reasons

The first thing I did when I got in was unpack the backpack and hang up all the things that needed to dry. Then I showered and cleaned my blister. Then I made myself a warm sandwich and ate it to music on the couch.

It's approaching the 45 minute mark and I'm still not back to normal. That's not how it usually goes -- I had a rough night.

I backpacked last night, sleeping at Stewart Camp in the Ohlone wilderness. Stewart Camp is about 7 miles from the Del Valle parking lot, with 3000 feet of elevation gain and 1000 feet of elevation loss along those seven miles. As always, I had some new equipment with me to evaluate. But it turned out that the most interesting surprises came from the oldest equipment I own.

The new Keen hikers performed well on the way to the camp. Comfortable, good traction, not too hot. My Osprey backpack was loaded up to 29lbs, which for me, historically, is quite light. It's designed for light hiking and it was pretty much stuffed. When I got to camp, I put up my tent, tossed in my new Thermarest to inflate, decompressed my sleeping bag, and visited the water pump. I was told there'd be well water, and so there was. I filled up my dromedary bag and my nalgene bottle. Back at camp, I deposited Iodine tablets into the water, unpacked my book, and read for a while. Soon, I got hungry. I ate a clif bar. Yum. Soon, I got hungry. I unpacked my stove and my teapot, set up the stove, and went back to the pump with my teapot.

I put 2C of water in the teapot, enough water, I guessed, to have 1.5C remaining after boiling for five minutes. 1.5C was needed for my yummy freeze dried beef stroganoff.

While the water was boiling, I read a bit. It seemed like it had been 30 minutes, which the Iodine tabs needed to do their magic, so I took out the iodine-flavor-removal tablets and put them into the iodine water. Looking into the clear nalgene bottle, I noticed that my water had sea monkeys in it.

That's right, sea monkeys.

There was fucking larva in my water. Ugh.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.
Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

SEA MONKEYS IN MY WATER.

I let the teapot boil an extra five minutes.

The stroganoff was as delicious as it could be and I saw no trace of sea monkeys in it. Their poor denatured little souls had risen in clouds of steam to attain to sea monkey heaven. More likely, I shatnered them out this morning.

I had another clif bar for dessert and sipped water from my camelback. Water from home. No sea monkeys.

I read some more. I read a little more. And then some more. Then it began to get cold and I retired to my tent, where I read some more.

Soon enough, I finished my book. Damn. It was a heavy book, too, so I'd lugged it all this way for no more than 1.5 hours of reading time. I estimated the time as... not too late. Not late at all. Normally at the end of a backpacking trek, I'm DFT and falling asleep is not difficult. This time, though, I wasn't properly bushed. I tried to sleep anyhow.

That's when the fun started!

Just as I began to doze off, the coyotes came out. They howled and yipped and yipped and howled and I couldn't be mad at them because *i* was in *their* home, after all. Still, one one yipped up within pissing distance of my tent, I shouted at him. I considered shouting, "I'm at the top of the food chain, you will respect my authoritaw!" but I settled for just an animalistic grunt-shout. It worked about as much as I'd guessed it would, which is to say, not at all.

I'm not scared of coyotes, or mountain lions, or sea monkeys, or any animal life you're likely to find in Ohlone. There aren't any bears to worry about. No, I wasn't fearful, I just wanted to get some sleep. I'd snuck in about 20 seconds of shut-eye while my body forgot for a moment that I wasn't tired, and it woulda worked, too, if it weren't for those nosey coyotes!

Now, fully awake thanks to the barking canines, I became irritated. Irritated that I probably wouldn't get much sleep, irritated that I was chilled (I'd changed into thick socks and long underpants before getting into my beanie and my sleeping bag), irritated that I'd finished my book and had nothing to do to make me sleepy, irritated that my allergies were... uh, irritated, and irritated that I was probably going to have explosive diahrrea any moment as the sea monkeys burst out of my guts.

I wondered why I was out there all alone. My frame of mind was such that the answers were less than positive.

I own a one-man tent. People don't buy one-man tents unless they want to be alone, very much alone. When I bought the one-man tent, I wanted to be alone. I was in a relationship that I didn't much like but was too much of a fearful wimp to escape. Some weekends, I'd take my one-man tent and go be away from people rather than spend time with my girlfriend.

Mostly I'd just read. There's not much else to do in the evening in a one-man tent out all alone with the coyotes and sea monkeys. I'd read and be away from life, stress, and the things that made me feel less-than-manly. After all, what could be more manly than spending a night of solitude in the wilderness?

I realized last night, as I lay there on my grumbling tummy that I really don't care much for the night-time part of camping, especially not solo-camping. I like the morning part. That was particularly true of last night. I was out there at all simply because I'd awakened in my own bed sometime last week and said to myself, "self, this weekend I want to wake up in a tent." I guess I didn't really consider carefully the events that would have to transpire before I got to the "waking up" part.

My one-man tent, then, had always been about running away. What was I running away from now, I wondered last night?

The waiting, I supposed. The loneliness. I was out there, as lonely as I could possibly be, perhaps to prove to myself that it was possible to be more miserable than I was when I'm a-home a-lone without my beloved 203. Well, I was in for more proof than I'd bargained for.

In addition to "getting away", I bought my one-man tent to prove to myself that I'm a tough-guy. As I am fond of saying, because I came up with it, and I'm fond of saying things that I come up with, "I'm not a tough guy, I just play one in real life." In real life I also am a scotch-snob, a coffee-snob, a beer-snob, a luxury car driver, and a computer nerd. Doesn't sound so tough, right? But I made it to the campsite and back with most of my skin intact, and I don't know many other people who could manage that.

I do know one person, and she was painfully absent last night.

But there's more to toughness than carrying a heavy pack a goodly distance and digesting denatured sea monkeys. I've lived alone for nearly a decade, the majority of those years so truly alone that I often did not speak at all on weekends. Out there in my one-man tent, I'm forced to relive all that, in extreme. I'm forced to find out whether my mind will come apart without other people and familiar things and running water and a flush toilet to help keep it together.

Last night, after the coyotes shut the hell up, I found out that I was asking the wrong question. The question wasn't whether my mind would fall apart at the worst possible time. The question was: what would I do if it did?

It did. Out there in the tent, with the sea monkeys sloshing about in my tummy, having nothing to do and no-one to do it with, cold, far from the already-closed gates of the park, not-tired, recently finished with a downer of a book, surrounded by uncaring coyotes, I had a good, old-fashioned anxiety attack. That was fun.

Now, I realize that there's a world of difference between an anxiety attack and, say, auditory hallucinations or schizophrenia or even food poisoning, but please believe me when I tell you that having an anxiety attack while all alone, cold, and full-up with sea monkeys out in the bush is really not Fun Times. There's not much that helps resolve an attack other than sleep. The cruel irony, of course, and you could see this coming, couldn't you? is that nothing prevents sleep more effectively than an anxiety attack, where the heartbeat is accelerated (oh no! I'm having a heart attack!), the stomach gurgle-burbles (oh dear! the sea monkeys are mating!), the sinus tissues are engorged and swollen (oh crap! I can't breathe!), and headache sets in (oh my! I'm having a brain hemorrhage!).

Yup, not much fun.

Plus, my tent was pitched on a bit of a slope, so my sleeping bag kept sliding downhill on the smooth surface of the Thermarest.

So, I realized that the trip would not be a test of my physical strength, but my mental toughness. How would I get through this?

"Try to relax," of course, is the solution. Sure is easy to say that, ain't it? I think they tell that to folks that have been shot or explosively decompressed or otherwise mightily wounded. Now, I reckon I wasn't as bad off as someone who'd just lost an arm, but still, "try to relax" wasn't doing much for me.

And yet, that's still the only solution, especially in the absence of drugs. So I tried to relax.

It worked! I could hear the universe breathing, and it was saying: OM. The gentle buzz of creation's word lulled me to sleep.

And then creation's bark brought me back awake, to the familiar symptoms of anxiety. Damnable coyotes!

Over the span of the evening, I hopped out of my tent several times, into the waiting cold. It was stuffy in my one-man tent, and cramped. I'm not particularly claustrophobic, but my tent isn't particularly roomy, either. Can't sit up in it, for example. Finally, I decided I'd just have to not get out any more and bore myself to sleep, coyotes or no.

They shut up again and I couldn't sleep. The bastards! I'd had it, then I lost it. I grabbed my phone and did what I least wanted to do. I dialed 23 on the speed dial. There was no signal, of course, but I didn't really want it to go through anyhow. So strongly did I not want it to go through that I hit "redial" three times before checking the time and turning the useless thing off.

9pm. Crikey, no wonder I couldn't sleep!

But I needed to sleep. I resolved myself to sleeping, and I did. Things would be better in the morning, I promised myself, and they were.

I had weird disturbing dreams all through the night, and, as usual when camping, my arms fell asleep multiple times and woke me up multiple times. Also, the cold woke me up many times, as did the funky dreams. But no more gorram coyotes, they'd set in for the night.

Until morning. They woke me up around 8am. That was just fine by me. I got to wake up in a tent, just as I'd wanted. I didn't have the explosive trots, at least not yet.

I filtered my iodined sea monkey water into my teapot and boiled the sea monkeys for my coffee. I filtered some more sea monkey iodine water into my powdered milk for my bowl of cereal.

Backpacking coffee tastes better than all other coffee. I cannot explain it. This was not fresh ground, and, to my delight, I could tell. Still, though, there was something about it that made it a 9.9/10. The stainless cup? Of course not. The setting.

Car camping coffee doesn't even come close.

Powdered milk, on the other hand, is gross no matter where you're eating it.

I pumped water into my camelback and took down my camp. I fired one off and didn't hit my pants or the plastic seat. It's a skill.

Then I took off. I made 7 miles in 2 hours and ten minutes. The Keens are great uphill but I didn't have them tight enough, I think. I got a nasty blister in an unusual place. I didn't care. My car waited for me. My life waited for me.

I thought while I hiked. Most of my best thinking is done out on the trail, I think. Out there on the trail, away from the worst of my mind, I had another go at why I was out there all by myself. The answer came simply and immediately. I was out there to appreciate. Not nature, because I tend not to notice that when I backpack. No, I was out there to appreciate what I've got.

And to miss dearly the things that I've almost got.

This, I think, will be the last time my one-man tent sees any action. It's funny, I'd say, that I threw in my lot with the only person I know who camps/hikes more than I do, so much that before I ruined her life, she was out to make hiking her profession, and then, having told this (mystery!) person that I love her (oh, not a mystery any longer), I proceeded to stop camping. What?

But now I was back for one last stab at the self-macho-proving thing that I like to do. And it had gone smashingly well, as a matter of fact. I'd conquered the only thing worth conquering: myself.

I appreciated, as I walked down those nasty hills, that I'm still bodily intact enough to do such things. And I appreciated that I had talents to exploit that afforded me such things as my one-man tent and the nice car that awaited me at the bottom of the hill (having recently named my feminine new laptop, and having decided long ago that the G35 is a female, I attempted and failed to name her as well. The best I could come up with was a name that -- coincidentally, I'm sure -- matched exactly 203's real name, which I decided was inappropriate at best).

I appreciated showers, and gatorade, and dishwashers, and agriculture and civilization.

I appreciated that I was starting a new life that doesn't frighten me. I appreciated that the next time I go backpacking, it will be with the only person I know who's better at than I am, and I appreciated that such a person would think me marriage material (meaning I'm not talking about Rictor-Veg (at least, I don't think I am)).

And as I sit here and write this stuff amidst the accouterments of my accumulated wealth, absent what I really want, but knowing that it is only time -- small time -- that separates us now, I realize that I'm feeling quite a lot better than when I came in the door, dripping in butt-sweat and cold.

It was a very good trip. It always is.