On Twitter, i dubbed it at ManTrip 1.0 when we started the journey, but quickly realized that it wasn’t ready for official release, so it’s been downgraded to beta this time :)
A handful of my buddies decided that we needed a time away from everything and just chill, so after a handful of e-mails going back and forth (which exploded to almost 100 in the thread on the final day) we set out for a 1-day camping trip. Mind you none of us have ever gone camping really, so there would definitely be a learning curve on our trip. 7 of us packed up in an minivan and headed up near the Illinois-Wisconsin border this past weekend for some good times and a much needed break to get re-energized for the 2nd half of the year.
As soon as we got to our location, we quickly rented a few boats and tried our hand at rowing and fishing. The fish weren’t biting (and the rows were having some issues rowing at times), but definitely a blast getting out on the water. It was a beautiful day which made it all the more relaxing of a time, just chilling on the waters.
We headed back to dry land and began to set up tents. This tent claimed to fit 2-3 people…but they don’t know us. Indians can stuff 15 people in a Honda Civic. We definitely will fit at least 7 in this tent. (We did have another tent- though we could fit, we still wanted to sleep comfortably :)).
This guy camping next to us had two tents of his own. Slightly larger. For less people. And he put them up faster then we did. By himself. So what? We’re not embarrassed. Please. We wanted to take a long time to set up the tents…it was a bonding experience.
It was a semi-rough night trying to sleep, but we all got up a little before 5am for some sunrise fishing down on the pier. I’m normally not up by 5am, but it can’t be a beautiful thing. Again, out in the middle of nature with only the sounds of birds chirping and the sun beginning to rise- it’s a very calming feeling. This time, one of our guys actually caught a fish (the picture doesn’t do justice how big it was…it was HUGE!), but we decided to throw it back. And that was all she wrote for fishing.
All in all, ManTrip *beta* was a success. A great learning experience, but a better escape with the guys. I’m ready to get into the home stretch of wedding planning, There’s been talk about doing another one in the future – a more prepared version of camping was an option, or possibly a ski trip. (FACT: Indians don’t ski. I don’t know what these guys are thinking with that one) We’ll see how it all plays out. You got any ideas of where we should go/what we should do next? Maybe by then we’ll be ready to declare it ManTrip 1.0.
