Lake Michicgan Trip Part Three
Aug. 22nd, 2022 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ateolfAnd now for the part with tales of grand adventure!! So we're out on these paddleboards into the bay. It's going nice and easy for a while. It's a little bit of a struggle to stay on the board. I start off on my knees but then I finally stand up on my feet and I'm doing it and not even falling off. Since this was unplanned, it was the one day I didn't have swimwear packed but I was just wearing my shorts and a shirt for swimming, it's fine. But I'm not falling off yet anyway. Then after a while, I get tired of standing on my feet and it's back to my knees. Okay! Anyway, we're out a little while and it's nice and fun. Then we decide we should head back before we get tired. We notice we're a lot farther out than it had seemed. The wind was coming up the bay in the direction away from the shore. The current must have carried us out much more than it had seemed. Yes, here we're getting into CLASSIC story material. Now we're paddling back and paddling back and can tell it's a WHOLE lot harder to make progress against these waves. To where if we're not rowing with all our strength, we're not even making any progress. But we keep going and going and it's a struggle. When I'd tried to stand out in the bay when the waves were a little bigger, I'd kept falling off so I spent the rest of my time on my knees. And after a while, we're at it trying to row our way back in much longer than we'd been going out, my legs completely go to sleep. So yeah, now we're ending up in some Jack London by way of Sisyphus shit. We're out a few hours and we see a storm approaching. Now the deceptively strong waves aren't deceptive any more. We're losing strength and the waves are getting higher and the sky is getting dark and now we can tell using all our strength is just going to maybe keep us from going back. We're not going to make any progress. And Mary Beth falls off her paddleboard and didn't have any more strength to keep going. I'm worried about lightning too. So sitting on my board I start waving the paddle in the air back and forth over and over. THANKFULLY it doesn't take very long for a ship to see us and start making my way. I pointed over to Mary Beth and they got her in and then came to me. Neither of us had much upper arm strength left to light ourselves up into the boat (it's a pretty big one, for a small boat, if that makes sense). Thankfully the two guys who rescued us were pretty strong and were able to help lift us up. They were super nice too. They didn't even make us feel bad for all that shit. But holy shit, we were so lucky to get saved. (And just shortly before that, instead we had guys in jetskis doing circles around us making waves, so a big difference!) They took us back and chastised the rental place just a little bit (I'm sure they were saying things about us when we weren't around, but at least they were nice and gracious to our faces!). Then getting back on shore and the awkwardness with the boat place and they're all "at least you got some free extra time out of it". One paddle was lost but they didn't care. They were probably in "please don't sue us mode" and we're in embarrassed-neophytes-almost-dying mode. And he was all "sorry, we should have warned you about the wind" and, yeah. But yes, we were lucky! The storm didn't end up last long and it didn't get stronger after that first bit and then after it was over everything was very calm. So we may have ended up okay, but it's really hard to see that BEFORE and by that time we'd been at it so long and had lost strength and were dehydrated and still had a ways to go so who knows how hard it would have been to make it back.
Anyway, thus ends our harrowing tale of high seas adventure. Now we were free to eat and walk around Traverse City. We walk down to this place that does fried fish and stuff called Bubba's. I was still very wet since I didn't have a change of clothes so we walked a bit and there was a food truck park next to it. Then we're in there and we run into the guys who rescued us. They were nice again but we were a little embarrassed and didn't want to keep getting in their hair so we cut out back to Bubba's. I said fuck it about being wet. The food there was okay, but just glad to be eating anything at all. Then we saw a place that had mini doughnuts across the street so had some of those (it had a bit of a hippie theme but doughnuts are good!). Then we walked around some. There was a record store I didn't have high hopes for but wanted to check it out. Couldn't find it at first but eventually found it in the basement of a building. It's also a recording studio. Looked like it was all vinyl but I found a small section of cds. The guy working there was nice and was talking to me. I ended up with a few, and I'll follow with some stories about them!: Wall of Voodo: Call of the West; Kuzbeats: Wildebeest & Friends; Crop Circle: s/t; and Disjecta Membra: s/t. Okay, so the Kuzbeats one is something he just gave me when he saw me looking in the local section and said the musician had just moved to South Africa and said to sell those for whatever so he just gave it to me 'cuz he gets excited when he sees people looking in the local section. Then I asked him if there was any experimental or weird local music and he got excited and showed me the Crop Circles thing. Said it was a collective kind of project he was in back in Toledo and we talked a bit about it and other things so I picked it up (then he also just gave me the last one as something else he'd played on). He had a story about how they wanted to sample Devo's cover of "Satisfaction" and someone had gotten Gerald Casale's contact info and reached out (I think back in the 90s) and he replied and said they weren't on good terms with Warner Bros. so to ask is to be denied. He said he had no problem with it and if they ever got sued it wouldn't be from him so they went ahead and never got sued or anything. Anyway, fun story and fun conversation. He also said they'd just randomly put the cds in like mailboxes and stuff. Okay, I also took a peek in a couple bookstores and one I picked something up in (Horizon Books): The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. The guy checking me out got excited and wanted to talk about New Directions. I agreed that anything they put out is generally going to be good or interesting. I also mentioned Dalkey Archive and he agreed but said New Direction's website is better to browse. I'll need to do that sometime! Anyway, it was a smaller conversation but it was nice. Then Mary Beth and I headed on back to the motel.
Okay so it's the end of our vacation and we start heading back. Saturday was the longest drive of our trip but it went pretty smoothly like they all did. We made it to Louisville in good time. We stopped at this place called New Wave Burritos and had some awesome burritos! Mine had tater tots in it and Mary Beth's had fries. I said they were awesome, yeah, real tasty stuff! Then we checked into our hotel which was a Hampton Inn (the fonciest of our stays). Then out to Guestroom Records and I got a few cds again!: Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs; Body/Head: The Switch; The Sun Ra Arkestra: A Song for the Sun (this is Marshall Allen reunion Arkestra, not Sun Ra himself); Sun Ra: Omniverse; John Lennon / Yoko Ono: Two Virgins; Yo La Tengo: Fakebook; and Mono: Under the Pipal Tree. Then we went over to Brett Eugene Ralph's store Surface Noise to check out a show! Funny that the one night we happened to be in Louisville, Nonconnah was playing a show! We missed The Corrupting Sea but got to see Nonconnah and Droneroom. Both were good sets. Nonconnah passed around auxiliary percussion and the audience got to participate! Also, we checked out Brett's book selection (it's very well curated!) and I got a few: The Years by Virginia Woolf; Black Spring by Henry Miller; The Killer and Other Plays by Eugène Ionesco; Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco; and Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. It was a fun night seeing familiar faces in a "foreign" city. We got up and had breakfast at a place called The Café and that was really delicious. Mary Beth wanted coffee from this one place we'd been before but they had a sign that their a/c was out and hopefully would be back on tomorrow! So no luck.
Well, then the drive back home! We stopped off in Nashville and had some delicious burgers at Grillshack and that was as delicious as always ("delicious" twice!). Then to Grimey's and I got some cds: Jonny Greenwood: Norwegian Wood soundtrack; Mission of Burma: The Sound the Speed the Light; The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention; Tindersticks: Curtains; Tindersticks: Can Our Love...; AC/DC: High Voltage; Zola Jesus: Valusia EP (oh, I'm dumb, I already have these songs on the version of Stridulum I have, but it was only $3); v/a: Cameroon Garage Funk; Moor Mother: Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes; Pharmakon: Devour; and Sun Ra: Ra to the Rescue!. Okay, then coming back home from Nashville was the only non-smooth part of the driving of the trip. There was something going on I-40 with traffic all backed up to hell horribly. The delay would have been over an hour, but we got an alternate route that was hopefully faster to bypass all that shit (but it was a lot of smaller roads and quite a detour!). Okay, we made it back home! And I found even more cds left for me by Jacques: Jonathan Snipes: The Nightmare soundtrack; The Future Sound of London: ISDN; Dead Voices on Air: New Words Machine; Masashi Kageyama: Gimmick! soundtrack; New Age Steppers: Action Battlefield; Mark Stewart + Maffia: Learning to Cope with Cowardice; Armand Hammer & The Alchemist: Haram; Controlled Bleeding: Between Tides; and Seefeel: Succour. Okay! I gave Trudy a ton of pets when we got home. I passed out early. Now it's back to work. It's a nice fun and relaxing trip with only a mild amount of harrowing adventure that now makes for great stories! I probably forgot some shit as I always do so if I ever remember anything else I'll throw it down later!
Anyway, thus ends our harrowing tale of high seas adventure. Now we were free to eat and walk around Traverse City. We walk down to this place that does fried fish and stuff called Bubba's. I was still very wet since I didn't have a change of clothes so we walked a bit and there was a food truck park next to it. Then we're in there and we run into the guys who rescued us. They were nice again but we were a little embarrassed and didn't want to keep getting in their hair so we cut out back to Bubba's. I said fuck it about being wet. The food there was okay, but just glad to be eating anything at all. Then we saw a place that had mini doughnuts across the street so had some of those (it had a bit of a hippie theme but doughnuts are good!). Then we walked around some. There was a record store I didn't have high hopes for but wanted to check it out. Couldn't find it at first but eventually found it in the basement of a building. It's also a recording studio. Looked like it was all vinyl but I found a small section of cds. The guy working there was nice and was talking to me. I ended up with a few, and I'll follow with some stories about them!: Wall of Voodo: Call of the West; Kuzbeats: Wildebeest & Friends; Crop Circle: s/t; and Disjecta Membra: s/t. Okay, so the Kuzbeats one is something he just gave me when he saw me looking in the local section and said the musician had just moved to South Africa and said to sell those for whatever so he just gave it to me 'cuz he gets excited when he sees people looking in the local section. Then I asked him if there was any experimental or weird local music and he got excited and showed me the Crop Circles thing. Said it was a collective kind of project he was in back in Toledo and we talked a bit about it and other things so I picked it up (then he also just gave me the last one as something else he'd played on). He had a story about how they wanted to sample Devo's cover of "Satisfaction" and someone had gotten Gerald Casale's contact info and reached out (I think back in the 90s) and he replied and said they weren't on good terms with Warner Bros. so to ask is to be denied. He said he had no problem with it and if they ever got sued it wouldn't be from him so they went ahead and never got sued or anything. Anyway, fun story and fun conversation. He also said they'd just randomly put the cds in like mailboxes and stuff. Okay, I also took a peek in a couple bookstores and one I picked something up in (Horizon Books): The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. The guy checking me out got excited and wanted to talk about New Directions. I agreed that anything they put out is generally going to be good or interesting. I also mentioned Dalkey Archive and he agreed but said New Direction's website is better to browse. I'll need to do that sometime! Anyway, it was a smaller conversation but it was nice. Then Mary Beth and I headed on back to the motel.
Okay so it's the end of our vacation and we start heading back. Saturday was the longest drive of our trip but it went pretty smoothly like they all did. We made it to Louisville in good time. We stopped at this place called New Wave Burritos and had some awesome burritos! Mine had tater tots in it and Mary Beth's had fries. I said they were awesome, yeah, real tasty stuff! Then we checked into our hotel which was a Hampton Inn (the fonciest of our stays). Then out to Guestroom Records and I got a few cds again!: Yo La Tengo: Popular Songs; Body/Head: The Switch; The Sun Ra Arkestra: A Song for the Sun (this is Marshall Allen reunion Arkestra, not Sun Ra himself); Sun Ra: Omniverse; John Lennon / Yoko Ono: Two Virgins; Yo La Tengo: Fakebook; and Mono: Under the Pipal Tree. Then we went over to Brett Eugene Ralph's store Surface Noise to check out a show! Funny that the one night we happened to be in Louisville, Nonconnah was playing a show! We missed The Corrupting Sea but got to see Nonconnah and Droneroom. Both were good sets. Nonconnah passed around auxiliary percussion and the audience got to participate! Also, we checked out Brett's book selection (it's very well curated!) and I got a few: The Years by Virginia Woolf; Black Spring by Henry Miller; The Killer and Other Plays by Eugène Ionesco; Exit the King by Eugène Ionesco; and Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. It was a fun night seeing familiar faces in a "foreign" city. We got up and had breakfast at a place called The Café and that was really delicious. Mary Beth wanted coffee from this one place we'd been before but they had a sign that their a/c was out and hopefully would be back on tomorrow! So no luck.
Well, then the drive back home! We stopped off in Nashville and had some delicious burgers at Grillshack and that was as delicious as always ("delicious" twice!). Then to Grimey's and I got some cds: Jonny Greenwood: Norwegian Wood soundtrack; Mission of Burma: The Sound the Speed the Light; The Smile: A Light for Attracting Attention; Tindersticks: Curtains; Tindersticks: Can Our Love...; AC/DC: High Voltage; Zola Jesus: Valusia EP (oh, I'm dumb, I already have these songs on the version of Stridulum I have, but it was only $3); v/a: Cameroon Garage Funk; Moor Mother: Analog Fluids of Sonic Black Holes; Pharmakon: Devour; and Sun Ra: Ra to the Rescue!. Okay, then coming back home from Nashville was the only non-smooth part of the driving of the trip. There was something going on I-40 with traffic all backed up to hell horribly. The delay would have been over an hour, but we got an alternate route that was hopefully faster to bypass all that shit (but it was a lot of smaller roads and quite a detour!). Okay, we made it back home! And I found even more cds left for me by Jacques: Jonathan Snipes: The Nightmare soundtrack; The Future Sound of London: ISDN; Dead Voices on Air: New Words Machine; Masashi Kageyama: Gimmick! soundtrack; New Age Steppers: Action Battlefield; Mark Stewart + Maffia: Learning to Cope with Cowardice; Armand Hammer & The Alchemist: Haram; Controlled Bleeding: Between Tides; and Seefeel: Succour. Okay! I gave Trudy a ton of pets when we got home. I passed out early. Now it's back to work. It's a nice fun and relaxing trip with only a mild amount of harrowing adventure that now makes for great stories! I probably forgot some shit as I always do so if I ever remember anything else I'll throw it down later!
