One of the reasons the GG probably got along with the rusticity of the moomincabin when we first met was that the cFam had its own rustic cabin (they still have it but it isn’t rustic any more).

When I first knew the GG, I was hanging out with a bunch of our work friends and it was winter and there were some plans to visit his family’s cabin at Houghton Lake for a weekend of skiing, etc. I was welcome to join but at that age I was skeptical. People were always dreaming up these wild plans for all their friends to go to somebody’s cabin or wherever and for whatever reason, they always fell apart. I didn’t have much faith in the human race (particularly boyz) at that time although I’m sure I also bagged out of things too.

To my great surprise, the GG was totally into the trip to his family’s cabin (and his parents didn’t care) and we did in fact travel there! I drove my little Ford Fiesta with the GG in the passenger seat and I fergit who else. Bruce and an old friend from Zephron 3 maybe. Mark and Pooh might’ve been in their own car? Anyway. Indoor plumbing or not, the trip was so successful a bigger group of us repeated it a few weeks later. This time, I met some of his siblings. The other half of the Twinz of Terror and their younger brother Jim, and their little sister The Beautiful Suzie. Actually at one point during the weekend, Suzie had been relegated to the back seat of their dad’s big sedan, which the GG drove on that trip. Suze was a bit jealous that I was in the front, since she had ridden in that seat with my her big brother many times.

Suzie and I got to be bosom buddies (I miss her so much now that she’s gone) and meeting some of the GG’s sibs that weekend kinda made me think maybe he wasn’t just stringing me along. I was meeting some of his family, right? And they’re meeting me? The next time I went to Houghton Lake with the GG, we traveled alone. And the rest is history, right?

So, what would you think if you rented an Airbnb and were confronted with this bathroom? This picture was taken in the winter. We could use the cFam toilet in the winter but only by pumping a bunch of buckets full of water to flush it. We heated water from the pump in big kettles on the electric stove to wash dishes and fill the bag shower I eventually obtained from REI (because I can’t stand to be dirty). There was full running hot water everywhere in the summer. Sometimes in the warmer months, there would be a frog in the shower with you.

I guess my point might be that I stumbled upon someone who had similar life experiences as I did. A rustic cabin on a lake and beloved family members.

The Houghton Lake cabin is more or less halfway between The Planet Ann Arbor / Detroit Metro area and the moomincabin. Houghton Lake is the largest inland lake in the Great Lake State. It is not as exotically scenic as Lake Superior but it is beautiful in its own way and it is much more friendly to pontoon botes, etc. Wanna go to the tiki bar? Yes! Very few tiki bars on most of Gitchee Gumee.

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