Okay, I know it's been a minute since I've written, but I've been super busy for the past month. My wife and I decided to refinish the floors of the entire house (blog on that exciting project coming soon!) The problem we ran into was we couldn't stay in our home while the floors were being stained and finished. That's when I got the great idea that we should take a vacation while the floors were redone. Grace was thrilled with the idea of moving everything off the main floor into the basement, and having complete strangers in our house while we were on vacation. After we made the decision to do it, we just had one question left...

Where To?

Seeing as my vacation planning privileges' had been permanently revoked, my wife found a little cabin in the Manistee National Forest. It resided in a little town called Mesick, MI. We booked the cabin for six days, and seven nights. Even booking the cabin for an entire week, it was still very reasonably priced. Once we clicked the confirm button, my wife let out a little sigh.

“What's wrong?” I inquired being the wonderful observant husband that I am.

“Oh nothing. It's just that our camera is so dated, and both of our phones really don't take great pictures... It would just be nice to get some great photos of this family vacation.”

That's when I got another brilliant idea.

Enter the Bird

This is my brother Jay...

I used the most flattering picture I have of him.

Growing up his nickname was, 'Jaybird.' Somehow, over the years, the 'Jay' part fell off, and now he just goes by, 'Bird.' The Bird never married, and as such, he buys himself a lot of toys. Two of his toys are these:

If you're wondering why I used a stock picture of the camera it's because I forgot to take a picture of the actual camera. Okay, It wasn't that I forgot, I kept asking myself “How can I get the camera to take a picture of itself?” I don't want to tell you how long I pondered this.

and also this...

The Spark Drone

When I asked him if I could borrow the drone and the camera, he was quick to agree to the camera, but the drone on the other hand needed to a little more convincing. He inquired if I had any aviation skills whatsoever. That was only fair, so I got my resume together and texted it to him.

He immediately agreed after seeing my impressive resume.

The Drive Up

It was a three and a half hour drive, plus an extra hour for a pitstop for food and to let the kids run around.

Yeah, you're probably pretty jealous your state doesn't look like a mitten, huh?

As we got off the exit to Mesick, my wife and I both lost cellphone service.

“I anticipated this happening. That's why I printed out the directions as well,” my wife said, as she opened the glove compartment and pulled out the directions.

That's right everybody, she's got beauty and brains!

Each road we turned onto was more remote than the last. Cement roads became gravel, which then became dirt. At last, we turned onto the street the house was on. It didn't take very long to see the cabin.

From the moment my eyes saw the cabin, a calmness washed over me. There was something special about this place. We quickly got unpacked, and got familiar with our surroundings. The cabin had a cozy and warm feel to it.

The lady we rented the cabin from seemed to be a very eco-friendly and meditative person. Why do I make this assumption? Well, there were lots of books on meditation and Buddha statues throughout the property, so there was that. Also, one of the notes she left said that when she stayed at the cabin, she tried to make as little of a carbon footprint as possible, and if it wasn't to much of a request, that all guests tried to do the same. There was a compost pile for organic waste, and all the firewood was claimed from deceased trees. I could tell the owner of this cabin was not just talking the talk, but walking the walk.

The cabin even had an enclosed gazebo that overlooked the creek.

As my wife and I peered out of the gazebo into the forest she whispered, “How deep does the forest go?”

“I don't know, but I think I can find out.” I replied and walked back in the cabin, grabbed the drone, and set it up outside.

“Do you know how to fly that?”

“How hard can it be?”

I turned the drone on and it quickly took off. Grace, Desmond, and myself huddled over the controllers as Emmett got a lay of the land.

Once I got a handle on how to fly it and use it to capture photos and video, I took this baby as high as it could go (400ft/121.92m). I was amazed at just how remote from civilization we were.

https://cinnamon.video/watch?v=425174277608703431

It was such a blast just taking the drone up and down. There is a GPS tracking on the drone that if it flies too far away it will return to the controller, but I didn't feel like testing that feature out. After about a half hour of just going up and down with the drone, Grace said she was going to do some grocery shopping for us.

The Local Cuisine

Now, when I'm on vacation, I'll try any food that is native to the people, but I have to admit this is the first time I took a hard pass at trying the regional food. While Grace was grocery shopping she sent me this text, and my gag reflex kicked in when I saw this...

For those who've always wanted the zangy taste of Mircle (That's how they spelled it on the container) Whip, Bologna, and relish, but don't like the hassle of chewing.

“Absolutely not.” I texted her back.

“Come on, it will be funny!”

“Babe, if you bring that back to the cabin, I'll consult a divorce lawyer upon returning home.”

“You're no fun.”

“Love you, too.”

When Grace returned, thankfully she did not have the bologna spread. She picked up enough food to last us for the week. It was at this point that I had to cook my customary NickelNDime Vacation Steak (another blog post soon). I'll save the details for my next blog, but here are some shots of the magnificent steak:

If you're asking yourself would Nick be foolish enough to put his brother's very expensive camera close to the intense heat of the charcoal grill just to get a cool shot? The answer is, “Yes, yes he would.”

It was at this time the rain started. First a little drizzle with some light, breezy wind. Before we knew it, the rain turned into a torrential downpour with the wind picking up, blowing the trees in the forest back and forth... when suddenly our power went out. It was freezing cold outside and the temperature was dropping quickly so Grace texted the owner of the cabin and was informed we needed to get the wood burning stove up and going now because there's no telling when the power would be restored.

Now, the pressure was on. I had to finish cooking my vacation steak AND get a fire roaring in the wood burning stove. As I flipped the steak once more, I grabbed a bunch of wood from the side of the garage and hauled it to the cabin. Now, since the owner of this cabin was eco friendly, there was no lighter fluid for the wood burning stove. There was just pine needles and pine cones to start the fire. We're screwed, I thought. I put a bunch of pine needles and cones in the stove, followed by the salvaged wood and lit a match.

I never had a fire start faster.

Once the fire was up and running, I ran out and grabbed my steak and ate it by candlelight.

As I bit down on the steak by candlelight, and as the rain and thunder banged down, I couldn't help but smile.

This is gonna be a great vacation!

Stay tuned for the second installment of Meditate in Mesick, MI!

NickelNDime out!

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