Laura and Jim

Posted Monday, March 16, 2009 12:09 PM

Laura and Jim were simultaneously celebrating their five-year anniversary and Laura's graduation by camping in Cadillac, Michigan.

It seemed like a great idea at the time, but the winter was unseasonably long (even for Michigan), and unfortunately the nights were in the 30s. (Side note: They should’ve known they were in for it when they arrived at the campsite and the worker said, "Oooohh...so you're our tenters?")

It's not exactly the most romantic setting when you're wearing two pairs of socks, two pairs of pants, a sweatshirt, coat, and hat, all just to go to bed under two sleeping bags and three blankets. However, they were just happy to be together and made the best of it. They had a great time driving around lakes Cadillac and Mitchell, even trying their hand at fishing and a lot of campfire cooking.

When it finally reached a brisk 50-degree day, they went out geocaching, which is most simply defined as electronic treasure hunting. They couldn't find the first two caches. Laura was getting frustrated. And unbeknownst to Laura, Jim was getting nervous that they’d never find a cache.

After a beautiful hike off the trail, Jim found the cache under a fallen tree. They both took a brief look through it, and Laura began to sign the log to show that they found it. Jim sneakily put the ring into the cache and suggested that Laura pick what they were going to take.

"You found the cache; you pick what we take," Laura said.
"No, you pick something," Jim said.
"But you found the cache. You pick something."
"Really, you pick something."
"Oh fine...Here, I'll take the playdough!" Laura said, since she had already looked through it when they first opened it and thought she knew everything that was in there.
*sigh* "Are you sure that's what you want?"
"Yup."
"Are you sure?"
"Yup!"

Fortunately, Jim wasn't about to give up. Undeterred, he reached back into the cache and pulled out a huge ring box. "How about this?"

Jim opened the box to reveal the most beautiful ring Laura had ever seen. However, being much bigger and shinier than anything they’d looked at, Laura thought it was fake until Jim asked her to marry him. She of course said yes, and they drank great champagne out of plastic champagne glasses Jim had hidden in his backpack (which really says everything you need to know about them).

However, in addition to the wonderful engagement, Laura ignored the first rule of Girl Scouting and kept some cookies in the tent with her after they watched a DVD together. A squirrel proceeded to eat through the tent, through the plastic cookie container, and eat several of the cookies -- all while the cookie tub was shoved under Laura's pillow in the middle of the night. (To be fair, Jim also had food in the tent, but it must have been less appealing.) Also, it stormed terribly and the tent flooded, so they drove back three days early.

It was the greatest camping trip there ever was.