Cherry Cobbler and Campfire Songs
Submitted by Denise Janus

Last night we did our presentation at East Harbor State Park which ended at 9 p.m., and then we went back to camp for cherry cobbler, a Dr. Carpenter specialty. Laura Affer, from University Housing, came down as well last night to be our land support through Sunday. The camp currently consists of Dr. Gerhart, Dr. Vogt, Dr. Carpenter, Laura Affer, Chris, Mike, Laura, and me.  Besides cherry cobbler last night which was amazing, Dr. Gerhart broke out his guitar and played and sang for us around the campfire until 11:30pm. 

There were no raccoons last night, which was a nice surprise. 

It’s 7:35 a.m. and our plan for today is to canoe 12 miles to Vermilion.  In the morning we like to listen to some music to get us pumped up, and one of our favorites is “Stroke Me” by Billy Squires. 

We have to drive right now to our boat ramp back in the Huron River to start from exactly where we finished yesterday. There are few boat ramps right on Lake Erie, so we consult nautical charts each day to scout out the ramps. We have to make sure we paddle a respectable amount of miles on paddling days, and that we can still make it to a ramp, so we can get off the water. It’s cool that not only are we becoming really familiar with the Lake Erie coastline, but also with a lot of inlets and the towns along the way.

It’s noon and we just got off the water at Cranberry Creek Marina, after deciding to do only five miles today. Because we’re scheduled to pull into Vermilion tomorrow and we’re ahead of schedule, it was easier to just do five miles today and finish the other seven tomorrow, arriving in Vermilion in the late afternoon. (Word has it that they may be shooting off a canon for us?!).  Cutting today short also was nice because the wind was coming out of the East making it a bear to paddle. 

We just picked up today’s “Cleveland Plain Dealer” because we’re in it, here’s the link http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1117704671289180.xml&coll=2.

As we were picking up the paper, we were parked with the canoe outside of Ace Hardware and West Marine, and both managers came out to look at it!  We also got a business card from the West Marine guy who said to let him know if we ever need anything.