July 6, 2001

This is Arizona???

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We're back from the best camping trip we've taken so far. Save for Michael's absence, we had a wonderful time. All together, we spent eight hours in the truck, and travelled about 500 miles total. We ate well, slept well, got rained on, got sunburned, got dirty, acted silly, and talked talked talked all week long. I kept a paper journal throughout, which I shall transcribe here for your reading pleasure. Word of warning, if you haven't figured it out yet - this is a VERY photo-heavy entry and might take a bit to load. Yep, we un's were camera happy. 7-1-01 I'm dirty and this nice, pretty, new, cream colored journal is going to get grimy before the week is out, I'm sure. So we made it. Tired, to be sure, but happy to be among towering pine trees in seventy degree weather. We got the campsite all set up just in time for a summer afternoon thunderstorm. It rained gently and sporadically for a couple of hours, but it seems to have stopped now. It was just enough to deter the insects and make the world smell nice. We certainly are set up for world class camping. Everything was up and organized by 2:00 this afternoon. We ourselves got up at 5:00 this morning and were on the road by 6:30. Kye did okay for a little while, but the inevitable did happen and she barfed a few times before the trip was through. I pity whoever ends up cleaning that Suburban's floor mats. Calvin just lit the fire, and we've already indulged in potato soup (canned, not mine) and Raviolis - it was all we had the strength to prepare after setting everything up. Kye is absolutely passed out under a tree. She spent the night worrying over where Gadget and Gypsy might be (at Calvin's mom's), and we did quite a bit of walking around since arriving. The site is wonderful, although not the one we'd initially reserved. A squatter commandeered our site, so we found another one, with the help (and profuse apologies) of the camp host. Mickey (the little old lady) and Bones (the little old man) are a couple who have been married for 24 years and now take care of the Cutthroat and Brookchar campsites in their twilight years. I swear I will get a picture of them before we leave. Editor's note: I did. We're happy with our site, though. The lake can be seen through the trees, and there's a great path that leads from our site through a meadow and down to the shore. I'm terribly excited about that little path, among which chipmunks scamper and wildflowers grow. Walt Disney, eat your heart out. The birds we saw on the road had nothing to do with native wildlife, however. Many keepers of the speed to be roared past on the way - and many middle fingers were flashed. Calvin is an agressive driver, to be sure, but I've never seen so many snowbirds (Editor's note: That's the Arizona term for retired folk) taking their half of the road right down the middle. We'll have to take a drive back into town (1 hour trip) to get some cash - the camp's general store charges a $3.00 fee for credit transactions - dialed up via a cell phone because there's no phones up here. We rented a bit-bit boat ($100 for two days) and purchased fishing poles to replace the ones we left behind at home ($50) - we'll need cash to get ice throughout the week, so hence the trip. We ended up spending a little bit more money than I anticipated to take care of everything, but I'm telling myself not to care. This is the only real vacation we're going to be able to take this year, and we intend to enjoy it. Marie quote of the day: "Have you ever wandered around the house and lit your socks on fire?" 7-2-01 I didn't sleep very well last night, mostly because I was worried that Kye might misbehave. But she was just fine - stayed in one spot in the corner of the tent all night. I layed awake and listened to the coyotes in the distance, and the owls nearby. Other than that, the silence was absolute, and very welcome. This morning (Monday) we got up at 5:30 and ate croissants and donuts, and brewed some camp coffee. Editor's note: Everything got named "camp" this and "camp" that - a playful punch was a "camp smack". A bowl of Life was "camp cereal". Etc. etc. We went to check out the showers, and discovered that they didn't open until 8:00. So we decided to take a drive into town to get some cash. The drive is beautiful, with rolling hills covered in pine trees, and green meadows. I had a hard time believing we were still in Arizona. It took us 45 minutes to get to town, but it really didn't seem like it. Cash obtained, we took a different route back, and was blessed with a fully paved, winding road just perfect for a motorcyclist such as Calvin. We really need to get a trailer so we can all ride together and still have the motor. Every turn in the road revealed more rolling hills and trees, and suddenly, a heard of antelope. We sped by quickly, but I still kicked myself for not having the camera. When we got back, we did up some eggs and hashbrowns on the camp stove. There's nothing like the outdoors and exercise to make camping taste soooo good. We puttered around and straightened up the camp a bit, and planned on doing some shore fishing. Thunderclouds were rolling in, though, and we didn't want to be away from camp when the rain hit. So we all piled into the tent and I read aloud from a puzzle book we bought for the trip. Then Calvin and I napped for an hour as Marie continued to read and the rain pattered on the tent. I headed over to the showers when I got up. It's actually a decent facility, situated at the main campground (we were at the smallest campground on the outskirts). There are about 10 individual bathrooms containing a shower, flush toilet (glee!), sink, mirror, bench, and hand dryer. A far cry less smelly than the composting toilets situated among the tent sites. One only has to avoid the drain and the shower curtain. ~Shudder~ When I got back to the campsite (after picking up a couple of bags of ice at the camp store) I found that Calvin and Marie had gone fishing. Thanks to our handy-dandy two-way radios, I found them in short order. We hung out on the shore for a while, donating our bait to the fish. They were splashing to the surface everywhere, but none were interested in getting hooked. And that's got to be the most frustrating thing of all - the fish were right there, but we couldn't catch one at all. Dammit. Marie was the most frustrated of any of us - she ended up hollering at the fish and throwing rocks in the lake. Didn't do much good. We went back up to camp, and Calvin and Marie went to the showers while I stayed in camp and read (Anne McCaffrey's "The Skies of Pern", which I bought for the trip and to hell with waiting for it to come out in paperback). Then we grilled up some cheddar brats and hot links, and heated up some "camp beans". Here's a camping hint - a can of maple baked beans mixed with a can of chili is really, really good. But for some reason it's only good when camping - I tried making it for lunch at home once, with some weenies, and nobody wanted it. Another camping hint - Pemmican Beef Jerky rules. We got a good fire going, thanks to the kindling that Marie gathered earlier in the day. We spent the rest of the night making S'Mores (what, too cliche for you?), drinking wine and beer, and soda, and staring at the glowing coals. We went to bed a little after nine, and I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow. One thing about all of us sleeping in a tent, though - if one of us wants to stay awake, all of us have to. Marie and I would whisper to each other for a while, and Calvin would say "Turn off the lantern! Go to sleep!" He'd insist that we were keeping him up, yet as soon as he stopped speaking his breathing would get heavy. Then Marie would fall asleep, too, and they'd both start snoring. And Kye would pant. And we had a crow outside with a faulty sense of timing who would keep calling and calling and calling - that raucous, annoying "scraw". So I made sure I got myself really really tired before I went to bed. Except then I would wake up in the middle of the night having to pee - and that's a sucky experience in and of itself. Having to drag myself out of my nice warm sleeping bag, and leave the side of my nice warm Calvin, and stumble up the slope in the dark to the smelly convenience of the outhouse. Hope there were no spiders lurking under the seat cover. Do my thing, stumble back, and fumble with the tent's zipper in my haste to get warm again. Endure Calvin's grumbly complaints as I put my cold frontside against his warm backside. Heh. Go On To Part 2!