Day 1. Sunday. I arrived at the Washington Island Campground
at about 4:00 pm. The camp office was staffed by the manager’s daughter, about
ten years old. Her business acumen is still developing. I told her which unit I
had reserved, and she believed me. She said she didn’t know how to use the
credit card device, so I said I would pay later. She was okay with that. It’s a
very trusting environment. If this girl becomes President some day, it will
revolutionize the way Washington works.
Camping has various degrees of simplicity. I had chosen
medium, a cabin measuring about ten by fifteen feet. It provides more amenities
than a tent: electricity, a water faucet, a roof to keep out the rain, dorm
size refrigerator, small microwave oven, and fewer amenities than a popup
camper or RV. The rest room is down the
path.
I wanted simplicity, but brought with me a cell phone and
laptop computer. I see this as a compromise with nature. As Thoreau once said,
paraphrased, “We don’t ride the train. The train rides us.”
For supper I cooked canned beef stew on the electric
burner I brought with me, and ate raw green beans on the side. No campfire. No
toasted marshmallows. Afterward, I compromised with simplicity again and
watched a DVD on my laptop computer, Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Then I went to bed in my sleeping bag on the bed with foam
mattress that came with the cabin. Windows were open. It was dark and quiet.
Day 2. Monday.
I have neighbors in the two cabins next
to mine, two pickup truckloads of people including many children. The adults speak a
language that is not English, French or Spanish. The kids speak very good
English. They have filled their picnic tables with dishes and food and left it
there with no apparent concern about wildlife joining the party.
I took the Karfi
ferry to Rock Island, with a boatload of people, and stayed there until 3:00. I
love Rock Island. The state owns all of it except the coast guard lighthouse at
the north end. It has a primitive campground, where people bring in everything
they need, including food. I walked to the lighthouse (uphill most of the way)
and once again took in the current docent’s tour. Docents change weekly, and
they don’t work with scripts. This docent said that some of the tour guides
might make up some facts about the lighthouse. That makes it very interesting.
I walked back to the boathouse and ate lunch, which
included raw carrots and cucumber, plus a container of Atkins diet drink. Then
I enjoyed some time at the beach, which is better than any of the beaches on Washington
Island. Today it was calm and the water was about as warm as Lake Michigan gets.
Plenty of people were there on the sand beach and in the water. Some nearby
people offered me a glass of wine. People here are nice.
Back on Washington Island, I drove to the local bakery
and used its wi-fi while eating cherry pie. Hardly anyone was there. The person
on duty said everyone was at the beach because it was hot. Hot for this place
is in the eighties. After another canned meal with veggies at the campground, I
watched another DVD in the evening, Founding
Brothers, based on the book by Joseph Ellis. Camping alone results in some
activites that might not happen with other people, such as watching movies.
There is no one to argue with.
Day 3. Tuesday. One good thing about being out in the woods
is that nothing much matters. I can sleep as late as I want to without the cat
waking me for breakfast. It was another warm day. I went for a walk in the
morning. Relaxation is happening. I don’t care about life back home. It feels
good.
I went to a local beach for a while and listened to
distant thunder before finally leaving. The lake water there was fouled with
dead and dying vegetation, the reason for which is not within the scope of this
document. I went back to the bakery for
more wi-fi and pie. The rain poured down while I was there. After it stopped, I
returned to the campground, which was dry. A few drops of rain came down for a
while. More canned food and fresh veggies for supper. More neighbors arrived
near me.
I have been enjoying a book today, Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy, by Chris Hayes,
who is one of the commentators on MSNBC. It is about corruption and failure of
our American institutions. He is a very bright person. He says that the US has
replaced European and East coast aristocracy with meritocracy, which is based
on people gaining power and prestige through their merits. He also says that
the deck is stacked so that the people at the top, with the most “merit” stay
at the top, and people with less opportunities or brain power stay at the
bottom, and the gap is widening. He points out that education is a big factor in
this scenario. Exclusive private schools set up the people who will have the
control. Needless to say, this is not democracy. I am less than halfway through
the book. While on the road, I listened to a parallel audiobook, Malcolm
Gladwell’s Outliers: The Story of Success.
From the first half of this, I gleaned that success in life can be attributed
to when a person was born relative to social changes, and some other things. I
will hear the remainder on the way home.
Today wasn’t filled with activity. The kids in the
bilingual party have been riding their bikes around the campground and enjoying
the man made lake. I notice that the campers here prefer amenities to
simplicity. The end of the campground that is set aside for tents is nearly
empty. Some cabin and RV sites are occupied. This campground must make its
money on weekends.
Day 4. Wednesday.
It’s time to go home. Checkout time is 11:00. Goodbye to the woods and
not caring. Goodbye to the ten year old girl who check me in and will some day
be President. She also cleans the outhouse and drives around in a golf cart.
Hello to the other world.
