The Great Snowmobile Trip

This is from Rabbit

Must have been the winter of '72 or '73, anyhow we were old enough to get into bars, but Larry, Dennis Carlson and I took a weekend snowmobile trip up north to the shack we had on the Namekagon River . This was before Larry was Mudshark, but he may have still been driving the Mudshark at the time. Probably not though, he was probably driving the '65 Chevy pickup with the melted hood and had turned the Mudshark into kind of a stock car, sort of. Carlson was definitely Oaktree, which if you knew him at that time you already know.

Saturday night we decided to see if we could find some excitement so we jumped on the sleds and headed off. The nearest civilization was Webb Lake, but in those days it was closed for the winter, probably still is but I haven't been there for 30 years. We kept on going and finally ended up at Bumps and Betty's. I think it was over by Des Moines Lake, or the Mckenzie Lakes. Anyway it was probably 10 or 15 miles from the shack. I don't think Larry or Oaktree had been there before, so they were relying on me to navigate, not a good idea.

Not long after we got there this old guy stumbles in, must have been 35, maybe even 40. He spots us 3 manly specimens, staggers over and asks us to help him get his car out of the ditch. We agreed, jumped on our sleds and headed down the road. Larry and I got to his car first (Oaktree was riding his trusty 12/3 Ski-doo and was generally about a half mile behind) We found a VW Bug buried in 3 or 4 feet of snow in the ditch, and a bunch of bozo's trying to pull it out with a Ski-doo Nordic. Larry walked over, sized up the situation and politely and respectfully told them to get the hell out of the way, and when the guy on the Ski-doo got there we'd get it out. Sure enough Oaktree arrived, and while the other guys watched, he picked up the front end and set it on the road while Larry and I kind of pushed from the rear, and out it came. Well Larry was probably pushing. The old guy was pretty happy and pretty drunk so he took us back to the tavern and proceeded to buy us lots of beers, offered to introduce us to his daughters and all kinds of cool stuff.

About 10 o'clock Oaktree announces he's ready to go back to the shack. We told him we weren't leaving yet so he asked for directions and said he was going by himself. I was pretty sure he'd get lost if he tried so I gave him directions so bad that I figured not even Oaktree would try to follow them. Basically told him to take a right, then a left, then another right, a whole shitload of lefts and a right and there you are. He says thanks and away he went, in the wrong direction. Larry and I decided he would be turning around and coming back so we just watched for him out the window and kept on drinking.

When they closed the bar for the night and threw us out we kind of figured out he wasn't coming back, so we decided we would follow him, find him and lead him home. After all, he'd only been gone a couple hours. We rode around aimlessly for a while and didn't find him, so at some point we decided to head on back to the shack, maybe he had made it after all. About this time I failed to notice a tee in the road, and buried myself in a snowbank. By the time we got it out my engine had stalled, and I wasn't doing a real good job of starting it. I think it was a '68 Rupp with a 340 Sachs single cylinder, so no such thing as electric start. Larry being the helpful guy he is came over and gave it a try, and says damn, I pulled the starter rope off. Sure enough he handed me a rope like thing, which I stuck in my pocket. Now things were a little hazy by now, but as I recall, Larry kicked my sled, and managed to hit the clutch just right, turned it over one time and the damned thing started. He said he did it on purpose too. I could be wrong, but that's how I remember it. Away we went, but now for some reason my headlight isn't working, so Larry takes the lead, and I'm steering from the rear. After a while we realized that we had gone by the same house 3 or 4 times. It had a sign out front that said Burnett County Zoning Administrator, and appeared to be occupied year round. Anyway there was a garage with a car in it, so we decided that wisest thing to do was hide the snowmobiles, "borrow" the car and drive it around until we figured out where the hell we were. Then we could come back, get the sleds and go home. Problem was the garage was locked or something, or maybe we actually figured out how stupid an idea it was, so back on the sleds and finally we stumbled across Highway 77, but several miles west of where we needed to be. 77 was completely free of snow or ice, but we sure as hell weren't going back the way we came, so away we went, right down the center line. Larry was riding an Arctic Cat with steel cleats, wide ass open on bare blacktop and put on a fireworks display like I never saw before or since. Beat the hell out of a Balsam Lake 4th of July. Once we got back on 77 I knew where I was and we made it back to the shack in no time. By now it was probably 3 or 4 in the AM, so we were really hoping we'd find Oaktree back at the ranch, but no sign of his Ski-doo in the yard. Well we figured we had to go back out and try to find him, but decided to make a pot of coffee first. As we were sitting at the table waiting for the coffee to boil, we heard some strange noises coming from the bunk room. Kind of sounded like the Rolling Stones, only a lot slower. Under My Thumb as I recall. Oaktree brought along this really cool battery operated portable 8 track player and a Stones tape, but of course no extra batteries. Well we check it out, and there's Carlson, boots and all curled up in bed with his 8 track player and Mick and the guys.

It turns out he had managed to take my shitty directions and pulled a homing pigeon, but with one slight mistake. He missed the turnoff for the shack, and ended up on the Moore Farm Creek road about 50 yards up the ridge from the shack. He saw the light we left on, and tried to cut through the woods, but ended up stuck in a scrub oak tree behind the outhouse. Damn fool had been laying in a nice warm bed for several hours while we ran around in circles. Something else strange, the next morning the starter rope was back on my engine, but somehow the headlight cable had ended up in my pocket.

The above is the absolute 100% total truth, at least that's the way I remember it after more years than I care to admit. And besides that, the only other people who were there were as drunk as I was, and probably just as full of shit.
Larry, we did have some times didn't we? I have been around the world, and visited 5 of the 7 continents, but I ain't never met anyone one else like you. By the way, what the hell does erdag mean?

Rabbit

****SIDE NOTE from Rabbit: Ain't nothing wrong with my eyes that really thick lenses and some cataract surgery won't fix, and I'm here to tell you that if you were cute then I get mistaken for Fabio 3 or 4 times a day. And I didn't catch it the first time but what the hell does she mean about you being nice?

I hadn't thought about the OD trick in 20 years I bet. Keep the stories coming. You should try and get Carlson to do the Canadian fishing trip or the Mexican adventure.