Rustic Getaway Fans??

Was invited to an enjoyable weekend getaway with 10 other guys to go rafting down a river about 3 hours outside of the main metropolis. Gorgeous weather and the rafting could not have been any more fun.

Was sitting away from everyone in the afternoon and really enjoyed just hearing nothing but the breeze, the creek, and the birds. Rarely get that in the metropolis where I live.

Slept in a sleeping bag on a sleeping/screened porch; running water from well water was available for plumbing and showering. [Highlight was flipping open the toilet seat and in the water were 5 frogs who had come up through the piping. (Whoa City-Slicker!!)]

Being a hotel/motel guy, never been a big fan of rustic getaways. However, the time with a great group of guys made everything worthwhile.

Anyone out there enjoy getting away from the city stimuli?

 

Well water not always good for you.
Just saying.

 

There are two critical factors in determining how great an outdoors trip turned out to be. Did you hear banjo music and is your butt sore?

 

The last time I spent with 10 guys was the last football game I played; now I couldn't find 10 dudes to do anything with if I had Kate Upton's invite to a McDonalds.

 

We just spent a week on Manitoulin Island. Not roughing it since we rented a cottage/cabin but the only thing to wake us up was the birds singing. The island isn't terribly developed - no chain stores or cafes and independent motels and hunting camps. It's too far from Toronto for folks to have weekend places.

I have a picture of JR at 6:30AM on Monday morning and he's smiling. That does NOT happen in the city. I came home with a wonderful sense of well-being. As a friend said " You were a human being instead of a human doing". Pretty much true.

 

"A human being instead of a human doing"

Love your friend's quote, HC.

 

Me too.

 

I slept in hotels and drove, but I thoroughly enjoyed doing a driving tour of Kansas once. Got off of I-70 in Salina and did a big loop in the middle part of the state. I'll never forget stopping for the night in Beloit, driving down the road a couple miles, and pulling in behind an old barn. I watched the sun slowly set while sitting on the trunk of my car, and remember being amazed that it was 9:15 and still very light outside. Being on the edge of a time zone and early July helped, I guess.
The next day I went to a place called Coronado Heights near Lindsborg. It's basically just a big hill in the middle of the prairie where they built a small picnic area back in the WPA days. Sitting up there feeling the prairie wind, seeing the smoke from farmers burning off parts of their fields, and hardly anyone else around was just so damn peaceful. If I'm ever cremated, I want someone to spread some of my ashes there just so they can have that same feeling.

 

My wife's family cabin in Wyoming didn't have indoor plumbing until about 20 years ago, didn't have a phone until about 5 years ago, and internet/texting is intermittent. Two miles on dirt road from a town of 250, 30 miles from Laramie, the closest big city. It's wonderful.

 

That's pretty much the area where I grew up, Salina was the "big town" we went to for shopping, movies, etc. Did you happen to go to Lucas and see the Garden of Eden?

 

I lived in a little RV with no running water during my AmeriCorps service. The showers, portables ones in converted semi hauler things, were across the block. Except when after it froze and I had to go down to the Y a couple times a week.

Had black mold and mice (all named George) in my house in Morocco during Peace Corps. Worse for that was the condensation on the walls in winter, though -- it was cold. Slept in a sleeping bag all winter. The sink was outside, but the toilet (hole in the ground and a bleach bottle in the hole to block most mice, although roaches wandered up) was inside.

As far as vacations go, the week camping in New Zealand last year was utterly fabulous. I'd never really camped before, but by day 2 I was a pro at the tent. The first night, it was so windy, rainy and cold, it felt like North Dakota.

If you ever go to NZ, it's fabulous -- all kinds of outdoor stuff to do.

 

I didn't, but I did go to Rock City in Minneapolis and the barbed wire museum in LaCrosse.
And, of course, the world's second largest ball of twine in Cawker City.