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The drive to Michigan was the beginning of our annual camping weekend. Fishing, time outdoors, meals and games were all part of it.
Before leaving for Michigan, I was counting clothes: four thin long-sleeve shirts, two heavier ones, long pants and shorts. Then came the reminder I repeated to myself: bring the projector. Definitely bring the projector.
The drive and the arrival
That was October 14. By the following night, I was driving toward Michigan. At 9:20 p.m., I described the thick fog I had come through. There was rain too.
At the campground, there was still the business of finding the right place. I checked in and asked for directions and a map. A location pin had taken me along the beach, and I had to keep going to reach the gathering.
When I arrived, a game was already underway. “You guys already playing Catan in here,” I said. “This is cozy.” People were joking about what counted as camping with heat and a coffee machine available.
Another game in the photo record
The October 18 photograph brings Catan into the story in its own right: the board, cards and pieces spread over the table. It is a later game photograph, separate from the recorded arrival conversation.
Breakfast outside
Earlier that day, breakfast was taking shape on a picnic table. Bread slices were cooking in an electric skillet, with the bowl, cutting board and other supplies gathered around it.
Out toward the beach
The midday pictures open onto a different setting from the rainy drive: blue sky, pale sand and wind across the water. A paved path runs through the dunes toward a beach building. Low slat fences cross the sand nearby.
Along the dunes
An October 19 photograph follows the road between the dunes under a bright sky.
The projector had been on my packing list before I left, and Catan was what greeted me when I got there. Both belong in the account of the weekend, alongside the fishing, meals and time outdoors.
The change from the drive to the campground
The weather makes a clear dividing line in this account. The drive brought thick fog and rain. The later photographs open out into blue sky, dunes and water. In between were the check-in, the search for the right place and arriving to find people already gathered inside.
There is a practical side to the weekend too: packing enough layers, remembering the projector, setting up breakfast at a picnic table and having somewhere warm to gather. The game photographs belong with those details, alongside the fishing and time outdoors. The point of the annual trip is the whole weekend together, with room for each of those things.
What makes it an annual weekend
The packing list and the arrival conversation put some ordinary structure around the weekend. Before the drive, the questions were clothes, weather and remembering the projector. At the campground, they became a map, directions and finding the gathering. Once inside, there was already a game to join.
The later photographs give the outdoor part of the weekend its own space. Breakfast is arranged across a picnic table; the beach opens out beyond the dunes; the following day's road photograph carries that same pale sand into the drive. Those scenes keep the account broader than the game around the table. Fishing and time outside belong to the weekend as described, while the projector remains a clearly recorded packing intention rather than a claimed screening.
Trip photographs
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The annual Michigan camping weekend · 5 photographs