The trip was fairly uneventful, which was perfect! The weather was flawless, so I came back with a healthy dose of Vitamin D. The water temperature was down to about 72F which was refreshing at first, but felt amazing.
The most eventful part of the trip was probably the bout of sleep paralysis that I had while in my tent on Saturday night. For those who aren't familiar, here's an interesting read.
Essentially, you're awake while your brain is still in a dream state. Your brain still thinks your asleep, so your body remains paralyzed, but you become aware of your surroundings. "Sleep paralysis was first identified within the scientific community by psychologist Weir Mitchell in 1876. He laid down this syntactically old-school, but accurate description of how it works. “The subject awakes to consciousness of his environment but is incapable of moving a muscle; lying to all appearance still asleep. He is really engaged in a struggle for movement fraught with acute mental distress; could he but manage to stir, the spell would vanish instantly.”"
Anyway, this used to happen to me somewhat frequently around ages 11-15 for whatever reason, but hasn't happened since. You'd swear there was a time zone change between the real world and "at the lake" world, because we always retire early for the night. We watched the Notre Dame/Michigan football game and then decided to call it. I went to my tent around 11 and was almost instantly asleep. For whatever reason, I woke up a couple hours later around 1 AM feeling completely refreshed, almost like my body took a nap and was ready to go again. This was a problem. Luckily a friend of mine texted me shortly after and kept me company for a while as I lay awake in the tent under the bright moonlight. I wasn't exactly pissed, as being out in nature on a beautiful clear night with temperatures in the middle 50s is a pretty good place to be unable to sleep. I talked to my friend until after 3 AM before deciding to go for a walk. I have absolutely no reservations about being out in the wilderness or in rural areas in the middle of the night completely alone. I was never an easily scared kid, and what reservations I had before have probably been erased in years of spending nights alone shooting photos, whether on a storm chase or simple night photo outing. You eventually learn that the only thing you have to fear is your brain. In time you learn that the thing that is making the crunching noise in the brush behind you that sounds huge, is probably no bigger than a football and could be punted about 40 yards if you felt so compelled.
I made my way back to the tent and decided to try that sleeping thing. At one point I heard something sniffing around outside my tent and briefly contemplated smacking the side of the tent to startle it and send it running but the idea that it could potentially be a skunk had me thinking better of it. The next thing I knew it was sleep paralysis time.
I don't remember ever falling asleep, which perhaps added to it seeming so real. My mind had awakened in a dreaming state, my body still paralyzed but my conscience becoming more and more aware of my surroundings. I was 100% convinced that there was a snarling wolf first directly outside my tent, but then actually inside my tent grabbing my left arm.
Fast forward to 0:38 and that's almost exactly what I heard. That slow, low snarling noise. This lasted what seemed like maybe a minute or two, all the while I was unable to move anything but my eyes. It's almost like a lightswitch is flipped when it ends too. I immediately became aware of what had happened. When I was younger I wasn't overly aware of what sleep paralysis was, but when I came to this time and realized the "wolf" was really my blanket bunched up in the corner of my eye I immediately knew I'd been had by Mr. Paralysis. It was just odd that it had been so long. Ah well. Like I said, I can't remember the last time I was even a little bit afraid while out at night, but this had my heart racing for several minutes afterward just given the realness of the situation. When I was a kid it seemed to come more under the guise of the alien abduction scenario that is frequently reported. I would simply 'awaken' unable to move a muscle, but knowing something evil was in my room before I would quickly regain complete awareness and be able to look around and see my empty bedroom.
Anyway, I guess that was the final motivation I needed to get to sleep because after that I didn't remember a thing until the sun was well up in the sky and my tent was quickly becoming an oven. The rest of the day was spent on the lake and manning the grill before we headed back down south during the evening.
As I said, I didn't take any photos this trip but I do have a photo or two from the last week or so that I could toss up here. They're inevitably going to be from the wind farm, but if you're reading this blog you've grown to expect that crap.
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