Adam’s account of our camping trip

Eimi Metamorphoumai, aka Adam wrote up an account of our camping trip this weekend. He included bunches of links to various things, most notably the pics taken with my new digital camera so be sure to click away! Click below for his writeup.

Friday — The Gathering

Ryan took the day off of work, and after finishing packing set out earlyto scope the place out, and also to establish a strategic base for ourfurther operations. He got there around 3, and was well prepared by the timewe arrived.

Jamin took the day off of work too, and spent it golfing. He got homein the afternoon and finished his preperations.

Adam (your humble narrator) did not take off work that day, so he didn’tfinish until around 5, whereafter he walked to Jamin’s (carrying all of hisequipment [with a little difficulty; he'd found out the night before that he nolonger had a sleeping bag, so a large cot and some blankets replaced it]). Ifyou can carry all of your stuff in one load, it qualifies as roughing it,doesn’t it? Well, that’s his story and he’s sticking with it.

Stephanie likewise worked that day, and joined us at Jamin’s around 6,at which time we loaded her car and were ready to ride. Well, almost. Firstwe needed a few stops to obtain ice and food for that night, and more alcoholto replace the bottle of whiskey (Jameson,the smoothest I’ve ever tasted) that had been left at the apartment. We endedup replacing it with another bottle of Jameson, unable to pass up on qualityfound on sale. We also made a stop at Targetto obtain some water shoes for me and an extra chair. But at last, we wereoff!

We took Stephanie’s car, since it’s in better shape than Jamin’s, meaning thatit is merely imprudent to drive, and not actively illegal. The car couldn’thandle speeds in excess of 60 mph,shaking violently if one tried. (”Captain, she canna take no more!”) Thatwould not have been too much of a problem, but for one section of the highway(several miles) we came to almost a complete stop and a horrible traffic jam.Eventually (and I do mean eventually) we came to the cause of it, being thatthe highway was reduced to a single lane for construction work. Once we gotpast that section, we were back up to full speed and roaring down the highwayat an intoxicating 60 miles per hour. Ahh, the rush!

Finally we arrived at the campgrounds, and as we entered Ryan was driving outto look for us. We hadn’t left as early as we had intented too, and then withthe traffic we were several hours late by the time we arrived. I still don’tknow where Ryan was going to look for us, but at least we all got togther thenand he could show us the campsite.

So we settled in for a night of failing to build afire and enjoying the nightairs. And of course, drinking. Eventually weturned in, quite late.

Saturday — The Hike

We woke early thenext morning. It’s hard to sleep in in a tent, with the heatincreasing quickly and little to block the sun. We rose and ate a healthybreakfast of cereal and bagels. No coffee. We hadn’t thought of coffee in ourpreparations, and paid dearly for the oversight. Shortly after we were up, webegan thelong hike. It measured6.7 miles, but it felt much longer because of the hills. Up hill and down,scrabbling for a hold on dry rocky creekbeds, stumbling, fighting heat andexhaustion and weariness. Altogether, a very fun experience. I did fall once,while going down a creekbed of very loose gravel, and fell flat on my arse. Abruise to remember the weekend by.

Finally, after several stops and much waterconsumed, and much heat, wefinished. Very good exercise, and I wish I could do it more often (althoughnot too often). We went back to the campsite and rested for a while,and then went swimming. The creek was rather dirty and shallow. At least, itwas shallow on average, and of very uneven depth. There were places over ourheads (who knows by how much; we couldn’t see more than a foot down into it)and places very much shallower. The difficulty was that it was not so much agradient as rocks on a lower bed, so one could be swimming and stub ones toe ona rock. But the water was nice (warm and cold depending on where one was), andit was nice to soak for a while and exercise ones arms and rest ones legs.Eventually we headed back to the campgrounds and sat around the rest of theday. We lunched on cheese and fruit and crackers and pasta salad. A fillingand refreshing meal. Afterwards, we drove to a store to get more ice, instantcoffee for the morrow, and some SmirnoffIce because we were going through the alcohol slightly faster than we hadanticipated. We also got some vegetables to go with dinner.The afternoon was mostly spent in resting and picking ticks off ourselves.Then we started on dinner, some orangeroughy and chicken grilled over anopen fire, with angel hair pasta andvegetables. A lovely meal. I utterlylove fish. After dinner we digested and built alovely roaring fire, so hot itcould melt glass (as we determined empirically with one of the Smirnoffbottles). We also roasted marshmallows. Mmmmmm. Wonderful stuff. I sort ofwish we’d had some hot dogs, but c’est la vie.

That night, shortly before we went to bed, a new family arrived at the spotnext to us. A loud family. A rather profane, loud family, cursing at eachother at the top of their lungs as they set up their tent at 11:30 at night,and well into the night. Yelling at their children and shouting vile things.They continued after we went to bed, and eventually someone from one of theother campsites went over to ask them to tone it down, and himself got cursedat. A lovely cap to the evening.

Sunday — Day of Rest

Sunday we woke with nothing much to do, so we made breakfast, broke camp, andbasically enjoyed the waning hours of our vacation. Eventually we drove backto civilization.

Tags: Features