ADVENTURES AROUND LAKE SOPHIA

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     crossorigin="anonymous"></script> We woke up from a good night’s slumber, yet I was still sleepy. My head felt like a ton of bricks. My bladder was on fire and completely full. I wouldn’t dare to go out into the night. Walking all the way to the only available bathroom was not a choice. I didn’t know what wild animals I would come across on my way. The only bathroom available was the one across the lake in a small welcome center for the lake. This cabin also had running water with rows of showers, sinks, and bathroom stalls. My only dislike of the lake life at the moment was that. The bathroom was a good distance away. To be fair, eventually, we plan to build small cabins. These will be scattered throughout the wooded area. They would include their own toilets, showers, and sinks. Building more cabins would take some time due to limited funds. Currently, we have only provided lots for tent space. We hoped that one day our renters would give enough money. With that, building more cabins like this would be possible. Right now, we have one cabin on the land, which was ours. We were still waiting. We lived the tent life until our cabin was finished. The tent life would be inconvenient for us, of course. Nevertheless, the tent life was the only choice right now. My cousin, Johnny, and I decided to live permanently at the lake house. It had been in our family since our great-grandparents were first married. They had bought the lake house and the 60-acre forest that surrounded the area. In those days, buying land was cheap for people. It is an unbelievable fact for us these days. We sold our houses for a good amount of money. This money would help us create a vacation resort. Our permanent house will be livable in a few days. Meanwhile, we chose to inhabit a tent on the premises of Lake Sophia. Our new establishment of a functional vacation resort on the lake. Blurry-eyed, I gathered the things I needed. I had to take a shower. I unzipped the tent door to emerge into the outside world. Honestly, it took a while for my eyes to adjust to the sun outside instead of inside a shielded tent. To my chagrin, a bear had destroyed the ground around our tent. The bear was sifting through what I thought was our pristine temporary home ground area. I should have put the trash bags in the house last night. The smell of our meal wouldn’t have lingered in the garbage. They were after the honey. We used honey to spread on our homemade biscuits I bought this morning from the local grocery store. I was frustrated because I wanted to make sure everything was just right when the inspector came mid-morning. Given this situation, I couldn’t scan the house for trash. Our friends had left trash behind at the earlier pizza party. My cousin and I both experienced a lot of grief from losing our loved ones. We lost friends over the years to tragic events. Anytime we had time off work, we spent it together at the lake house.

We made it through the day. The inspector felt confident. He gave the go-ahead to the electrician. This would allow him to do the final touches. After I waved goodbye to the inspector, then pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket. I talked to the electrician to make an appointment. I ended my call with the electrician. I took a long sigh and realized I saw Johnny by the grill. He was starting a fire to roast hot dogs for the two of us for supper. I sighed deeply. I realized I was tired from a day full of obligations. I needed a rest to settle down my day. I found a place to sit on the pier. I began to relax. I heard the soft sound of water flowing. I slipped off my shoes and waded into the cold water. We eventually sat by the campfire to eat our hot dogs. We roasted marshmallows. We used them to make a few s’mores. We added bars of Hershey’s chocolate and graham crackers. We enjoyed the evening of good food. We realized it was a good time to hike to the welcome center. We wanted to clean up for bed. We finally walked our way back to the campsite and crawled into our tent. We relaxed as the frogs croaked through the night. A cool breeze blew throughout our tent through the meshed window. We unzipped it to feel some air as we would chat about our ideas. We lingered awake to discuss improving our vacation resort. We eventually drifted off to sleep.

Late at night, my cousin woke me up to tell me he desperately needed to go to the bathroom. He wanted me to hold a flashlight and shine it on the path that led to the welcome center. It would light the way and hopefully distract any critters or unwelcome beasts he would meet along the way. The long stretch of distance between our tent to the building was soon to become much shorter. He was in trouble when he heard a mama bear growl deeply. She thought her baby was threatened by something or someone. Johnny stopped, frozen in his tracks. He became intensely aware of the danger. He noticed the soft, cuddly baby bear cub trailing its track up the trail. So, my cousin snapped back to reality. He made a ninety-degree turn. He noticed that the sound of the growl came from a place much closer to the entrance of the bathrooms. Quickly thinking, the tall, fit man came close to danger when Mama bear started running at him. Luckily, he reached the tent for us to quickly zip the tent entrance door. In the safety of the tent, we still worried that the bear would tear at it to gain entrance. He was reaching the end of his patience as we finally heard the bear walk off. We saw through our meshed window that she soon grew tired of us. Her baby soon joined her as she entered the woods. Clearly, we had a bear problem and would face a standstill at our vacation resort.

Fast skip to the current time. It’s been almost a month since our bear 🐻 problem. Clearly, we had a problem that needed to be solved before we started accepting renters. Or else we would be liable if anyone were attacked and harmed by a bear. Our house on the lake was finally finished with construction. We folded up our tent (temporary home) and placed it in the hall closet. The next thing on our list was to contact our local game warden to consult with him. What would we do about the bears? He suggested posting signs that would make renters aware of bears, which seemed to only be a problem at night. Other things like asking people to keep all trash that would smell of food inside for the night. Also, to wait to take those kinds of things in the outside trash ONLY during trash pick-up days. So, trash was hauled away from the campsite at the appropriate time. Our problem was solved. We hired local construction companies to start the work on five cabins that would have indoor plumbing. The sale of both of our houses at least covered the cost of that many cabins. The thing with providing tent lots for potential renters, we needed to think about. Do we really want to take a chance on someone getting hurt? You know, because SOMEONE ALWAYS breaks the rules. Then, it is usually an emergency or a mess to clean up. So, we decided to stay safe. We would hold off on the lots for tents. Just to be on the safe side.

Johnny and I often enjoyed a bag of microwave popcorn while watching the local news at night. Our five cabins were built, and all five were occupied at the moment. We were both tired after meeting the needs of our renters all day. It was time to relax. On the screen flashed the words: Flash floods carved deep channels in the dirt. This was a headline to one of the worst natural disasters that our state would endure this year. We would give up the money we would gain from another week of making money from renters. We decided to close our campsite cabins for the next time of available space. After all, life is not just about making money. Life is about loving people. We traveled five hours to the town. This town recently suffered so much loss of homes, livelihood, family members, and pets. We decided to help them start over again.