Second Day to Green Bay

We’re off, clean camper, clean bodies—that’s as far as I can go with the concept of clean. I like how our dollhouse on wheels gets spruced up and organized. Believe me, only one person can be moving around in the allotted space; if two, someone is going die. So, the person who’s best at it—whose more naturally domestic, or at least, fussier as to how and where things are placed—does it. So my wife sends me on a walk with our two furry babies—poop pick-up bag in hand. Instructions: Don’t come back for an hour.

Warning: It’s cozy in a truck camper. (Check pic: I’m on bed, those are my legs as I lean against the back wall on our bed.) Wife, Elaine, is at kitchen sink, bathroom in back to right by door dimension of bathroom: approximately 2′ 6″ x 2′ 1o”) I wouldn’t recommend it to full-size humans. Especially to anyone who wears over a woman’s size 10 who has to pee. A bigger person, if she shoehorned her way between the walls and onto the toilet seat wouldn’t be able to reverse the process. It would take an emergency response team to get her out, probably by breaking down at least one wall to extract the humiliated pot sitter. For me, the good news about the shoebox-sized bathroom is that I can multitask by sitting on toilet, letting whatever happens happen, while showering at the same time. Sort of a full body bedet.

For those of you who, for political reasons and matters of taste, would never grace the door of Wal-Mart, cover your eyes for a moment. For our third stop of a three hour trip to Escanaba, we lingered at that establishment for probably two hours, given I had something we needed in just about every department—there are no other, to my knowledge, one-stop shopping stores in the U.P. No Target, No K-mart, No Costco, No nothing where I could repurchase everything we’d forgotten.

So one of us sits in truck with the dogs–the other hits the aisles—and we text back and forth, as needed. I’m lost in this store and there’s no one around to help me, but I preserve by devising a plan: go down every aisle, swiveling my head from side to side.

Not on our list, but I notice—in my swiveling—a must-have fly swatter. I try out the different models on some small airborne critters that were following me. I’m looking for just the right tool; it needs to have a good flexibility when I snap my wrist, as well as a pleasing color. I choose a yellow one.

As I wander around, I make a noteworthy connection: camping and Wal-Mart go hand-in-hand. In both environments there are peeps who walk around in their nightwear in the middle of the day, without shame. I’m thinking this might be an alternate lifestyle for me to consider—from camper to Wal-Mart and back. It’s got to cut down on my dyke attire budget.

My wife thinks I’m in this establishment far too long, so runs in to find me. She hands me the truck keys and sends me back to tend the dogs. Geez, and I only had three more items left on my list, and maybe a surprise purchase or two.

After the Wal-Mart adventure, we travel down the road but are soon hungry. My wife is not originally from Michigan, let alone the Upper Peninsula. So she’s never had the privilege of sampling one of those wrapped in dough, tasteless predecessors to the pot pie that are filled with carrots, potatoes and rutabagas, known as a pasties—who voluntarily eats rutabagas, anyway? But she sees the omnipresent signs along the road and is determined to have one, against my advice. We stop at a Mom and Pop cafe—which is pretty much all they have in this area—refreshing, in my opinion. I go inside with her, making sure she pronounces them correctly, so she doesn’t get laughed out of the place—a pasty is not something you put over your nipples. She’s looking up at the menu and says, “Look honey, they have a spicy Italian one,” knowing that’s my favorite ethnic fare. I’ve never heard of such a pasty, probably a nasty attempt at calzone. I don’t bite. I order a buffalo burger—better for my health than beef, I tell myself—dry but lots of catsup helps.

After her yooper (fyi: U.P. inhabitants) treat, we haul ass down the road paralleling Lake Michigan rubber burning the road. Shortly, we realize it’s our nap time,  so pull over, crawl in camper. Two hours later we’re back on track, arriving at our state park destination at 8:23 p.m. My wife, Elaine,  prepares our BBQ while Lucy Lou and Daisy Mae wait for food to fall their way–pic left.

Then off to bed after brushing our teeth with our newly purchased dental hygiene gear and hit the sack, a clean sack at that.

(For more of our camping experiences, scroll down to: “Green Bay or Bust.”