Great Minds Making Potentially Stupid Decisions

For a week and a half, my room mate and I had been planning a camping trip for MLK weekend on Lake Michigan...

Yes, it is the middle of January, but where I am it appears to be spring, so a camping trip didn't sound like a terrible idea. We prepared ourselves for it to go completely wrong while holding onto the excitement of an adventurous weekend away. We had little to no expectations for our "camping" excursion. 

We left on friday for the great outdoors with two of our friends, a tent, 4 sleeping bags, and duffel bag of food, and 4 backpacks nearly 100% full of wool. Our plan was to camp outside my cottage, which we did not have a key to. After our departure we learned that we could use the cottage although there would be no heat or running water. It was my mother's attempt to deter us from staying outside in a tent for 2 nights. Little did we know at the time, the cold would defeat us, and my mother's "attempts" became a success. 

The tent was pitched, but only 3 of us tried sleeping in it including myself and my roommate. After an hour, I could stand it any longer. Although it wasn't the cold that got me, but rather the scarf around my neck that was strangling me. I went inside the cottage into the one room we filled with space heaters and closed off from the rest of the house. I woke up at 7:30 to find that the other two still had no come inside.  I  was about to go outside and check on them for fear they had frozen to death, but then I heard foot steps on the patio. They had barely slept all night and had been up since 5:30 to wait for the sun to come up. They crawled into bed to de-thaw and fell asleep until 1 or 2 in the afternoon. To say the least, we decided to stay in the house the second night. 

Later that day, we wandered down the beach bundled up in our winter gear with lunch trays in our hands, climbed a dune of at least 1000 feet tall, and sledded down it. That night the sky was cloudless and filled with stars. 

Even though the first night wasn't ideal, the second night was magnificent. The trip was more than we could ask for. At the end of the day, it's great to have friends who will make stupid decisions with you whether they go horribly wrong or incredibly well, although this trip proved that some day it may be the death of me.