This is Some Serious Up North

Chrissy, our bright and shining intern, uttered those words from the backseat, as we turned onto dusty East Opal Lake Road in Gaylord, MI. We bounced around, craning our necks for a street sign, house sign, ANY sign that could tell us we were headed in the right direction. We had already taken two wrong turns and accidentally returned to the highway on our four hour journey. It was time to get there already. I had to pee.

We stopped a man on a tractor for directions. He looked at us blankly. He would be no help. We pushed on. Two bumpy turns later and we arrived at our destination: A rustic wood cabin, perched on Lake Opal. We had traveled Up North for our office's Girls Outing. Virtually all of the women I work with were in attendance. A weekend of hard drinking, good eating and lake swimming was in our future.

Clarification for all of you non-Michiganders out there: “Up North” refers to all of Northern Michigan, from Traverse City to Cheboygan. I.e., when I attended the Renaissance wedding in Charlevoix, I was Up North. Gaylord, roughly 50 miles southeast of Charlevoix is also Up North. What’s interesting is how “Up North” has situated itself within the Michiganspeak vernacular not as a direction, but as a physical place much like Philadelphians go “Down the Shore” instead of to the Jersey Shore or New Yorkers go to “The Hamptons” even though they’re really just going to Quogue.

When people go Up North in the summertime, its assumed that certain activities will take place: Golfing, Fishing, Hunting, Tubing, etc… But mostly, people just drink. A lot. They drink in their cabins, on their boats, in the lake, around the campfire. Considering I’m the original Narcoleptic Alcoholic, (seriously, sometimes one beer knocks me out) I didn’t know if I could handle Up North.

I also didn’t know how 12 women, all of different ages and backgrounds, who’d previously never interacted socially in a small environment, would get along for the weekend. Would we make snarky comments to each other? Would we talk trash about the women who were unable to attend? Would we try and top the Boys’ Outings, where stories of drunken lake golfing, drunken fire log throwing, drunken rectum pictures and drunken ghost dumping (don’t ask) filtered back to the office?

Swap out the ass photos with a 6 foot tall blow up penis, and that was our weekend. Yes, we were catty bitches and talked smack. Yes, we got rip roaring drunk and took funny pictures of each other. But we also got to know each other. Stories, which normally would be cramped into small pockets of conversation over stolen minutes during the workday, were told at length. We heard tales of courtship, mother issues and two graphically different versions of childbirth. We played games, sang songs and drank ourselves silly. I also roasted my first wiener over a campfire. It was delicious.

While the concept of driving 250 miles to sit in a log cabin and swim in a tiny lake is foreign to me, as a New Yorker who spent many a summer in Montauk, I recognize the common theme: Up North is about escape. There is no work Up North. Its all about having fun with your friends and your family, catching a fish or two, drinking a beer or four, and roasting the perfect campfire wiener.