“This is the worstest trip ever!” - Brad Morbeck, shortly after going out of control on a bike trail that wasn’t really a bike trail.
Thursday, August 17- Our boys celebrate their Irish heritage by consuming a morning taste treat never before experienced by their unlucky taste buds. The Sullivans have had the foresight to bring “Lucky Charms” for breakfast! Pink Hearts! Blue Diamonds! I forget the Rest! Our bowls are repeatedly filled again and again, so thrilled we are by this new taste treat.
After breakfast we drag the canoe down to the water’s edge. 5 of us carry it down, the three bigger boys holding on to it as much as lifting. I hop in for a cold swim while Rick takes Matt, Tim, and Brad out for a rather long paddle around an isolated island at the other end of the lake. Brad learns about the phenomena of ECHOES ECHOES ECHOES for the first time. Apparently the flat surface of the lake coupled with the surrounding topography does a fantastic job of repeating his youthful utterances. Gabe and Ben are poured into their “little swimmers” (the greatest invention since sliced bread) and they find out what swimming in New England is all about (BRRRRR!).
When the adventurers return Rick decides to leave us and go back to Southbridge for a little while to make sure that all of the previous day’s birthday party trash is put out for the trash guys to pick up. The rest of us decide to go on a major hike on one of the nature trails.
The bigger boys all enjoy running ahead while the small boys’ love affair with Mrs. Sullivan starts in earnest. They’re completely captivated by her (she’s had many dealings with the preschool set) and they both insist on holding each of her hands on the hike. We must have come in mushroom season - We see a large variety of interesting fungi along the path.
We take a right turn off the main drag after about a mile and ascend up to “Carpenter’s Rocks” , a beautiful stone outcropping which towers high above the surrounding area.
We hiked down the hill and met up with one of the paved roads en route to our campsite. Rick returned and we all had lunch, with the intent of bedding the little boys down for their afternoon nap in mind. Joan had to zip back to Southbridge to go to work and Sally volunteered to man (woman?) the lawnchair outside the tent while Ben and Gabe prepared for their afternoon slumber. The rest of us guys prepared ourselves to embark on a major bicycle expedition. Helmet straps properly fastened, we consulted the trail map and set off.
The first section on a dirt (mud) road along the swampy headwaters of the lake was fine. I can’t tell if this area was ravaged by fire in the last twenty years or what other forces might have been acting on it but it really is quite striking. The map isn’t very clear as to where our turn-off should be, so we take a shot at a decent sized looking trail going off to the left. The path gets harder and harder, becoming close to impassable as we journey further inland. Brad’s becoming increasingly upset at his inability to ride in this rugged terrain. At one point he careens out of control down a hill, forgetting to put his brakes on just as he was about to hit a tree. Luckily I happened to be positioned perfectly to reach out and snatch him out of harm’s way in the nick of time.
“This is the WORSTEST trip, EVER!” A frustrated 4 year old cried out to the heavens. We walked our bikes through the woods until things started to improve, finally emerging from the forest at a big set of high tension power lines. Somehow we stumbled on to a delightfully easy gravel “handicapped accessible” trail which took us back to the more developed area of the park. The Sullivans all were able to ride their bikes up and down the rather steep paved hills on our way back but I reigned Brad in a bit on this activity. I had a nice chat with him explaining that Tim and Matt were from the “hill” country, and were used to these changing elevations. The answer seemed to molify him for a while, as he realized just how flat much of his Rutledge bike riding experience had been.
We finally return to the campsite where Sally relates to us a telling anecdote about my #2 son, the guy who it seems sometimes doesn’t like ANYTHING. While Sally kept vigil outside the tent apparently Gabriel Mouseboy awoke out of deep slumber to announce to the world at large, “I DON’T YIKE DAT! I DON’T YIKE DAT!”.
He just as quickly went back to sleep, obviously at peace with his burst of self expression. The rest of us got the wiffle ball stuff and went down to the baseball field. We were met by some fellow campers of short stature and all had a great time taking turns batting and fielding.
The Sullivans went for a swim while I realized that I had yet to set foot into the canoe. By chance Mr. B. Bunny woke up so he and I made a major exploration of the navigable portions of the lake. He had a nice time dragging his hand in the water as I was forced to paddle even harder to make up for the resultant loss of hydrodynamic efficiency.
We returned to the campsite and proved to the world that our species has evolved enough to slide out of the primordial ooze and come down out of the trees long enough to make.......FIRE! Unfoturnately we had the matches and the logs but were missing the middle ingredient: KINDLING! The boys were all deputized to go out into the forest and collect little sticks from the hillside, obviously already scoured by other campers who had already been confronted by the same problem.We cooked some of the usual outdoor fare and had a wonderful supper under a cathedral like canopy of pines and oaks.
While we were making dinner we noticed the little boys over in a clearing performing a scene of Morbeck Family “guerilla theater”. Tonight’s vignette might be entitled, “Mom wiping Brad’s poopy Bum”. Gabriel turned in a stellar performance in the the role of a bent over Brad while Benjamin won the major speaking role of Mommy cheerily intoning, “ALL DONE!”. In the past few days we’ve also overheard them threatening each other in Mommy-like tones, “I’m going to send you to your room and SHUT the DOOR!” Hey guys, we live in a tent, in case you didn’t notice. All the other boys engaged in various “Jail Thing” shenanigans with the previously described hot dog cooking grill. After dinner we built up the bonfire and fanned out through the darkened forest in search of marshmallow cookin’ sticks. For the second time on this vacation Bradford Hampsey Morbeck discovered what might become his life’s avocation: Marshmallow Chef!
He did a pretty good job, actually achieving a pretty decent MRR (Marshmallow Retention Rate). The Sullivans (and Brad) have been caught up in the recent “Harry Potter” craze so Rick read a chapter from the newest release to his boys.
