Tickets and ticks

I love Lake Superior. I haven’t been up there for a while, so when it came time to plan a camping trip, I thought it would be nice to take Simon and Art to one of the State Parks up there so they could see how beautiful it is.

We set out on the road about 2 hours late, but got up there in plenty of time to set up camp and settle in for the night. We stayed at Amnicon Falls State Park. The campsite was nice, but I found it hard to sleep because I could hear the sounds of the highway and the blaring horns of the diesel freight engines as they passed through and the banging as they were coupling and uncoupling through the night.

The next day we woke up and prepared for a day in the woods. We went for a long walk in the woods and along the river where the falls were. The falls were very beautiful. When we were done there, we stopped and gathered some kindling for the fire in the form of pinecones and needles. When we got back to camp it looked as though it might rain, so we covered the kindling and firewood and just as we got to the car it started pouring rain.

We went into Superior and visited K-mart, Goodwill, and the Salvation Army Store. We bought stuff. Then it was time to go back to the camp. It was still raining. By the time we got back to camp, the rain ended and the sun actually peeked through. I played guitar for a while and then Art played and we had fun. I tried to cook on the grill, but the fire was not cooperating. I barely got things going. We managed to eat a little and then everyone retired into the tent. We needed to get Simon to sleep. So we all slept. Art and I woke up and went out and looked at the stars for a while. They were very beautiful.

The next morning we went out and it looked like it was going to rain again. I was a little frustrated by the weather. So I said to Art that we might leave and go to a different camp over in Bayfield. It was very windy. I decided to make a fire according to an idea I had gotten while I was observing the extinguishing effects of the fire pit the night before. I figured that I’d need to build kind of an oven type fire. That is where you build a miniature log cabin in the fire pit. I used 10 logs. Then I stuffed the middle with needles and pinecones and with the help of a little lighter fluid got the thing going. Boy did that baby burn nice. It was a perfect oven. The only problem was that we were out of things to cook on the fire. I hadn’t planned for this trip very well as far as supplies go.

I decided we could go after the fire went out. That was around 12:30. So we packed up and left. We decided to have lunch at a little place called the Rustic Roost. It was really good. We splurged a bit on lunch, with both Art and I having the Walleye. After that we were off to Bayfield.

As I hit the road, Art and I talked about how good the lunch was and how clean the bathrooms were. As I coasted down the hill a few miles along the way, I saw a State Trooper’s Squad tucked behind a little knoll off to the left side of the road. I hadn’t been paying attention to my speed so I quick looked at my speedometer as I put my foot on the break. Oh my Gosh! I was going 70 mph. I was sure I would be stopped, and sure enough the trooper pulled out behind me and began to use his radio. He was checking my registration. He turned on his rollers. I pulled over and waited.

The trooper was nice enough. He informed me I was speeding. I knew this. I babbled about how I never speed intentionally and I always use my cruise control to safeguard against doing such a thing. I was so upset and scared. I worried about the expense of the speeding ticket, and I worried about my insurance rates going up. He went back to his vehicle with my driver’s license. As I waited for him to come back I began to cry and told Art how sorry I was.

When the trooper came back he had a bunch of papers in his hand. In a few seconds I would find out how much this was going to cost me. I felt a little mad about it and felt it was kind of unjust because I had tried to be so conscientious about my speed and then it seemed the moment I let down my guard all hell breaks loose. He told me that my vehicle registration had expired in April and I hadn’t renewed it. That was news to me. I thought to myself, “Oh god, here it comes…” Then he said; “I’m just going to give you a warning on this.” “Thank you, sir.” I said. Then he said; “Here’s the expensive part. I’m going to give you a ticket for going 70mph in a 55mph zone. I’m not going to double it for being in a construction zone. Technically it is a construction zone, but because there are no workers out here I decided to waive that addition to the fine.” “Thank you, sir.” I said again, with tiny little halelujiahs under my breath. “But the fine is $160.80 for the speeding…” and he went on with all the technicalities. I just wanted to go home.

Eventually it was time to pull out onto the road and go along our way. That nice lunch was turning summer salts in my stomach now and I was inconsolable. Fortunately, Simon slept through the whole incident, and Art remained silent. When we got to Bayfield, I just wanted to get a soda and use the restroom. I was still shaky and just wanted to go home. I showed Art the town and Simon just wanted to go on the ferry ride. Well, I had just spent all the extra money for a ferry ride in the form of ticket. So I had to say: “No.” Simon cried. But we eventually got back on the road south.

We stopped for a few minutes on the lakeshore and played in the sand with Simon. We took off our shoes and waded in the cold Lake Superior surf. We found driftwood in all kinds of interesting shapes. There was one of the stump of a tree with the roots fanning out like an octopus! There was another I scavanged to take home with us, it looked like a fox. It was very calming. I was starting to relax.

As we descended the upper peninsula and passed the outpost for the rangers of the National Forest I longed to take Simon and Art to see the beautiful campsite where I had a spiritual awakening. Art agreed and we went down there and decided to camp there that night. I was so happy. It was just as I remembered it. There was a tiny little beach and Simon just wanted to play in the warm surf. So I pulled the car in and we set up the tent and began to change into our swimming suits. Art was waiting and when Simon and I came back from putting our suits on, Art noticed a bug stuck to his leg. It was a tick! Yuck! The wind was blowing so hard at both sites; I think the ticks were just flying around in the air. It was inevitable there would be some tick action that day.

The problem with this tick was that it was embedded in his leg already. He couldn’t pull it out. I couldn’t pull it out. I thought that maybe using a match would get the ugly thing out of his leg, so I proceeded to light a match and blow it out and then stick the hot match head right onto the tick. It didn’t work the first time so I tried it again. Art said that that hurt a lot and I could see he was burning, and it wasn’t really helping to get the tick out, so I didn’t do that anymore. I just grabbed the tick and pulled. Its body broke off of its head. I had the body in my hand, and the head was still on his leg. Then I pulled on that dang head until it came out. I was so relieved. I thought that it was a deer tick so I took a piece of paper and folded the 2 pieces into the paper to keep to show to the doctor.

After that we walked over to the beach, a little freaked out by the whole incident, but determined to have a good time with Simon. I decided as long as we were all in our suits we should look for more ticks on each other. Sure enough there was one on Simon’s back, the same size as the one on Art. This took a little tug to remove, but wasn’t as hard as the one on Art’s leg. I found another one on Art that came off easy, and he found one on me that came off easy. Then we felt good and played for a while in the water. Before we came out I thought I saw something on Simon. It was another tick. But this one was caramel color and very small. I tugged and it came off of him relatively easy. I was sure this last tick was a deer tick, the ones that carry Lyme disease.

Then I saw all of these small little blood spots on his scalp. This freaked me out. I said to Art; “Let’s just go home, I won’t be able to sleep knowing Simon might have Lyme disease, and if we go now, maybe we can get him in a shower before things get too bad.” Art agreed and we packed up the tent and started for home.

The trip home was uneventful and we arrived at around 1am. I took Simon in the bath and scrubbed him from head to toe, inspecting for bugs. I didn’t find any. I was so happy. I put him to bed and the exhausted little fellow was sleeping in five minutes. Then I took a shower and settled into my nice soft, tick free bed.

It felt good to be home. It felt good to feel good. And the day of tickets and ticks was over. Thank goodness!