Camping, Families, and Odd Occurrences

T w o

T w o ♥ June 26th

By "we're going to Michigan", my family really meant "we're going to the worst part of Michigan to freeze our asses off and oh, the weirdest people in our distant family are coming with us".

   Great.

   Just great.

   Not to mention the fact that Cole wouldn't talk to me. Because of these turn of events, he would have to miss his big competition. He'd have to forfeit, which he'd never had to do in his 16-year life. I truly felt awful inside because of it, but what was I supposed to do? If I told my parents to get off my back, they'd really make me stay here.

   If I could prove to them that I could handle the winter and the wildlife, I was sure they'd let me do what I thought was best for myself.

   I wanted to go to MSU, which wasn't anywhere near where we were going. Sure, we'd still be in Michigan, but we'd be in the U.P. of Michigan where there were wolves and bears and at night it got so cold you could shiver to death. My parents managed to get into a last-minute-call month-long camping thingy in Porcupine Mountains.

   Cole and I weren't looking forward to it.

   Yet somehow my parents were. Mom and Dad had never really left the state of Florida, which was probably why they were so excited about this trip. I was certain, though, that when we finally did get there, they'd regret it. Hiking was not their thing. Coldness was not their thing. Hell, nothing up there was their thing.

   I understood why they wanted me to go, but why everyone else, including themselves?

   Breaking the news to Kennedy didn't go down so easily. She'd been planning this "amazing summer" for years apparently, and when she learned that now she had to do it all by herself...she wasn't too happy about it. In fact, her exact words were "you lying bitch". Of course I forgave her. She was just being overdramatic anyways. She cried for a little bit, we hugged, and then we parted ways.

   Heath wasn't easy to let down, either. I'd known that I'd have to break up with him at some point, but I didn't know I had to do it so early in the summer. For college kids, summer wasn't that long (at least not when you just get out of high school). But now it just seemed like an eternity that I wasn't able to spend with my friends. Heath and I met up at our favorite food place, some cute little 60s theme restaurant that had the best milkshakes. That was when I told him.

   He was upset, but mostly because I'd be moving away and we'd hardly be able to see each other anymore. I told him we could still talk and text, but he was still gloomy. "It's not the same," he'd said. I made it up to him by hanging out with him all day. We went to the tourist shops and got those silly little hats with the Florida slogan on them, and we got an alligator's tooth just for fun (even though I already had an entire collection of them, plus an alligator head.)

   I was truly going to miss Heath. He was one of my best friends, after all, and I loved him.

   That was pretty much everyone that I had to say goodbye to, besides family. And even then, a good portion of our very small family was going anyways. My Crazy Gramma Lily was going. Cole and I, when we were a bit younger, had dubbed her "crazy" because she believed in Gods and Goddesses and dream catchers and all those weird and well, crazy, things. Sure, she could be helpful sometimes, and fun, but she was still crazy.

   And then there was Aunt Tracie and her son, Troy. Tracie was okay I guess. She was "normal" and "average". A little too normal, though. I loved her dearly, but she kind of reminded me of Harry Potter's aunt in a way. She wasn't necessarily mean...just...too normal. And then there was her son. Weird as hell Troy, as Cole called him. Troy was eight or around that age now, but that didn't stop him from doing all the gross stuff that six year olds and younger did. He still crapped and peed his pants. He still ate worms. He still picked his nose...he was pretty much the exact opposite of Aunt Tracie.