in case my wife is looking with my binoculars, the ones I forgot.

I pull the canoe a little onto shore, tie it up and take a look. Hey now,
what happened to the shore? This is not how I remembered it to be but of
course I haven't been here for 10 years and the lake is down about 25
feet. I stumble around the  bolder covered shore and head up to the tree
line. I go behind bushes to see if there might be a camping site but
nada.  The boat load of fishermen are right down below me now, and I
realize that it looks like I've stopped off here to go to the toilet
because I'm searching out the bushes right in front of them. Forget this
place, I stumble back down the cliff and with all grace, get into my
canoe and pull myself along the shore lined stumps, trying not to disturb
the family so peacefully fishing. I nod my goodbyes and think, so what,
I'll never see them again, wrong! But will meet these people along the
way in a few days and they'll learn more about my very odd visit to their
fishing area. 

I decide to go around the east side of the island and slowly begin my
long paddle to the east end of the lake. I remember that there once were
camping sites there and maybe I'll find one. I feel pretty safe as long
as I stick close to the shore.

Now shadows don't work well for my very limited vision; nor does light.
It would normally take about 5 minutes for my eyes to make some kind of
adjustment to varying light.  But if you add brilliant afternoon sun
flashing through tall trees every three seconds an then suddenly finding
yourself in deep shadow, well that is something that causes my hurting
eyes much trouble. Sure, the paddle down the east side was much better
but I now had to weave along the shadowy cliffs and coves with blasting
sunbeams piercing my views and each time my eyes had to readjust. This
normally wouldn't be much trouble but if a blind man is in a canoe and he
has water skiers blasting by on his right and fishermen casting from off
shore on his left; and well, you can't see them, this is a cause for some
concern. 

There are some things that are hard for a sighted person to understand,
like why would a strange bearded man paddling along a shore in a near
sunken canoe be rubbing his eyes and talking to stumps along the shore?
Yes, this might sound a little stupid and believe me, it really is but
yes it does happen. The best way to prevent such events of stupidity, is
for a blind man to just stay home and lock himself into  his room and
die! But oh no, this Mister Blind  Outdoorsmen wants to live and also
keep his wife happy by disappearing for a week at a time.but back to
stump conversations? 

There are tons of old stumps along the shoreline of this island. They
stand tall and are in all forms, shapes and sizes. And unless you got
some good eyes in your head, you as Mister Outdoor Magoo could very
easily mistake any one of these stumps as a quiet fisherman just waiting
for you to go by.honest.

Every so often small splashes would hit the water near me, so naturally I
assumed (assuming is not good for a blind person) that this was someone
casting their lines out into the water. Therefore I would slowly turn
away from shore or head out for the little cove and make my apology known
to the "Stump!" Hey I'm a considerate man, its best to at least udder
some sort of apology as you try to avoid ruining someone's day, even if
it was only a stump or an odd shaped rock. Those little splashes turned
out to be fish jumping. Oh well, I bet I both entertained and amused a
lot of people on this trip and gave them something to talk about around
the camp fire at night. 

"Hey George are you still wondering why that odd ball bearded guy in the
canoe was talking with the trees and stumps? Do you think he is one of
those escaped weirdoes from the State institution everyone is looking
for? Do you think we should turn him into the forest rangers?" 

"I don't know Marge but you better keep the gun loaded and lock up the
tent tonight."

Photo #2: This is a picture of one of those stumps. Now look close and
sort of squint a little and you'll see that from about 30 feet away it
could resemble a man casting a pole, right? Got to admit though, this guy
would be rather big, sporting a massive head about 3 foot across and
totally bald with at least six legs and hey, use your imagination please?
One more equation, let someone shine a flashlight into your eyes while
your trying to figure this out and make sure your dodging jet ski's in
all this.

Finally got out of the shadows and sun flares and came to the east end of
the island where the shore line drops down into a lower area.  Paddled
into shore, found a little niche, tied up and walked up the rocky hill
and came onto a flat and there was this unbelievable camp site. The thing
was that there was no one around, and I mean no one. This was in the
middle of the week but still, this had to be one of the nicest camp sites
on the whole lake. I soon searched out the area and found several
'Welcome' signs, couldn't read the rest of the two inch lettering and
made the choice to set up camp. Began unloading the gear from the over
laden canoe and when  it was lightened up, pulled it up onto a pebble
beach. I couldn't believe it, this was a perfect spot, a 180 degree view
of three different sections of the lake with a sand beach behind me and
plenty of bushes to use as a toilet facility. I did notice sort of a
swampy area behind the bushes but hey, this was a great place.  There of
course was no toilets or running water on the island and  all campers had
to make do and so I did. 

After about two hours of setting up my tent, first time I ever set up
this tent and glad no one was around to watch this flapping circus in the
wind or at least I thought there was no one to see. Now just a few days
earlier, my daughter Lori set this tent up in two minutes, it took me
that long to just untie the first knot, and another hour to get it up but
then had to undo the whole thing because I put the rods in wrong, but
hey, not bad for an old timer. Anyhow, got all set up and went for a very
refreshing swim. Man was that nice. After all this, dried off, sat down
on my burrito filled ice chest and absolutely had nothing to do and got
bored, thinking that this desert island thing might not be so cool after
all.

Within three minutes of pure  boredom, I thought it to be a good idea to
clear a way down to my boat and thus began moving 14 tons of rocks from
my camp site down to the canoe. I actually spent a half day creating a
clear smooth path down the rocky bolder strewn shore. 

However, due to smaller rounded pebbles laying on this descending path,
it became as if an icy slide, each and every time I put my foot onto the
path. I solved my arm waving back stroke falls by tying the extra long
bow rope from the canoe to a tree in my camp. Thereafter each time I
descended to the water some 30 feet down below I would hold the rope with
one hand, and walk with a walking stick in my other hand and I thought it
might help a bit. Hey it did work ok as long as you crawled,  and I only
fell or did a odd twisting dance when a boat load of people came along,
and I'm sure they went away laughing, or awed at this lake side
acrobatical show.

This rock and bolder removal project was my first geological experience
of the trip that I managed. The path worked out pretty good for me but by
the days end, my fingernails were all busted, my white back was totally
blood red and I had hundreds of odd bumps all over my body; this turned
out to be mosquito bites and this was day time. However, all my problems
went away when I dove into the clear refreshing lake water and swam out
and just floated there in silence and let the fish nibble on my toes. 

Things were going great until I tried laying down that night. I must have
wrenched my back and could lay down ok but trying to get up again, well
that was a problem. I got a little panicky the first night, thinking that
maybe I screwed up my back so bad I wouldn't be able to even get up in
the morning, and who would be there to help? Hey no problem, remembered
that I had a cell phone and thought to dial my wife and see if it worked.
I waited, it rang and my daughter Lori answered and put me on hold as my
batteries drained down. She said she was holding for a clerk to give her
a price on peanut butter. Finally my wife came onto the phone and had
sort of a pleading sound in her hello, as if saying, "Please, not
already, don't ask me to come and get you?"

I immediately assured her, and put her little heart to rest that I was
having a great time with all these really neat female fisher people, and
there was a girls school camping out right next door; and she got a good
chuckle out of this one saying, "I know, you must have screwed up your
back and your calling for reassurance, aren't you?"

"No dear, just letting you know I'm still alive and plan on staying at
least three weeks."

"That's fantastic, and by the way, did you make sure your life insurance
is paid up in full, just checking Dear?" 

"Yeah, all is taken care of and," at this point she puts me on hold for
the price of peanut butter and I get really upset and disconnect!

Ok, my lovely little island is about a mile long and a quarter mile
across. The area I'm in, offers a few camp sites with a large sand beach
and further around to the west there is a good sized swamp where billions
of bugs, nats and monstrous mosquitoes await their hunt for blood on my
desert island. It so happens that I got the entire island to myself. 
Thus, after only three days, my name and location had to be broadcasted
to every flying creature that existed for three miles in all directions.
This seems a little out of the ordinary to me but, wow was I ever having
fun! 

This wouldn't have been so bad if I could have built a camp fire, but due
to the fire season restrictions I'm not allowed to build one. I could
have built a smoldering smoky fire that would have at least kept the
bigger three pound flying teeth away from me but couldn't break the law
now, could I? 

My first evening alone on my desert island arrived and the distant noise
from the ski boats went down a few decimals and the lake began to lay
flat and calm. My first evening swim was wonderful until a drunken boat
load of screaming freaks came roaring down my side of the shore and just
missed me as I swam for my life, but this was fun stuff, right?

After figuring out that my little tent actually had mosquito netting and
that a cool evening sent the monster biters back to the swamps, things
got much better. I figured out that they don't count mosquitoes around
here but measure them in density. I'm sure it was something like One
Million per cubic foot!

The night wore on and I took out my daughters smaller guitar, oh yes, had
to bring a guitar along for some entertainment, after all, it wasn't safe
for me to be alone with my own mind for too long. I sat there under the
trees looking out over the lake just meditating while plucking a few soft
sounds. This went on for an hour or so when a boat came along and stopped
a short distance off my beach. 

I thought they were maybe enjoying the soft strings of my nights
ponderings but apparently they were thinking if it was worth while to
come ashore and mug me for beer? I say beer because during one of my
better tunes, at least I thought so, one gutteral voice yelled out, "Hey
you stinkin jerk, do you got any beer for us?"

At first I was shocked, realizing that this drunken rap boat gang was
serious and then I was insulted that they didn't really stop to hear my
peaceful tunes of the night. Then I could hear them arguing about who
might go to shore and check my ice chest out and I decided to fight back,
and no way was I going to allow them to know I had burritos! 

"Don't even think of it dudes, for don't think that I'd be stupid enough
to camp out alone without my Doberman, Brutus and not to think of
bringing along my 45?" At this I gave forth a low growl and softly said,
"Now Brutus, I know your not feeling all that well about not getting your
normal five pounds of steak but maybe one of those idiots might oblige
your hungry rage by stepping ashore, what you think there Brutus?" Then a
louder growl and hey, this seemed to work until a beam of light that
would blind a man on the moon came sweeping across my  camp site and
alighted on me. 

I was really blind now but just looked over at my tent and said calmly,
"Now brutus, I know it's tough on your pride but you stay there in your
tent and obey me and keep me away from that gun, you know what my
psychiatric therapist said about me and guns, be good now Brutus."

This  seemed to work, for a roar of laughter came from the boat and I
heard one guy say, "This was really great entertainment, let's go get the
rest of the gang  and hit another camp and come back here and convert
this jerk to Rap music." And with this they started their engine, punched
out and roared away with a two million watt sound system blaring out
gutter rap and violent rap music!

Shortly thereafter while plucking out another tune, only this one being a
little more nervous in its rhythm, I spied what seemed to be the
beginning of a fire on the mountain across from me. 
Oh no, hope its not a fire and I'll have to evacuate in the middle of the
night. However, soon the flames or what I thought to be bright flames
began to rise up. Sitting there a bit worried, listening for distant
alarms, I soon saw a brilliant moon rise up over the mountain. Wow was
all I could say!

No kidding, that moon was like a massive light so bright  I just became
mesmerized, and to tell you the truth, this was a total surprise; and
just because of that beautiful moon, I decided to spend the night, no
matter even if the rapper boat gang decided to return, but they never
showed.lousy cowards!

I sat there in this near full moon light, watching its light glistening
down over the water and shining directly into my camp. This was so
awesome that I actually began to enjoy this serendipity moment, and
finally thought to crawl into my sleeping bag.

It took about an hour to get comfortable on what came to be an immoveable
rock under my tent. But I finally twisted my body around a few times and
fell asleep for about twenty minutes when my bladder began to stretch out
like one of those tubes behind a 90 mile an hour jet boat on the lake. So
got undone, undid the tent flap, allowing herds of hungry blood thirsty
mosquitoes to have their rights of blood exercised on me and cracked my
tow on one of those larger rocks, and finally found a tree to water. 
Made a big mistake here, for when I leaned my hand on the tree for
balance it became stuck to what was a years supply of tree sap that was
now flowing out in the hot summer days. This was really bad because I had
no way of getting it off, not even with dirt, rocks or peanut butter.

After deciding that a sticky hand didn't really matter for real
outdoorsmen, I gave up and got back to my tent safely, tucked back in and
fought off the buzzing bombers and must have dozed off. Somewhere in here
between a dream of my daughter buying $300 worth of peanut butter and my
wife taking out more life insurance on me, I was startled by a light
shining in my face and thought for sure that those rap boat gangers had
come to get me. That billion watt light which was now melting my eyebrows
off my face, turned out to be the rising sun! 

This couldn't be true, for how could I the blind man have aligned my tent
door, perfectly and exact to the east, to greet the rising sun. I thought
that maybe I had some ancient Egyptian blood in me, for they seemed to
line everything up with the rising sun too.  The only thing was, I didn't
come hear to meet the rising sun with my face. It had to be about 5:30 am
and not a peep could be heard anywhere. I rolled over and tried to get
back to sleep but again my bladder started screaming at me but I told it
to go to where old stretched bladders go to!

Eventually I rolled out of my blazing tent into a brilliant burning day, 
scorching my white body to a dark brown within minutes. And of course I
had lost my sun glasses in one of those super balancing canoe tricks. And
so there I was and began my first full day with a terrible headache and
my sappy and very sticky hand over my eyes, trying to protect them from a
lazar operation, that I didn't really want.

I stumbled down to my canoe to see if it was still there. Only fell twice
and banged up my knee because the rope had slackened due to the drop in
the lake. The canoe was there and so  decided while the water was still
nice and calm I would go in for a morning swim, wash off the blazing burn
on my face and maybe quench the fiery bites now numbering at least ten
thousand, and oh was that water cold, and I had to remind myself that I
was having fun! 

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. 
I immediately dug into my food supply and had several hot Chile filled
burritos for breakfast, O friends, truly the wrong thing to do if your
not prepared to use the outdoors or bushes in the wilderness. 

Please understand that this is ok for a normal sighted person, but
imagine a blind guy pulling his canoe into what he thinks to be a quiet
isolated cove, and fighting his way into the bushes to be suddenly
pounced upon by someone's mad camp dog. And then a whole camp family
looks over the bushes to see what the heck Rover is barking at? 
True and don't want to say more here but please don't eat bean filled
burritos for breakfast folks, unless you got good eyes. Does this make
any sense to you? 

It was already to late to explore the east fork of the lake so thought it
might be best to head due north across to the distant and safe shallows
and stump area where few boats travel and make my way around to the dock
and store to see about fresh water and ice for my two year supply of
those three pound burritos.

I loaded up with what I thought might be needed for the day and headed
out north. Lesson here: while standing high upon an island looking out
over a body of water, the distance on a lake doesn't seem to great, but
once you get into a canoe and start paddling, that distance at water
level turns into a voyage. 

One certainly learns fast about the safety of the visible shore,
especially when he is a blind man, and leaves safe shore and warm tent
behind, and gets caught into the open lake winds. Oh did I fail to
mention that there seems to be a dislike for canoes by ski boats? Yes,
this is sort of like the rivalry between skiers and snow boarders but in
this case the canoe has a real disadvantage. And so it was when a ski
boat came at me a hundred miles an hour, and didn't see me until it was
three feet away, and made a sudden turn, leaving a four foot wave flowing
over my head.  This is where I think my camera might have gotten  its
final soaking. 

Now these so called lake breezes are nothing for a heavy boat with a 90
horse powered motor, but try this with a sixteen foot  empty canoe,
pushed by an old blind man, totally out of shape and just knows he is
ready heart attack  material. These hurricane like winds seem to have a
mind of their own and want to take your boat south in the opposite
direction to the dam, where the only way out is either over the spillways
or by helicopter! 

Of course my expertise came into play here and I promised myself never to
do this again. After about two hours of heavy paddling, totally sun
burned, even under my eye lids and near exhaustion I arrived into shallow
water. I immediately found a rocky shore and loaded up the bow of my
canoe with about 50 pounds of rocks to keep the boat from being blown off
course like  a paper bag in the wind.pretty smart, Aah?  

Somewhere in here I am sure I discovered the first damage to my brand new
camera. So much for my new camera. I now spent another hour trying to
shake the water out of it and got it working good enough to at least
click and move forward. But my camera repair ability ended abruptly the
next day, when I allowed the knot to untie, and without realizing it the
camera slid into deep water in the back of the boat and remained
underwater all night. So as mentioned above, all pictures will be hence
described.

Photo #3: This shot is looking through the multitude of stumps in the
shallow part of the lake. Off in the far distance you can see my island,
I call it my island because I'm still the only one staying on it. There
on the eastern tip in the trees you might be able to see my little tent
blowing in the breeze. If you look hard enough you'll also see the low
area just behind my tent, hey, that is the swamp area that I'm planning
to explore soon. I suspect that this swamp area is where those clouds of
mosquitoes are coming from. I fixed this photo into my mind, for it's the
only reference point there is for me to get back. It's easy to get turned
around in the wind and lose ones perspective. You will also notice the
glare of the sun upon the water, this is also how I come to navigate
direction; sort of like a wild goose does. I know as long as I keep the
sun on my left I'm going south but once it gets directly overhead
anything can happen and so it did.  

Now finding the lake and store dock wasn't all that hard to do, just had
to follow the music, the roar of boat engines and the smells.

It did get a little tough when I couldn't find the entrance into the boat
dock area, it was somewhat obscured  by the huge signs that announced the
ENTRANCE!!! 

Ok, once through the 50 foot opening I played dumb. By this you must
understand that it might be a little strange to paddle into a harbor
where there are tons of moving boats worth lots of money and holler out,
"hey anyone out there, I'm blind, can you help me find my way to the
dock, where I can park this dang plastic ship?" 

Can you imagine the reaction one might get? "Blind, hey why the heck is
this guy allowed loose on the lake in the first place, isn't he a danger
to every living thing?" 

"How stupid can one get, a blind man feeling his way around a huge lake,
doesn't he know that lakes don't have brail?" And so this is why I prefer
to just be cool and play dumb!

Not bad, only bounced off one large cruiser that didn't even see me and
another ski boat threw some empty beer cans at me, at least I thought
they were empty, and another boat shoved me off with a long stick but
eventually among some cussing and ill aimed words, I found a quiet place
to tie up to, and crawled onto the rocking dock. 

Oh yes, got to realize that once you been in a rocking boat for three
hours, hey your brain sort of sticks in that motion and you rock while
you walk. Now add near blindness to this rock-n-roll and put all this
into a real grubby bearded package and you got one heck of a curiosity?

Everyone seemed to stay out of my way as both the dock and me was rockin
as I stumbled along headed up and up to where there existed a store. A
few far out hippie types gave me the "Hey man got a beer query" but I
acted like I was a blind man who just paddled in on a canoe and was
rockin my brains out and they backed off. Got to the store, thought I was
buying water and soda but later I discovered it turned out to be some
Alligator Juice and guess what, yes it was Beer! At first I was really
upset, but then thought this might be one of those times that I could win
my freedom from the rapper boat gang if they did return, and so kept it
for a possible bribe. 

Then finally I found the ice, and made sure it was ice, couldn't go much
wrong there but left short changed. Hey, no big deal, wrong change is
normal when people discover you can't see if your handing over a $10 or a
$20 bill but in this case, I only had tens and didn't lose to much;
besides how are you going to argue this if you can't see the change they
gave you back anyhow? Lesson #22 here; trust people to do right but
always carry small bills, you lose less when they do rip you off!!

After a wonderful time bumping around in that air conditioned store I
made my way back to the dock area. I got back to my canoe or at least
where I thought I left my canoe. Oh wow, what the heck happened to my
boat or to my borrowed boat? 

Did I forget where I parked it or what? I retraced my directions and
counted my steps, checked out the sun and stood there baffled, this had
to be the right dock, I couldn't have got that turned around, could I?
Then some kind dock worker, I think it was the driver of the Rap gang
boat, because he had blue hair,  told me that he had moved it to the
other side, because I was parked in the Coast Guard spot and thought they
might not take a liking to my audacious action. I thanked him as he told
me that I only owed him $10 bucks for parking and tie up fee's, just
kidding, he then added, "I'll collect later!" 

This guy was cool, he saw that I was a real lake bum, and instantly took
a liking to me and wanted to know if I wanted to buy ten pounds of island
grown swamp dope or needed any pain killers.  Those pain killers tempted
me but hey, what's a challenge with pain killers? 
I told him "Na, can't you see, I am pretty well out of it now, really
don't need anything else, just might crash and burn in my mean canoe!"

Thus my first stop at the dock concluded and I had the place wired. What
I mean by wired is that a blind person or someone with poor sight is
always marking his way with signs and sounds, and stores this information
away for later use, if ever need be. This is why my mind is filled up
with billions of useless facts, sounds and notes. Now if and when I
returned, I knew how to get into the harbor, where to tie up to and
exactly how many steps up to the parking lot and how many steps up to the
store, which side the door opened up to and where the beer was and the
water was not.

Photo #4: Now can you see all those hundreds of boats, well my canoe was
right smack dab in the middle of them all. Those few people standing at
the dock with raised fists are especially raised towards me, because I
accidentally made a two hundred thousand dollar boat swerve and hit the
dock. Fortunately no one was hurt, but guess the gas pump had to be shut
down for a few hours and I got away just as the Coast Guard came to
investigate the gas spill.

At last some peace came to me, thinking I knew my way back to my island
with clear sailing or should I say paddling, and off I went fully assured
of a safe trip home.WRONG! 

Once out of the boat dock area, I went southeast, tracing my route
backwards. Along the outer dock, along the tree lined shore, up to the
big rock, then into the hundreds of stumps, but first my bladder was
calling again, so this meant a swim. But while taking a quick swim I 
thought to explore the sandy shore here for later stops. While walking
around, just missed a great disaster when I stepped into a old fire pit
partially covered with sand and my foot sank into three inches of broken
wine bottles. "Oh sheet," I shouted and jumped back and sat down on the
hot sand and burnt my rear  while checking out my foot. By the way, since
I forgot my bathing suit an  jogging pants were way to hot, I was now
wearing blue underwear instead. Those old tire tread sandals saved the
day for me except for one three inch gash on my right foot but just
rubbed old ashes into it and decided to leave this exploring stuff well
enough alone for now. 

Just want to let the reader of this narrative know that partially sighted
humans very often find troubles that would not normally come to sighted
folks.  Why would a sighted person step into a fire pit? Why would a
sighted person trip over a very visible log or a bolder the size of a
Volkswagen, fall, and hit his elbow on a rock, and come up screaming? 
Why, oh why would anyone have to count steps, measure distances,
calculate times, shadows and directions, just to buy a bottle of water?
And all this trying to be accomplished in a state of pure normalcy? What
the heck would a normal person even be doing out here in this situation.
I thought all this while trying to get my anger under control and as I
looked around, couldn't hear nor see anyone and realized that a normal
human would never have been here at all, and then fully understood that I
was not normal and could never be so!

Ah now, through the stumps I paddled,  and got stuck in quicksand and mud
and sand at least a dozen times, and was attacked by diving geese  when I
entered into a no human zone,   but eventually found the deep water. Took
a sighting of the sun, looked for my two mountains and the island and
wahla, I was lost!  
No way, how could this be, the island was right there this morning? 

Ok, lets get logical. The sun is now right in the middle of the sky, not
good, but the mountain is still there, isn't it? 
Yes, so lets head a little to the right of that peak and in a short time
we should arrive at my island, right? 

Well of course, this is perfect logic for a human with sight but not so
good for men of limited vision.

No matter what, that island wasn't going to disappear on me like that,
it's got to be out there somewhere and away I went. About a half hour
into this long distant paddle, the afternoon wind came on. Oh yes, it
came directly out of the south and for every paddle stroke I took
forward, I went backwards three strokes. It took about an hour of getting
nowhere and some really bad chest pains to make me realize that something
else had to be done. The first thing was to put on my life jacket, oh,
bet you thought I didn't have one right? True, but my buddy Jack wouldn't
loan me his canoe unless I took one, and oh boy did it come in handy,
thanks friend!

Thus, at this time I  gave up the paddling stuff, jumped over board, took
the bow rope and began swimming towards the island, now towing my canoe!

Now if you ever thought distance was all in perspective, then you never
tried towing a canoe in 40 mile an hour winds and having two foot waves
splash in your face every second. Perspective, sure, just try it one day
and see if you can find your way, only close your eyes. 

The winds had driven all the boats that might have possibly rescued me
off the lake and I was alone. I could have just let the wind take me back
to broken bottle beach but no way was I going to give up, and so
continued to swim. After about an hour of this I had no idea where I was
but the wind had not slowed its blow against me and my little boat. Well
then, I knew I was at the end of my line, and that was true,  so thought
I'd turn to higher powers and did so. Hey guess what, within ten minutes
the wind began to die down to almost nothing. I pondered distances on
this matter. Just how long does it take for a prayer to reach the One in
control of wind on lakes, and then does He have to notify another power
and then someone gets out there and actually tells the wind maker to
stop? Why ten minutes, why not three, I pondered, it must be some flaw in
the  system.

Photo #5: You can see a drifting canoe, empty and alone, sort of looks
eerie in a way, especially as you notice the coast guard boat coming up
to se what the heck was going on? Reminds me of a Warning Poster in the
Coast Guard Office to never go out on a windy lake alone.  

At this point in my swim and pull session, the Coast Guard boat nearly
ran me down but I dove under the canoe just in time. I came up choking
and surprised the officer looking my boat over. 
"Hey, what the heck are you doing out here alone, don't you know that
these afternoon winds howl through this channel and can actually turn
boats over," he asked in irritation.

"Well sort of Sir Officer Friend and Pal but I'm training for the old man
Olympics and need to exercise and thought this wind would be a challenge
to me. But if you think there is any danger of me hurting anyone else,
you can tow me to the island if you would?"

"Well, that is not our job if your training for the Olympics and we
wouldn't want to damage your chances of qualifying.but just to let you
know, your about 50 feet from the island already."

I couldn't believe it and put my foot down and oh wow, touched bottom!
Remember that thing about perspective, well that is how it works for me.

I stood up and pulled the canoe towards shore and asked the officer
standing there laughing, "Did my wife put you guys up to this?"

"Sir, what makes you think such a thing?"

"Well, its just the way you showed up at just the right time and you
seemed to know something about me. And you asked me if I had paid my
insurance premium and if I still had plenty of burritos?"

The swift talking officer hesitated for a moment but then muttered, "In
all fairness, we did get a strange call from a woman muttering something
about a old nut lost on the lake, and if we would keep an eye out for
him, since he had none and something to keep him alive until the new
policy went through. Then there's the smell of gas in a canoe?"

"That does it, enough of this training for the old folks Olympics, I
quit!" I shook my head but thought, "And by the way, do you guys want a
soda, it's a long story, but got a few very different ones here on ice."

They gladly accepted, took a double take but  went their way and I
paddled around the tip and brought my boat to a safe stop in its niche
and I was home by early evening, three hours late.

No doubt, I was tired, sore and there were muscles on my body that even
medical charts didn't know about, but hey, this was great and a raw
experience for sure. I wanted challenge and I certainly got challenge.
And no doubt, my first challenge was to figure out how I was going to
keep my face from dropping off with a sunburned smile still attached to
my facial bones?

Then there were those unpleasant unmentionables like hemorrhoids , tired
ear drums, rumbling intestines, drained brain and a gash on my foot along
with a rash from my jogging pants that could put a new pharmacy into
business with only one purchase of rash cream or some other magic potion,
but oh boy was I having fun! 
I made it back and I  joyfully rolled up my ball bearing pathway to my
camp, screamed at the crows and squirrels that were now sitting around my
camp site as if they owned the place. I saw that they had helped
themselves to my burrito supply (they were gonna be sorry) but I really
didn't care at this time. I put in what was left of my block of ice and
fell into my tent and even that rock under my bed felt wonderful.

I don't know how much time passed but found myself in a hideous nightmare
and awoke with the roaring of evil, devil inspirited rap kill everyone
music and either my sight had totally failed or it was now pitch black
outside. Sure enough, the sun was gone and the lake was wild with boaters
gone mad, and my mood was not proving itself to be so tolerable and
screamed out, "Shut that satanic god forsaken devil worshipping, good for
nothing jungle loser screaming garbage music off or I'll come out there
and sink your freaking boats!!!"

Suddenly the entire lake went quiet and I said, "Thank you and keep my
lake quiet!"

With this, everything that could make noise burst into even louder sound
systems and this was bad at first until I realized that this concussion
throbbing through the air was cutting a swath through the hoards of
mosquitoes in mid flight! Decided to wait it out, went for a late evening
swim and washed a lot of pain away and after drying off, sat down to
enjoy another great meal of.burritos AGAIN?

Night flushed in quietly and I was ready this time, for the fire on the
mountain burst again and soon the full moon arose so bright this time
that I had to hide from it, thought it would burn me worse. Truly my
spirit was calmed and the entire day of trials faded away with the sight
of this awesome moon. I got out my guitar again and this time enjoyed
watching the sparkling moon beams dance on the water and I think that
this moon had even awed the rap gang into silence, and it was peaceful.  

Wrong, and Nada, the full moon only must have driven these rap nuts out
of their holes, for about an hour later here they came picking on me
again. I guess because my camp site was so right there on the point of
the island they couldn't miss me. Lesson #33-Never over expose yourself
or make yourself an easy target! But this time I was ready for them. When
they started yelling for beer, I said, "O, humans with subnormal
intelligence, you dinghy dog dungsters rap rebels, you want beer, you'll
get beer!"

At this moment I think that I must have felt invincible, after my near
death experience of today, and my calming of the wind prayer, and told
this boat load of punk rappers to get ready for beer for it was on its
way. And with this, I took up a can, popped its popper or whatever else 
you call it and with all my might screamed sort of a mad gorilla screech
of attack,  and threw the can at their boat. I heard the first cann hit
the side of their boat, and someone yelled, "Sheet, this guy is nuts,
he's throwing beer at us!"

I guess you might say I sort of had it with this ruination of nature, and
with this announcement I screamed another  blood curdling scream of, "
Death to hideous death rapper music, and all those who insult peaceful
waters," and proceeded to bombard their boat with open cans of beer! 

At first there was a scream and then another; to come and get me, but I
guess I must have hit someone pretty good and this knocked some sense
into them. 

Apparently, they decided that it was best to leave this out of mind-mad
old blind man alone and thus they started up their engine and split with
the last beer can bouncing off the drivers blue dyed head, and the boat
swerved a few times and finally disappeared around the corner, never to
be heard of again.

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 an 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 as I awed them with my extraordinary
swimming ability. Well, the scouts stood there reading the posted signs,
looking over at me and were shaking their heads while whispering among
themselves.  

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 paddled 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 for stealing my burritos! 
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 Michael's Summer Island Challenge Canoe Trip on Lake
Detroit, and I can't wait to get back next year! 

Watch Out Folks!
 
* Experienced and written By actual Experiencer
Michael M. Tickenoff
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!

www.storynetadventures.com

TickPub Thanks You,
All The Best And More,
Regards And Respect From Michael!
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