Howdy,
About camping, What if?—or, If only …
This is our last one, the final entry of the topic of camping (well, I thought it was until our final two parts begun taking on letters, A & B), and I dare not call it fascinating again, for fear that you’ll disagree with me at this point.
Besides, I’ve already taken my run at it. There are no more expectations and promises. Just a cap on camping.
Because when you’re done with camping, you’re pooped. Tired. Exhausted. Happy to be headed home to that house and routine ya’ll so readily wanted to escape for that recovery relaxation in the shade of those pines looming tall over that mountain lake sandy shore breaching the soft bed of pine needles and that glassy body of clear and calling water that’s oh-so refreshing, even just to look at, let alone brave with a breath and a dive and an even bigger yet quicker breath for life, of life. Alive and living. Refreshment greater than an ice cold coke, though I can understand the Coca Cola being the choice of some.
For those, I say grab a cold coke and a wetsuit for warmer water and come on in, but that’s just me. I’ll do all three: coke, swimsuit and/or wetsuit. As long as I get to get in the water. Come on, the water’s nice—even when it’s not.
Not your kind of relaxation?
That’s okay. Camping is about exhaustion and fear of wild animals.
Maybe you only fear that critters will nocturnally check out your camp for food. That’s a pain. Pack it up sometimes, hang it up sometimes, bear-can it sometimes, leave it out and see what happens sometimes (remember, you’re tired and just want to go to bed—it’ll be fine! Nice employment of idyllic thinking, which I’ve seemed to have a difficulty with in writing this series of posts that are that they are, whatever they are. Camping is what they are, I suppose. I’ll blame camping for being so … so … campy. I love it. Right? Don’t you? Love it, love it, love it! Come on, I do. You have to believe me—and if you don’t, I can tell you this: we’ll get out there and camp again … That’s what we happy campers do. Camp, chasing that hinge that’s going to swing home’s routine into out-there’s dream.)
Out there, o happy camper, we get to sleep outside with the hungry bears—though, as I’ve said I have no doubt mosquitoes consume more of campers than does the whole of roaming wildlife.
But we get to thinking about bears, Bigfoot, mountain lions, Sasquatch, wolves, bobcats, Yeti, and stinkin’ skunks—not to mention thieving squirrels and the like kind of kin. And in our case last weekend, cattle. We were sitting have lunch, and I heard heavy footsteps (a family of Bigfoot?! No, actually I thought it was my brother Chris) snapping undergrowth, and I turned to see a few cows. They turned and shot out the other way, five cows tromping through our camp, past our tent, and into the big, beautiful meadow for a snack. At least they weren’t going for our food and didn’t stampede right through our tent where Riah was taking a nap. Who know that a herd of cattle would be the greatest threat to our camp safety.
But we’re not afraid of cows. We don’t think about them. We’re afraid of other things, things we haven’t seen or don’t often see. The Wild Things that we think about.
To be continued … (I’ve completed writing this 7-part series, but the last two parts grew to a combined 2,600 words, so Part 6 and Part 7 have each been scheduled with a Post A and a Post B: a 7-part series with nine episodes … The last one, the next one, will be the last one; it’s already set.)
—Billy
Reading. Writing. Living.
Word Count: 145,249 / On Pace: 153,450 / Year’s Goal: 200,000
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