The support vehicle—
outside and in.

"Come closer...What? No, this isn't a hammer, it's...uh, a teddy bear."

Can you say stereotype?

There was much more room inside the van once we stuck the seat in the trailer.

Don't ask.

Ben recouperates.

Screams Ice Cream Parlor

Zac demonstrates his crazy muscle power.

As soon as we heard about Hell, and how close we were, we knew we needed to bike there.

(Hell, Michigan, that is, of course.)

So on Friday, July 12, 2002, after months (i.e. about a week) of planning we all set off on our bikes, accompanied by a van and trailer full of gear, hoping to enjoy ourselves and remain intact.

Participants included David Glick, Jonathan Nafziger, Ben Jacobs, Jeff Bauman, Zac Albrecht, and Gabe Baker. John Nafziger, Jonathan's dad, drove the support vehicle.

Spectacular Collision The first morning consisted mainly of biking (duuuhhh) interrupted by GORP breaks and a spectacular collision, twelve miles into our trip, in which Jonathan suddenly applied his brakes, causing David, who was directly behind and not watching carefully enough, to scrape his knee up pretty badly despite a spectacular yet futile effort at applying his own brakes. Meanwhile, Ben turned to get out of the way, hit a curb and flew over his handlebars into the grass.

I (David) am told that this all made for a pretty amazing sight; unfortunately we don't have any pictures from while we were actually biking because A) we were busy biking and B) we were concerned for the well-being of the camera. Anyway, the collision resulted in some minor structural damage to Jeff's bike (wobbly wheel) but we were soon on our way again.

Overly Obsessive Campground Nothing much else of note occured until we pulled into our campground, which to our amusement turned out to be a private operation obsessed with rules. Signs informed us that the speed limit was 6 3/4 (the speed of their golf carts, we assume, though we could *run* faster, let alone bike) and that shuffleboard was forbidden for those under the age of 18, and warned us to refrain from throwing stones and, repeatedly, to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Biking after dark was prohibited, though driving the golf carts was apparently fine until midnight.

Anyway, we set up camp—though as you can see at right we weren't quite sure how the tent's front awning was supposed to work—and were soon preparing supper: hot dogs, with corn that we bought along the way. Actually we neglected to bring anything large enough to boil the corn on the cob, so we experimented with various techniques including roasting and eating it raw. Later we had s'mores, played with the fire, and explored the camp's playground and mini-golf course.

The next morning (Saturday) we finished some minor repairs from the previous day's collision, filled up our water bottles, and headed out. Gabe left early and David decided not to bike, but the remainder of the actual biking proceeded much as the day before--alternating with breaks for more GORP and water.

Off-Road Vehicle We did have a bit of excitement just prior to our stop for lunch. In the van, John and David tried to pull off the road to wait for the bikers. Unfortunately, the right-front wheel went off a steep hidden ledge and the van got stuck. We needed a crowbar, the help of some friendly passing bikers, and lots of pushing to get un-stuck.

Eventually we arrived at our final camping destination, in Pinckney State Park. We spent some time resting and setting up camp, but were anxious to drive the several miles remaining into Hell to check it out.

Actually, Hell itself was quite disappointing. There's not much there to be found other than the Screams Ice Cream Parlor, which is way overcommercialized. Still, we had some good ice cream and had fun examining the store's rather silly merchandise.

On the way back from Hell, Zac and Jonathan had fun pretending to be velociraptors (right).

Sassafras Tea Earlier that day, while stopped for lunch, we discovered a young sassafras tree along the side of the road (debatedly, we're ashamed to admit, in someone's yard) and, drawn by the prospect of sassafras tea following our arrival, uprooted the tree and stuck it in the trailer along with our seat-couch and David's bike. Our final activity of the evening, then (not counting when Jonathan's sister's friend enticed one of our neighbors to pour a bit of gasoline on our fire), was to cash in on our sassafrastical investment:

After soaking the sassafras root for a while we ended up with some nice-looking sassafras syrup, which Jonathan used along with pancake mix the next morning to mix up a sassafrancake in his mouth. The rest of us enjoyed a slightly more normal breakfast of slightly more normal pancakes.

D'oh That would be the end of our trip to Hell, except that Jonathan's sister Abby accidentally (either that or out of spite) locked her keys in the trunk of her car, forcing us to use drastic measures to retrieve them:

Following this, we checked out a pro disc golf tournament that happened to be in the area and then packed in to the van to head home.

This year we're considering (not very seriously because of the distance) traveling to either Paradise or Intercourse in Pennsylvania.