I've been vacationing in this same place for basically my whole life and, as you can imagine, some crazy things have happened up there. I thought I should get some of these stories down on paper (internet paper).
Story #1: One of the many activities at The Rushes that we enjoy is ping pong. They have an outdoor and indoor ping pong table. Pretty fancy, I know. Anyway, we were enjoying a friendly doubles game with my cousin and I playing against our moms. After a missed ball on our moms' side, I stopped paying attention for a moment while they retrieved it. All of a sudden, I hear some high pitched squealing and I see my mother flailing about out of the corner of my eye. Having no idea as to what could have caused such an insane reaction, I asked what happened. All she could manage to say was, "He was looking right at me!" with wide eyes and a terrified tone of voice. I immediately thought there was some crazed lunatic killer stalking us during our ping pong game, but I quickly found out she was referring to a freakin' little ground squirrel that had climbed up the tree beside her and stared down at her. This immediately brought me back to one fateful night when my mother fled into our house, abandoning me on the patio when she thought a squirrel was going to attack us.
Story #2: This happened sometime when I was in high school, and it involves again, my mother, my aunt and 4 of my cousins. We went to this state park kind of thing on Lake Michigan that also had some woodsy spots you could hike through. We set out on our hike; myself and two of my cousins making our way through the woods getting quite a bit farther ahead than the others. Suddenly we hear my mother (why is it always my mother?) yelling to us from rather far back that we need to leave. They all made their way quickly out of the woods while my two cousins and I rolled our eyes and strolled leisurely behind them. When we were out of the woods and gathered together, they explained that they had heard a growl possibly from up in a tree. Thus began in intense investigation by my mother and aunt to find out what kind of animal this could have been. Their first instinct was a bear, but after a few employees at this park told them there had been cougar sightings, they settled on the cougar theory. We still argue to this day about whether or not a growl was actually heard, but one thing I do know is my mother made a b-line out of those woods leaving me, once again, to get attacked by a wild animal.
Story #3: The Rushes also has a number of organized activities throughout the week. We never bothered involving ourselves in such things until a few years back. The first one we tried was the Wine and Cheese Party. It's one of the first activities they have; it's supposed to be a way to get to know some of your neighbors. Now, I don't like getting to know people, but I heard there was going to be food. So we ventured over and sure enough, there was wine and cheese along with a number of other drinks and goodies. It was great. We got a little carried away and may have eaten through their entire supply of meatballs. Luckily, this year when we went they had more than enough meatballs on hand. The only other activity we participated in a few years go was Bingo. It was a huge disaster. My mother kept calling Bingo when she didn't have it because the lady running it kept making shapes other than lines (boxes, "C"s, etc...). The prizes for getting Bingo were completely lame, and someone even stole my aunt's stupid trail mix that she won. Meanwhile, I did not win one single game the whole time and I was getting rather disgruntled. But then finally God smiled on me and I won the final "grand prize" game and I got a bottle of wine. It was the least lame prize all night. I was mildly pleased, but it didn't really make up for the complete boringness of it all.
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