i survived, thanks for asking

the trip, depending on whether one happens to be me, was either a fantastic (not fabulous, by any means) success, or a horrific failure. As fate would have it, I happen to be me, and as such, I am happy to report that the trip was a fantastic success.

There was a turning point that made all the difference, and in the interest of minimizing suspense, I'll let you in on what everyone who watches the weather channel already knows: it rained sunday morning. Because I'm me, I liked that.

I camped out in Big Basin Redwoods State Park. I didn't need a reservation because apparently nobody goes there this time of year. The line to register for a campsite was interminably long and the park ranger person was quite frazzled. Had to remind her to get my change and my map. But that's fine. She asked me how far I'd like to walk to my campsite, and I specified: "as far as possible". I got site #102, accessed from a parking lot that served 1-20 and 80-102 or something like that: a large number of campsites. However, 98-102 were vacant, and there were only about 5 cars in the whole lot.

I had a very large area all to myself.

The crapper and waterspout were all relatively far from the campsite, which was the farthest one out from the lot, up at the top of a hill. The mosquitos were awful: swarms and swarms. I had foolishly packed my repellant deep inside my pack (a mistake that I shall not repeat) so I literally ran around my tent while assembling it, in order to keep ahead of the bugs. They followed me in circles as I clipped on one pole-clip after the next, in a circular pattern, but they never caught me. Har.

After the tent was up and my mosquito spiral had driven off all the bugs, I extinguished the spiral and went out for a hike. The campsite was near trails to a waterfall (at which I discovered that my camera batteries were near death) and "slippery rock", near the bottom of which some conservationists camped in 190x and decided to start the California State Park system. "slippery rock" is a huge sheet of solid (possibly igneous, though I'm no geologist) rock that goes up a big hill. I climbed up the rock and kept my balance. Fun stuff.

After the short hikes, I came back and decided to get some firewood from the camp store. Next time I'm bringing my own. I failed for the second time to get a proper campfire, but next time I shall certainly succeed. I discovered that my "strike anywhere" matches are even crappier than I thought, though I was later to find that they were even crappier than I could have imagined.

They break. They don't light. For every one that lights I waste ten, They suck. Big time. They nearly ruined my trip, but at the same time, provided my moment of greatest triumph, as shall be seen.

Dinner was freeze dried REI lasagna, a pear, and mac and cheese. I realized -- too late -- that the mac + cheese wanted a strainer. It was watery and arful. The lasagna was delicious. I had wanted to cook a dinner but I never did come up with anything more gourmet than freeze dried food. As it happens, I think easily made dinners are best when camping, since they encourage one to hike-until-tired before dinner. At this point, I was a bit bummed by my failure to make a campfire (though it smouldered for hours until I poured my leftover-watery-mac-and-cheese upon it), tired from hiking and not sleeping well the night before, sweaty from the humidity and activity, and feeling a bit anxious about what i'd do after dinner: i wasn't tired enough to sleep and I had no plans. one of my last two camping trips went horribly wrong once I went to bed, and there was much nervousness that history would repeat itself.

The campsite had a food cupboard, just like at China Camp (though the ones at CC had 2 latches, this one had a single latch with a padlock hole). The ranger had told me not to put food in there because the local raccoons can open it. The cupboard itself had a sign saying the same thing.

But I didn't want to go to my car for breakfast. I was determined to keep my food at the campsite.

So I stowed it in the cupboard, put a carabiner clip through the loop, and used some electrical tape to wrap the clip part of the carabiner such that it could not be opened without unwrapping the tape. I then taped the whole assembly agaist the cupboard, took off my boots, and got into my tent to wait for morning and find out whether I'm smarter than a raccoon.

Once inside the tent, I proceeded to plant my knee square into the center of my ridiculously (though not absurdly) overpriced sunglasses. Catastrophe was avoided, however, since these are so superbly well made that the removable earpieces simply popped off rather. No damage. I thanked Jebus and put them in the tent's "attic" where they belogned.

Out came the flashlights and I read the first third of "Ender's Game" while waiting for it to get cold enugh to get into my sleeping bag.

I haven't read in ages. It was very nice.

I slept well. It did get cold, eventually cold enough that I was chilly in my boxers and my 20F sleeping bag. I was not so uncomfy as last time, the tent was set properly so my head was above my feet. The pad was comfy, though not precisely positioned : my feet got a bit clammy. I was awakened once in the night to the sounds of animals trying to get past my carabiner. It would have to wait until morning for me to check on their success: with the rainfly on, there's only one small window, and it faced the wrong way.

I was awakened from my restulf camp-sleep by a full bladder. I tried to ignore it and enjoyed some small success. The problem with a full bladder is that I'd have to put on my pants and boots to relieve it, and once up, I'm up. I can't go back to sleep, especially if I have to hike to the latrine. I decided to bring a bedpan next time.

So I snoozed a bit, from about 5am to sunrise. Sunrise brought a new treat: rain.

The light pitter-patter of drops impacting my rainfly was accompanied by a rushing sound as of a flood. I feared what I would find when I ventured out.

At this point I could sleep no longer; my curiousity brought me to full waketitude and I de-tented to see how bad the rain was and whether i had any food left and to take the whiz that had originily awakened me.

The rain was not bad. In fact, the towering redwoods (the same ones that made my GPS useless) reduced the full-on rain to a mild drizzle. Occasionally a bit of Red Something would land on my rain fly. It looked like blood to me -- maybe a bit of entrail stuck up in the branches above -- but it may have been Redwood Juice of some sort. It wasn't me.

My food was still safe and secure in its locker. Those millions of years of evolution paid off: I am smarter than a raccoon, or at the very least, smarter than the one(s) that tried to steal my food on Saturday night.

After my morning constitutional I decided to make breakfast. I had wanted to pack up first, but I was too hungry.

Whereas in the evening I wanted a quick and super-easy dinner, breakfast was another matter. My paw told me -- rightly so -- that camping is all about cooking. I intended to have me a fancy, feasty breakfast. The rain threatened to put a damper on my plans, but as it turned out, I had other things to worry about.

I had brought: a potato, an onion, some bacon, 2 eggs, oatmeal, milk, and -- of course -- coffee. My plan was to lube my pan by cooking the bacon, fry up the onions and spud, then scramble the eggs. While I was enjoying my delicious scramble I could cook the oatmeal and coffee.

So I went to light my stove. I couldn't get a match to light. Before I knew it, I was through the entire box. I had several more boxes of these worthless matches elsewhere in my gear, but I knew they wouldn't do any better. It was too humid to light these pieces of shit, and I faced the grim prospect of energy bars or an MRE for breakfast. Bleah.

Then I remembered: I had brought along my old boy scout flint. The very same one I used many years ago to set fire to my bedroom trash can and kick my mom into Fireman Mode. I set the gas on my stove to low and operated upon the flint with my knife. After a moment I had a flame.

That was the turning point. I had made fire without matches, in the rain. Breakfast could commence. I was camping. I had snatched victory from the jaws of the world's worst box of matches. I was a happy camper.

So I set my aluminium pan on the stove, covered it with another pan, and opened the package of bacon. I was looking forward to this -- I almost never eat bacon, and I can't even remember the last time I'd cooked it myself. Yum.

I removed the cover from the pan and discovered to my dismay that aluminium camp pans are not meant to be preheated -- there was a flame shooting through a hole burned through the center of my pan. Holy the crap!

So I did what any sensible person would do: I grabbed the pan with my bare hands and put it on the damp, wooden table. Ow! Shoulda used the pan handle. Next time. My fingers are still a bit discolored and burnt. Ah, learning.

The cheap mess kit came with another dingus that could be used as a fry-pan, so I used it. No preheating, this time. The bacon went straight in.

I had forgotten how greasy bacon is.

Too much grease.

And the spuds didn't cook fast enough, and the rain probably wasn't helping. The onions weren't really browning too nicely either. I was hungry and impatient so I put the eggs in a bit early and ended up with yummily cooked eggs blended with bacon fat (I had already picked out all the bacon meat and eaten it), onions, and undercooked potatoes. All in all, it was delicous camp food!

Hastily I made my coffee, using the cupboard to shield my beans from the rain. It was a mighty delicous cup of Yemen, though I skipped many coffee-snob steps and cut many corners. The oatmeal wasn't bad either, but not good enough to merit more than a sentence.

I disposed of my breakfast waste (including the destroyed and possibly toxic pan), rinsed, as best I could, the bacon grease off of everything, over which it was ickily spread, and engaged in activities too horrific to explicitly recount; the latter eventually led to the re-christening of my favorite knife as "the poo knife".

All this taken care of, I went back into the tent and packed up my stuff. I hoke down to the care with my gear and put it all in, then went back to take down the tent. There's probably a recommended method for taking down a tent in the rain. Whatever it is, I had forgotten. I took off the fly and dumped it on the table. Then I took down the tent "as quickly as possible" and got it under the cupboard and out of the rain. Next time I think I will just remove the poles, leaving the fly over the tent. There's probably no "good" way to do it.

One more trip down to the car and my campsite was clean. Time: 9:30am.

I arrived back at Park HQ in 5 or so minutes and picked out a hike. I had planned to do a 6-miler, but I didn't feel like comitting to that in the rain and with little sleep and with W waiting for me to get home. The 3-miler turned out to be largely uphill, and I think I missed a turn and made it into maybe 4 miles. I was out for aboot an hour.

The scenery was incredible. Giant redwoods, groves, clearings, lizards, haze, fog, drizzle, streams, pools. I looked up and could barely see the tops of the trees for their height and the haze. Real foresty stuff. I won't describe it in depth: come see it yourself.

The hike was good. I was tired and energized when I returned to my car : it felt like I'd been camping.

I'm learning much each time and getting better each time. I've only been twice but I want to go each night. A new enthusiastic hobby -- who would have thought I'd have time? Though I don't know how much she means it, W seems to enjoy camping, which rocks my socks.

Shared interests are good.

I once thought we didn't have any.

Once I arrived back home, W informed me -- though I already knew it -- that I was stinky. I took a shower and we went out to engage in more shared interests.

'Twere a good day.