This weekend past, I went camping with my brother. Which is a wussy way to say we pitted ourselves against Mother Nature and made her our bitch. Which is a way-dramatic way to say that Friday we stood around under a fly so we wouldn’t get rained on while we drank and burned a lot of wood and then got up Saturday and walked around for a while carrying stuff. It was the sampler platter of camping. We did it all (unless you want to get technical, because we didn’t do it all, but we did do some which was nice in it’s own way) this last weekend.
It was dribbly-raining Friday afternoon when we left, but this is the trip we’ve been planning and canceling four times since last year, so we went anyway. We rolled into the campgrounds and picked a spot and just then the rain sorta stopped so we set up out little camp and then it rained again. It was OK that it was raining again, because we had the tent up and the fly and all our stuff was under shelter and we had already started drinking, so essentially, we didn’t give a… we didn’t care much. This was car-camping, so we had most of our comforts. Like ice for my drinks. Yeah, that was nice, it was about 40º and dropping and I had ice for my drinks. We had a big ol’ fire going too, so we had fire and ice and we weren’t getting rained on. It was pretty good.
Saturday we get up and throw all our car-camping stuff in the truck and head pretty much across the street and do a little backpacking. A quick trail and set up camp and then a little hiking around and then back to camp and dinner and listen to the sounds of the woods around us and another fire (this one was much smaller since we had to scrounge for wood) and when it got dark we were about done anyway so we went to sleep. This is what we call “fun”. Really.
I even (accidentally) learned a few things. Or re-learned things I learned before and forgot because things just sort of slip right out of my mind sometimes. Some are more important than others.
If you’re eating a big mess o’ beans and rice, no matter how cold you are, if they were just boiling, like, two minutes ago, blow on them anyway before you eat them. You tongue will thank you. Or not, if your tongue is a rude bastard that never thanks no one for anything they do. Tongues can be that way sometimes.
Baby deer are cute with their knobby knees and spindly legs.
If you get a big pack of wet-naps, the square foil packets all stuck together in a row with perforations between them look a lot like condoms.
If you go camping, take Skippy. All the ticks will go for him and leave you alone. (He pulled one off his chest- don’t worry, it wasn’t dug in yet- and like five or six off his clothes. I didn’t get any. Ha!)
Skippy also got attacked by an enraged squirrel. He was walking around the pond we were camped next to and surprised a squirrel. So it charged him and leaped at him. Ha! Not really. He just startled it (which isn’t hard seeing as squirrels are not one of Nature’s more stalwart animals) and it ran up the tree he was standing by. But it looked like he was being attacked by a squirrel.
If you find yourself in the vicinity of Nashville Indiana and you’re in the market for a yak, there’s one for sale there. But you’d better get on it, it’s a real nice yak (low mileage, original interior and everything) and it’ll probably go quick. (Is there a big yak market in Nashville Indiana?)
While we were hiking around, we came to an old family cemetery. It had a couple of husband-and-wife grave stones. The husband had his name and dates carved in and his wife had her name but only her birth date. So after he died, she either ran off and didn’t die there, or they couldn’t afford to carve in when she died. A little sad either way.
There was also a marker for multiple graves. I’m guessing it was a mother and her three children. The children were all born different years but all died at the same time. Mom lived a couple more years. That seemed sad too.
Ibuprofen is good.
Hot showers are good.
Altoids® are curiously strong. I like the cinnamon ones.
So I’m back now. There’s that.
-Rue.