Its Back

About a 3 hour drive from here is where my father in law grew up. It is smack in the middle of the farmland breadbasket of southwestern Kansas. The kinda place you think about when you think Kansas. Flat, brown and desolate. It's like Nebraska without all the excitement.
The town he grew up in, Isabel, has a population of 12 or 13 (depending on how the local schizo is feeling that day). You would think it was a ghost town, really. Even the High School has been shut down.
Just beyond these meager settings there is a local “resort” called 99 springs. I use the term loosely as it is just a buncha summer homes around a lake. Some retirees live their year round and some houses are just used to get away. A farmer's version of Club Med. The housing is mostly comprised of mobile homes and prefab houses.

Except one.

“The Cabin.”

The term “rustic” is being very polite. It is a 1 bedroom zero bath cracker box with a kitchen and an enclosed deck.
That’s it.
There was recently (in the past 20 years or so) “some” electricity added. I mean some because there are only 2 maybe 3 outlets and they can’t all be used at the same time. Seriously, if you turn on the radio the fan slows down.
No running water (meaning no shower, sink or toilet), no TV, no cellphone service and barely any radio. The signals just cannot make it out there unless bounced off a satellite. It’s always bothered me a little that any outside communication has to go into outer space before reaching us, if at all.
There, smack dab in the 18th century, “The Cabin” sits at the top of this hill with the gravel road running past. No modern amenities, no air conditioning and no sweet, sweet cool porcelain to cradle my ass and whisper "everything is ok".
Also, the trees and houses on either side have a tendency to block all but the most errant and erratic breeze. The closest place to eat is about a ½-hour drive and the only thing to go to town to do is go to Wal-Mart.OO the nightlife is intense!
It’s not the middle of nowhere but if you stand on your toes and squint your eyes, you can see it from here.
This is my destination this weekend as it is every other year for the local family reunion. My wife and her siblings look at this as being just the treat of treats. Me?
Not so much.
I don’t like camping out , I love fishing and I don’t mind “getting away from it all.”
What I do mind is being in this sweatbox in the middle of July.
I dont even mind sweating. Its sweating until my deodorant has collected into a puddle in my socks for no other reason then just standing.

So, let me recap for a second here.
2 days, 8 adults (well 7 plus me) and 9 kids (ranging in age from 15 to 3), small room, no air conditioning, no bathing, no distractions and the icing on the cake? This weekend is supposed be topping off at 105 degrees.
so if you are doing the relational math that equals out to

17 hot, sweaty, dirty, smelly, exhausted humans yanking like lumberjacks on each others last nerve as the temperature raises and the insect population closes in for the kill.


oh the joy.