My summer in the Northwoods

This weekend I got my first true Northwoods experience.

After driving 3 1/2 hours north to the Robert S. Lyle Scout Reservation, I got the chance to spend the weekend at the camp where I will be working for the next six weeks, beginning June 21.

To say the least it was a culture shock.

I've never been camping in my life, let alone stay on a camping reservation in the middle of nowhere. The camp is beautiful. It's surrounded by trees and has two lakes within its limits. But those weren't the parts that sent a shock to my system.

The first: the sheer number of flying insects in the area. I haven't counted them all, but I'm sure I've gotten more than 50 mosquito bites in the last three days. Hell, I have five on my left hand alone. Needless to say, being outside at night up there is not exactly as relaxing as I has hoped.

Secondly: the condition of my cabin. When I arrived, it was dirty and relatively empty. Bunked beds and a metal storage unit were all I found. Luckily, I was able to steal a desk, plastic storage cart and carpet from other cabins. So after sweeping, the cabin wasn't so bad, but the prospect of calling it home for more than a month is not something I'm enthusiastic about.

Finally, sleeping outside. I attempted to go through my ordeal to become a member of the Order of the Arrow, which is a Boy Scouts of America honor society. Well, let's just say, it's supposed to be somewhere around a 24-hour experience and I only last for two.

I went through the first "call-out" ceremony and even tried to sleep outside in just a sleeping bag for a while. In fact, I think I even fell asleep for like 15 minutes, but after about two hours of bugs buzzing in my ears and sweating under the sleeping bag trying to avoid them, I gave up.

Apparently, it wasn't a surprise to anyone that I, having never camped or slept in anything relatively outdoors before in my life, wasn't able to sleep outside.

After all those wonderful experiences in my first 8 hours at camp, I got the chance to head into "town" on Saturday. The town is Elcho, WI, a town in Langlade County with a population of roughly 1,300 people.

So, apparently, not only do people know where the camp is in this town, but they also know where the camp staff likes to spend its free time. We met a man who owns a concrete business and asked him to come to camp to give us an estimate. Well, he actually knew which bar the camp staff frequents on weekends during the summer. (I was more than a little creeped out).

Everything in town is essentially within a four-block radius of the town hall, which was just around the corner from the gas station we went to and next door to the grocery store. Down a bit farther was the post office and on the other side of the grocery store was the fire station.

Clearly, if you were to blink driving down the road, you'd miss it. Oh, and by my estimation, 75% of businesses in town don't accept credit or debit cards. Nor do they have ATMs. (WTF?)

Finally, the last night, I got my first Northwoods bar experience. We arrived with seven of us and we comprised 87.5% (7 of 8) of the people in the bar. Then the one other person there left, so we were alone in the bar with the bartender who appeared to be kept up past his bed time.

The TV was tuned to racing on ESPN2 (I half expected it to not have cable), and the things to do in the bar ranged from darts to billiards to video poker machines. It reeked of smoke and in order to drown out the sound from the racing on TV we had to pay to play music on the digital jukebox.

The only saving grace at this place, and most in this town, is the prices. Well, actually just the alcohol prices. Apparently, some bars have $0.25 bottle and $0.75 tap specials, yet it cost me $1.50 for a can of Coke at the restaurant Friday night.

Throughout the summer, I'll be posting photos and interesting "nuggets" about my first (and probably last) summer in the Northwoods.