We went on a road trip this last weekend. Nope, the weekend before this. We is Chamaree, S Karthik, Bharath, Katerina and urs truly. The itenerary called for us to start at 3 in the morning. We started at 3.30, which is quite commendable. Karthik put, amongst sundry other things, a cricket bat in the trunk. To what end, I still don't quite know; our schedule didn'r leave much time for cricket. It was only much later that he realised that he had not packed any cricket balls either. I mention this en passant, as our trip was a constant struggle between stellar management by Chamaree and Bharath and attempts to f- things up by the rest of us.
Bharath had a folder with maps and directions (wow!). I just vaguely knew where we were going. So there we were, six audio cds loaded in to the cd changer which was in the dicky and hence totally inaccessible. Now one might imagine that it is not possible to get bored of hearing the same songs with six audio cds. Well, it is. I will stay away from playing Rang De Basanti for the next few months, at the very least.
About four hours worth driving got us to Sleeping Bear Dunes. These are big sand dunes by the shore of Lake Michigan. There is some kind of a local legend associated with them; a mama bear was swimming across the lake to escape from a forest fire with two cubs. The mama bear made it to the shore and fell asleep. The cubs didn't. The cubs are now two islands off the shore and the mama bear is the big dune. Ok. That is a lot of sand. We started climbing it. Righto. Before we got started though, Katerina couldn't understand why in the world we wanted to climb it, 'its just a lot of sand, why do you want to climb it?' We said 'that is the point, because it exists', and started climbing. Ever tried climbing soft fine grain sand barefoot? It looks easy, but it isn't. Expecially since the slope is pretty demanding. We thought we would just race up. It made for pretty hard going. After a while, we were all wheezing and clutching at our lower backs and going 'oh shite!' But we made it over the rise of the dune. Only to discover that after a flat stretch of some 300 metres, there was another slope. Ok, no point going back now, so we legged it up this slope too. After a bit Katerina joined us. The view from the top was pretty spectacular. Then we started the descent. This was much easier. Right upto the point when Karthik wanted to roll in the sand. Now there has to be a reason why I abandon my own good sense and listen to stuff like that. I just don't know it yet.
Important advice: while rolling downhill on soft sand, stretch out your arms full length, so that you have very little moment of inertia about the short axes of your body. Keep your mouth closed. Keep your eyes closed. Do not carry anything in your pocket. I had my cellphone. Which is one of them nifty Samsung slider models. Well, for DAYS afterward, it didn't slide: it made a horrid grating scraping sound as I pushed it open. And Karthik lost his brand new Moto Razor. But found it again.
After doing the dunes, we went on a 'scenic drive', which translates as lots of trees and some good views of Lake Michigan. Nothing much. Except, for what was literally the high point of the trip. There is this observation nook high above the shores of the Lake, which stands 450 feet above the water level. The wind there is SOMETHING! It carried sand from the dunes and smashes it into your face, shoves it down your ears and throat and embedds it inextricably in your hair (thankfully, I have a crewcut, the others suffered). A brief walk from the relatively sheltered treeline to the exposed observation platform left me feeling like I had been sandblasted. There are notices which urge you to NOT attempt climbing downhill. Maybe on the next trip...
We drove into some random itsy bitsy leetill town into a Taco Bell for a brief lunch. Shite, I felt like I had sand in my DNA. Lunch was equal parts chicken burrito and sand. We then drove on towards Mackinac City. Sometime in the late afty, we got to this absolutely beautiful old fashioned town called Charlevouix. Its named so after a French bloke (obviously!) and was once a very active port in the Great Lakes circuit. Now, its a gorgeous tourist and summer resort. The guys wanted fudge and random chocolate based stuff. I was sufering from withdrawal symptoms. It had been close to 36 hours since my last hit of coffee. I found a tiny coffee shop called the 'Woolly Bugger' (everything in the town comes with an attchment to something fishing) and asked for something cold with lots of caffeine and whipped cream. Various cravings satisfied, we explored the lighthouse (which had all kinds of peremptory warnings to stay clear) and the harbour entrance. Lovely place. Have to go there again sometime.
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