August 6, 2007. Ryan's birthday. First thing that morning, Shelly called us to tell us that her flight to Detroit had been canceled. After about 20 minutes of us all freaking out, she was able to get a flight to Flint, MI later that afternoon. That was good. Flint is actually closer to the cabin than Detroit. Problem solved. We packed our stuff and Animae into the car, kissed Daisy, Grammi and Grandpa goodbye and headed off for MI. Somehow we managed to avoid Chicago Monday morning rush hour - maybe our luck was turning around!
About one hour south of Flint, while listening to NPR, we heard a local report that a huge forest fire was raging out of control in the UP. Uh-oh. In Luce County. UH-OH. 6 miles north of the town of Newberry. RUH-ROH, Scooby. Specifically along County Road 407... WHAT!? Short of giving specific GPS coordinates, that pretty much described EXACTLY where Ryan's cabin is located. So, Shelly was in flight, and Ben, Jay and Michael were in a car somewhere in Ontario on their way to MI and apparently the cabin was on fire. Ry and I spent the next 30 minutes trying to decide what to do, and what to tell our friends. Finally, we remembered we had the number of the lake resort across the 407 from the cabin. Ryan called there. They were still on their land and frankly seemed unconcerned about the whole fire thing, so we decided to just keep on truckin' and hope for the best. We picked up Shelly, got to Mackinaw City around 9pm and got some groceries, and headed over the bridge to the UP.
Around 11pm, we pulled into Newberry, MI. The air smelled like a huge campfire. Instantly, our hair, clothes and the inside of the car stunk of smoke. We stopped at the local Holiday gas station and the kid behind the counter told us that the fire was up to around 15,000 acres and he was sure we wouldn't be able to make it back to the cabin, especially at night (the pic above was taken from approximately where the gas station is, looking North). Several of the roads north of town had been shut down by the state police and DNR. We decided to try anyway. The road we were on was shut down going North, but we were able to turn onto 407. As we neared the cabin, the air actually cleared and the smoke was far less prevalent. This seemed hopeful. We got to the cabin - it was quiet and still, but all seemed well. Shelly and Ryan and I started unpacking the car and began the task of getting the cabin ready for living. Ryan's Uncle Bob lives in Newberry and spends a lot of his time living at the cabin. He's a pig. A complete and utter pig. His mess this year was particularly grand. I felt a little disheartened and Shelly, bless her, offered to work on the cabin while Ryan and I went to meet the Boston Boys in town to lead them back to the cabin.
We met the guys at the gas station in Newberry around midnight. They'd also talked to the gas station dude, and were a little concerned that we were possibly driving into our fiery deaths. We assured everyone it was ok and we all drove back to the 407. This time, just an hour later, the smoke had shifted and was pretty thick on the road. At one point, Michael said "There sure are a lot of bugs out tonight... Wait, that's ASH!" And he was right. Still we pushed on. When we all got to the cabin, we were all exhausted from hours and hours of road trip. We all stumbled around the property in the dark and looked at the lake. It was really low. The sky was really hazy. Definitely not like it usually is. But we were all really glad to be together, so we basically stayed up all night to celebrate Ry's birthday, and drink some of the duty free liquor Michael picked up at the Canadian border. We all fell asleep around daybreak, except for Ryan who took the opportunity to go fishing. Dude, when you love to fish, you love to fish...
About noon the next day, we all woke up to a large Chinook helicopter flying very low over the cabin. Within an hour, several helicopters and water planes had flown over, some with huge water and flame retardant buckets beneath. Michael, Jay and Ryan decided to head into town to get some more groceries and get the news on the fire. They left. Ben had coincidentally packed a book for the trip about forest fires, called "Fire!" by Sebastian Junger before he knew he was driving into one, and I perversely decided to curl up on my bunk and start reading it. Ben was reading another book on his bunk and Shelly took a dip in the lake. About 15 minutes later, I hear Michael's truck pull back in and hear Michael and Jay start yelling "We have to evacuate, pack everything, we have to get out NOW!" For a second I thought they were kidding, but then I realized there was no way they could have gotten to town and back in that amount of time, so they'd obviously been stopped on the way. By the time they got from the truck to the cabin, I'd gotten off the bunk and gotten dressed in like 20 seconds.
We all started grabbing things and throwing them into bags, suitcases, whatever we could find. Then I realized Ryan wasn't with Michael and Jay. They'd left him at the turn off into town because the cops there had tried to keep them from coming back to get us. Ryan had tried to explain the situation to get permission to come back and Michael and Jay had taken the "screw you" attitude and jumped back in the truck before they could be stopped by the authorities, who'd brilliantly asked them if they were the people who didn't speak English and had refused to leave their cabin when the evacuation order went out... Um, no. Apparently, the whole area had already been evacuated the evening before, and we'd cluelessly driven right into the evacuated area afterwards. And no one had known we were back there, because the cabin has no electricity, phone, etc. It's just simply not on the grid. As we packed, we noticed that planes were starting to buzz the cabin. One came in so low, it rattled the windows and sounded like it was going to crash into us. Obviously, they were trying to send us a message - one we'd been too thick to get earlier in the day, something like: "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, IDIOTS!!"
The next 10 minutes are sort of a blur. We were all very on task, but scattered. For example, I was very clear about getting Animae and her bed and bag of food in the car, but forgot her bowls and leash. I also realized when Michael announced that his car was full and the rest would have to be packed in Ryan's car, that I was going to have to drive Ryan's car out of the fire zone. Then the "Where are his car keys?" panic set in until I found them. I ran up and down the path to the car about 52 times, constantly realizing something else I forgot - the last being my purse with all my money, ID and personal effects in it. I'd actually started the car and was driving away before I realized I didn't have it. At one point I was panicking about how to close and lock up the cabin, until I realized that if it burned, it really wouldn't matter whether the door was locked or not. And even if the cabin didn't burn, we were likely the only breathing human beings that weren't emergency workers for about a 4 mile square area. So off we sped, about 13 hours after arriving. Along the 407, we drove past fire fighters in their yellow suits and hard hats setting up the fire line. The only others on the road were state troopers and electric company workers cutting the power lines so that the transformers wouldn't blow, should the fire burn that far. As we drove to the turn off to Newberry, we saw a beet red Ryan walking in his flip flops toward us. Abandoned by Michael and Jay, he had attempted to WALK back to the cabin. He was a little upset. And sun burned. But back with the tribe. So, here we all were. Between us all, we'd traveled approximately 7,700 total miles to get to the cabin, considering Shelly's origination point was Honolulu. We'd encountered numerous setbacks, but darn it, we'd made it, and now, we were all displaced in the UP. Just great. As Michael said, "What's next, locusts?"
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