Eagle River, Wisconsin – Bridgewater Inn 7/28

I keep smelling meat in the air as I lay here at the Bridgewater Inn. Something about that smell makes me want to check the bottom of my shoes for dog shit. How does meat smell like dog shit to me? Maybe that’s why I am a vegetarian.

Eagle River without a boat would be a travesty. The lily pads here actually bear the fruit of lilies. The water is brown but often times more pleasant than the chill in the air.

My muscles ache from Erica’s wild jet-ski ride, Gator’s brutal tubing session and my own failed attempt at wake boarding. I suppose the 15 mile morning bike rides and the kayaking out to the old Pioneer Campground-turned-Condo’s probably have something to do with my screaming muscles as well. I am hitting the road tomorrow, a two and half hour drive, immobile, sounds torturous. This is me remembering to take pain killers.

A couple days here and a couple days there has made for a long week. I am looking forward to a change in pace. Since we have arrived here in Eagle River no one has ever stopped talking! Never! It’s sun up to sun down chatter out on these decks. It seems impossible for a group of 40 people to cease making noise. My ears want to rest from the human voice. But… what is it I am looking forward to? A complete refrain from human interaction? Or maybe the looking forward to the possibility of a bear’s growl instead? Kinda getting a little nervous here.

This place with these people is nothing but entertaining. We’ve had to do the heimlich because of a medium well done piece of steak. This first responder failed her aptitude test. I seriously doubt my ability to react to an emergency. I’m trained. Went through the motions in my head. But at the second I hesitated. Thought there were nurses in my family better suited to save my wheel chair ridden uncle. Where the hell were they? Granted, someone else was already helping … but what if there were no one else? Could I have done it? You want to assume you would do the right thing in those situations, but in that second all I could think was “Oh George, I never wanted to have to do this.” What are we, as bystanders, afraid of during an emergency? To do ANYTHING is better than to do nothing. But maybe to do anything commits us to a scary responsibility of someone else’s life. We become a part of the outcome – good or bad.

I have also learned that us Phelps’ only know how to travel within 5 feet of each other, we need close quarters to function. Somehow we work best with five to a room, five to a tiny car … annoying each other along the way. Here and in Appleton there were bits of us everywhere. Shoes in this car, food in this room, that person asleep in this room, that person disappeared to who knows where. Every trip we were sent to this room or that car searching for something that wasn’t even there only to realize we didn’t have the key to the supposedly location in the first place. I guess we just didn’t know what to do with the freedom of space when we got it.