Leverentz Flash Camp
I headed up to Leverentz Lake to meet Feral early Friday afternoon in order to beat the let’s get out of town Covid sucks crowd. It paid off because the campsite was almost full. This was the first weekend State Forest campgrounds opened in Michigan due to coronavirus concerns. Feral and I took our backpack tents (instead of the Apache tent campers) which allowed us to use campsite 2 which has no driveway. Number 2 sits on a hill near the general parking area. Sounds bad but this is a rustic campground and number 2 is more remote than any of the other spots. We had some clean-up work to do. The fire pit was full of dirt, coals, melted bottles, etc. and we had to rake the general area which had downed branches and layers of leaves. It turned out well. A comfortable camp. We bought some fudgie wood and had fires two nights.
The fishing was something else. The photo shows Feral holding up all of the fish we caught. Getting a big bass or pike didn’t seem so important. Main thing was being outdoors in cool weather. Helps recharge the soul.
Feral’s son Jake joined us on Saturday night. He brought a hammock and I should have taken a photo. His sleeping bag is designed to surround the hammock to provide better warmth (rather than lying a bag on the hammock). Jake’s a bicyclist/camper taking overnight journeys in the wilds up around Alpena so he’s into actual backpack camping and making the most in minimalist mode. Good to see him, it had been a couple years.
I brought my Ventura camp guitar, a small acoustic bass, and a mandolin thinking it would be fun to get Jake doing some music. One time, remote camping up near Vanderbilt, he brought a 3/4 size upright bass to camp. There’s a photo somewhere in the archives. Jake has some music chops on both guitar and bass. He wasn’t into jamming though, said he hadn’t played in a long time. So Feral and I traded songs back and forth hoping to prove there is absolutely no reason to be shy around us. We can veer left on some classic songs and keep right on playing. It turned out to be a fun night with stories and odd songs. Plus, free food. Some folks Feral knows from Baldwin invited us over for snacks, elephant ears, and ended up handing us tin foil dinners to warm over campfire. Thanks! People were friendly and talkative throughout the campground. Everyone has been under too much pressure with covid and bad politics. I’m not surprised the campground filled up.
Fichigan 