Another great idea…

Special thanks to Hailey Tomac…for the awesome pictures…

      Saturday night after I got home from floating down the river in a canoe I had another great idea…. I just wish I could remember it…in the mean time I will fill you in on the details of the crazy Van Heck canoe trip, known as Friends and Family…or as we affectionately call it “Party at Mike’s Place.”…

     Okay we really do not, but we should…

      I use the word floating a tad tongue in cheek because I have yet to find a way to canoe and not actually paddle. I have come close. I have nearly made it without any paddling on my part but at some point ya just gotta paddle. Most of the day I do float…but then there is that time when you MUST disturb someone else’s chi. To do this it requires some paddling…

     It is a mandate to, when canoeing, at some point to attempt to knock someone’s canoe over, splash them with a paddle wave, or just cause some madcap mayhem, and misplaced mischievousness. I am really not sure if this is because there may be alcoholic and DaddyPop beverages involved or because the idea that some else is just minding their own business is just too idyllic to not infringe upon. I really do not know.

     I do know there is a time and place for paddling. And the less I do the better. There are muscles that hurt today that I did not know I had not used lately. And I only know this because they hurt. Not a bad hurt, just a mild well paid for hurt. The kind you appreciate. The good kind of pain.

     As most of you do not know, There is a proper way to dress for canoeing… I do not know what it is for everyone but…Short of a Rambo-esque survival knife I think I have it pretty dialed in…for the last Boy Scout canoers out there, I have included a picture of the well dressed canoer wannabe..

     I am a red-head and have learned that sun block is only as good as the person that remembers to put it on. There is also a component about the amount of time that it stays on or does not get wet. I guess the inventors of sun block have some other RULES like…have to put it on before you get burned and at least a half hour before you get in the sun…I do not know about you, but I’m calling bullsh(i)t on this one…it should be that the stuff works anytime anywhere…if I were King of the World, it would…

     A good pair of sunglasses are a must…if you have a pair of as-seen-on-TV HD over the specs sunglasses like I do you would be wearing them in any encounter with the sun…and they make EVERYTHING look sooo much better…

     My son, Mr. Saturday!! Lost his glasses…thankfully they’re a spare pair…that’s why I wear the bandana. Hold the glasses in place…after loosing a great pair of fairly expensive (more than 10 dollars, I think like $10.99) sunglasses I have learned my lesson…

     Billy G lost his glasses on a canoe trip in Indiana…a few years back… he mistakenly tossed them to me…I mistakenly pulled a Schrader-alligator-arms and missed the throw…it may have had something to do with the six-rounds of MD 20/20 in various flavors that we guzzled at every stop…probably not, that stuff only gets teen-agers drunk…and that’s why I don’t like Indiana…

     FYI…You do not or rarely find glasses when they take the plunge…I, thankfully for billy g. had a suitable spare pair…those of us with glasses are very beholden to them…hence the bandana… a croakie glass holder works well also, but that was in the Hockeyball bin, and a good Boy Scout or marine, (of which I am neither) is prepared adapts, and improvises...Mr. Saturday unfortunately was not so lucky as i had to keep the emergncy supplies to a bare minimum.... (im sorry CB...) 

     I have a friend that lost his wedding band on his honeymoon in Hawaii…they are still married…but that Hawaiian surf is a brutal ring stealer…hence the cargo pockets…a good pair from Gander Mountain will have zippers to keep stuff in the pocket no matter what the river wild attempts to do…or battling big surf…i do have some of the cleanest $20.00 bills in the world as they were in my wallet for the trip as well...come to think of it my wallet is kinda clean as well...must be all the phosphates in the rivers...

     A couple of years back I lost a hat. Not any more…hence the chin strap…it is a thinkin cap…BTW…if I were in charge of fixing the financial crisis, I would have given every registered American voter $1,000,000.00…with the stipulation that the money had to be used to eliminate all of their debt with the balance/remainder set in a 20 year trust fund, so they would have a salary. I am sure there would be some spending going on and the elimination of debt service would free up the bankstards cash woes… a few of us would be able to live off the balance, and that would free up some jobs…See! It is a thinkin cap….jus’ sayin…

     Rivers do not care if you fall out in rocky riverbeds or sandy spots…that is why I have a pair of sandals on at all times…on the ill-fated six rounds trip, found a pair of 6” f-me pumps…WTF…who would wear those canoeing…or where is the dead hooker body they came off? Oooh…just thought about that dead hooker body…now I am kinda creeped out…let’s move on…it was YEARS ago…still icky…

     I know that wearing socks white or otherwise is a fashion statement…or blunder…whatever…sunscreen does not stick to feet tops…and there are few sunburns that hurt more than the top of your feet…the socks prevent that. And I know I look sooo VERY cool…ring…..ring….ring….best dressed men of 2010 calling for Bruce Johnson…excuse me… I have to take this…

   

(.......long pause......talking in the backgorund...)

 Back to the story…

     Tucker came along for the ride. He was not doing a very good job of paddling, so I recruited a Mondoux-spawn as a paddling lackey…Ben did VERY well… I rarely had to do anything, except occasionally dip my paddle in the water to correct our course…rarely, though…and use some coarse language...it is nice when you don’t canoe-party-foul your DaddyPop…

          During the two hour cruise., that actually took close to 4 and a half hours with stops and waiting for people to catch up we saw some pretty wild things… the Muskegon river is amazing that way…aside from the debacle that was my cooler incident, being that it was left on the truck, leaving me to beg-for-beers the whole ride, and a few other little brew induced/ red hair incident meltdowns, it was a great afternoon float and swill…I sobered up enough to drag my boat home to make final preparations for summercamping… more on that later…its a secret, if i told you more id have to kill ya...

     We saw the Easter Island Nose…I did not think that it was possible for that thing to move but as this picture shows it was sniffing a little feeder stream. It just goes to show, you don’t have to go too far to find really cool things to see, right here in Michigan…

    

     We saw bigfoot…I thought he would be hairier than this, but it has been hot…Africa Hot…maybe it is Bigfoot molting season…it could just be a baby bigfoot...I do not know, but I have never been confused with Bill Nye, the Science Guy….

    

     Tucker did his part to clean up the river…he is a good boy…I think a dog that fetches beer for you is a good thing…I have sent this picture to Stroh’s, in the hopes that they will make a commercial about a dog that brings you beer…I just don’t know why it has never been done before…he is such a good boy…

    

PS….Oh yeah…all this writing jolted my memory …. I think I remember what my great idea was…oh well, I guess I could write another blog on another day…maybe…