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Day: July 1, 2013

July 1, 2013
JennyTrout
28 Comments

Vacation Pictures Post (and a few words from The Girlfriend)

Posted in Uncategorized

Man, vacation was awesome! I can’t wait to share it all with you.

Just, you know. One thing… I lost my camera. Which means that all the gorgeous photos of Lake Superior and the Keweenaw Peninsula are with someone else now. Heads up, if you were in Gay/Laurium/Calumet on Saturday and you found a blue Canon with fat lady nudes on it, that’s mine. I’d like it back.

Since I don’t have pictures, I’ll just have to recreate them. I’m a pretty good artist, so you probably won’t be able to tell the difference.

Day 1:

On the first day of our trip, our merry band of adventurers had to travel from Grand Rapids, MI, to Gay, MI. That’s a really long drive. Eleven hours in two cars, with six writers making the journey. It was me, Bronwyn Green, Mia Watts, Kelsey St. James, Kris Norris, and Emily Love. The gruelling drive was marked by many potty breaks, but the most exciting part was the halfway point, the crossing of Michigan’s majestic Mackinac (pronounced Mack-i-naw) Bridge. Look at this beautiful lady of the crossing, rising from her pylons in the great white shark infested waters where Lake Michigan and Lake Huron meet:

Day Two:

On day two, we got down to some serious writing, and I got down to some serious rock climbing. We were joined at the cabin by our friends Jessica Jarman and Anne, who is a reader who volunteered to come cook us pasta. Our cabin was right on the shore of Lake Superior, and the views were fantastic, as you can see from this expert artistic rendering:

Day 3:

We basically just spent day three writing our butts off in our lovely cabin.

Day 4:

Day 4 is where things got shitty for me. I woke up in the very early morning with a super bad headache. I had to be taken to a Yooper hospital. I don’t want to say for sure that the doctor was a black bear in scrubs, but I’ve got this pretty convincing photo:
Dr. Deathbear diagnosed me with a muscle tension headache (it sounds totally not severe, but trust me, it was a 9 on the pain scale) and gave me a shot in my butt and put me on bed rest. I couldn’t work for a whole day, but I could play Cards Against Humanity, which is a really fun game if you’re a terrible person. 
Day 5:

Our fifth day was spent in more writing. Overall, on the trip, I wrote 27k and change, 10k of that on Day 5. Most of the writing I did was on The Girlfriend, which is the sequel to The Boss. Hey, do you want to see some of those (unedited, totally out of context) words? Okay! Here you go:
“For what it’s worth, if you had proposed tonight, I would have said no.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “Would you have?”
I dabbed the corners of my mouth with my napkin, careful not to smudge my lipstick. I couldn’t lie to him. “No.”

Day 6:

On our sixth day of vacation, we struck out for the very tippiest top of Michigan, Copper Harbor. It’s tiny, it’s foggy, and there are lots of rocks, and also Lake Superior. There were also Orthodox Christian monks living up there who make baked goods:

Day 7:

This was the last day we could possibly get any work done, and get work done, I did. Do you want to see more of it? Okay!

“Maybe I did, in the past, but… I don’t know. I’ve always felt like you were… not resentful of me, but perhaps slightly inconvenienced by my existence. I got the feeling that you didn’t like me around.” She paused. “I feel like I made you uncomfortable somehow.”
“You made me uncomfortable?” That absolutely flabbergasted me. “No, Emma. I felt like I was making you uncomfortable. Because your dad was dating me, and we’re the same age, and the way we first met- “
“In hindsight, that’s quite funny.” She shook her head. “Or at least, Michael tells me it is.”

And then on Day 8, we all left. Except for my camera, who I hope is having a really nice time, wherever it is.