Tamarack, Part 2

With a whoop and a cry
And a natural high
At Tamarack, at Tamarack

While I was at Tamarack, I dated one of the guys who was up there as part of the maintenance crew. His sister ran the Arts and Crafts building which is how he got hired. Back in the Twin Cities one weekend, he took me sailing on one of the local lakes. He had a small sailboat named "The Dawn Treader". I was amused with the name and he was impressed I knew the reference. I've always liked that and thought if I ever owned a boat, I might just use that name too. At camp, he and I spent some nice afternoons on our days off doing things like inner-tubing down the river, but as I got to know him I realized he was a pretty cynical person and that bothered me. It didn't last long.

Then I started dating SC. That relationship lasted more than a year. He had gone on one of the earlier bike quests and when camp was done, he and I set out on our own bike trip. We went back to Madeline Island and through Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Our panniers were loaded down with a small tent, our sleeping bags, and minimal gear such as a one burner camp stove and mess kit. Personal items were also at a minimum. We left from the eastern edge of the Twin Cities and headed into Wisconsin. Our first night out, we couldn't find a campground and ended up throwing our bags down in a wooded area behind a church. After that, we planned a little better. One of our goals was to go 100 miles in one day. The day we headed into Bayfield, WI we would have made our goal but we ran out of road. We did 87 miles that day before we got to the spot where we had to load the ferry over to the island.

One day, after leaving Madeline Island and on our way through the UP, we had rain. My rain gear didn't breathe all that well and the sweat I worked up while biking made it feel like I was in a sauna. That was grim. We rode for a good long while to get out of the rain that morning and finally stopped late in the morning for breakfast in some small diner. We ate a hearty breakfast but were so famished we ordered a second breakfast. The cook came out to talk to us because he couldn't believe two people could eat that much! And it was while we were in the UP that I developed an appreciation for pasties. It's a regional food and I've rarely had any as good as they make them in the UP.

We continued our trip on up to Porcupine Mountain State Park in the UP, then headed back. Cycling through Wisconsin is nice because they have well-paved shoulders on their highways. At one point on our trip back (and keep in mind this is mid-to-late September by now), we were biking along when a patch of dried, brown grass seemed to move! It rose up snarling and it took a startled moment before I realized it was a large dog that had been sleeping in the long grass, a dog that was almost the exact same color as the grass. It came after us, and it was one of those moments a cyclist has to get off the bike and put the bike between you and the dog. The owner heard the commotion and finally called it off.

We made the round trip in about three weeks. I went back to college for the year, and when the next summer came, I went back to Tamarack. This time as their Arts and Crafts Director. I convinced a friend of mine, Betsy, to get a job up there as well.

Betsy was majoring in Business and so took a job as the camp's office manager. She had never really spent time in the outdoors much, so this was all new to her. She and I roomed together in the staff quarters. Almost every day we could smell urine in our cabin and couldn't figure out why. It finally dawned on me we were down-wind of one of the camper's latrines; we just couldn't see it because of all the underbrush in the way. One day, however, Betsy was complaining about the smell, saying she wanted to know what it was. I told her it was "pee-bugs". She wanted to know what that was, and I told her I couldn't remember the proper name for them but everyone just called them pee-bugs because they gave off a smell like pee. And they get in your clothes and bedding and stuff like moths do and then you have a problem. She wasn't impressed. She went marching off to our maintenance guys complaining about the pee-bugs in our room and it was only when she saw the looks on their faces that she realized I was making it all up. I still keep in touch with Betsy after all these years and that story still comes up.