Mark's series of unfortunate events..

I'm back from my trip and I have to admit that it was bittersweet. You'll realize why when you read the rest of the post.

Early Thursday morning I met up with my Dad and Uncle and headed up north. The trip up is pretty uneventful, it takes 4 1/2 hours, and I slept a majority of the time.

We arrived at our cabin around noon and unpacked a few necessary things (we brought a lot of food with us). The cabin that we stayed in was outstanding. Our party had 8 men and we all slept comfortably in seperate beds or futons. The interior is all wood, the tile floors are heated, and it included a full kitchen. It also had a full deck overlooking a huge lake. On the grounds there was also a bar and a resturaunt. The cabin only cost $99/night. Divided by 8 people, it was a steal.

There wasn't enough snow to ride directly from our cabins. I'd say there was between 6-8 inches on the ground, but the trails weren't groomed yet and the swamps weren't completely frozen. The great thing about the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the lake effect snowbelts. We only had to drive 20 miles north with our trailors to get to an area that had over a foot of snow and usually rode in areas that had between 1 and 2 1/2 feet of snow. We rode the remainder of the day Thursday and were back at the cabins by 8pm. We had a chicken dinner that we cooked up at the cabin.

Friday morning we woke up around 7am and we were riding snowmobiles by 9am. We rode all day Friday and had an absolute blast. No breakdowns or problems of any kind.. that is, until late Friday night/early Saturday morning. We finished riding around 8pm again and had a Ham dinner then proceeded to drink the night away. I went to a local bar with my Dad and a couple of the other guys and it was great! We were in a tiny, tiny hole-in-the-wall bar, but there were at least 50 people in there and there was a DJ over in the corner.

After a 6 pack of beer and 10 or 11 Whiskey-Sour's it was bar time and I went to grab my new jacket off the coat rack as the place was clearing out. My jacket was gone. Someone either mistakenly grabbed it in a drunken daze, or just plain ripped me off. I lost a Columbia jacket, my digital camera, a box of contact lenses, and my snowmobile registration. I even found out where an afterbar party was being held, and went there looking for it, but it's gone.

We checked back with the bar a couple of times on Saturday, but nobody had turned it in. I was pretty bummed out as you might imagine. Not only did I lose my jacket, but I lost the pictures I wanted to share with you. Luckily my uncle had a spare jacket, so I didn't miss out on any riding. The trails were great again and we came back a little earlier, around 5pm to eat. Since the plan was to leave somewhat early on Sunday morning, 4 of us decided to go on one last ride. We headed out from the cabin (it had snowed a couple of inches, so we could ride the shoulder of the road until we got to good trails), and went for a ride. When we left the cabin I must not have completely zipped my pocket because I found out about half way through the trip that my cell phone was missing! This was also the point where we started having problems with my snowmobile and it needed to be towed by another. I was the only one getting a good signal all weekend, so I was the only one carrying a phone but now we couldn't arrange for a truck to come pick us up, so I had to ride double for about an hour, which on today's snowmobiles isn't the most comfortable thing to do.

So, I have no pictures to share with you unfortunately. I spent about $300 on my trip, and lost about $600 worth of items on the trip. The only bright spot so far is that it looks like I'll be able to get my losses covered under our home owners policy. I still can't replace the pictures though..

Oh, yeah my top speed for the weekend was 115mph on an unplowed seasonal rode. The top speed for our group was by my Uncle, with 133mph!