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godreamWent camping, more or less.
In my book, frankly, it was more. When my family does the camping thing we tend towards the artificial side: a campground with numbered sites and outhouses. And frankly I think there is nothing at all wrong with this, particularly when you're dealing with the logistics that we generally are. But.
This weekend's slug trip to Maine was intended to be real honest-to-goodness Camping capital-C. Hike in carrying everything, set up camp in the middle of the woods with no civilization anywhere in site, fire and food, then head back out. Of course what started as "1-3 miles" turned into 3.8, and "an easy hike"... well, so my definition of an easy hike is one that I, the quintessential lazy geek whose exercise comes chiefly from climbing the three flights of stairs to my floor, can do and only be mildly exhausted. And (although I suspect hardk0re camping people who write such books work from different definitions) it probably would have fallen more or less within this category if it weren't for the fact that the entire trail was covered in 2-4 feet of snow. I'm fairly heavy of tread in general, but even the lightfooted among us were sinking waaaay in on a regular basis. Some of the group would probably have been able to finish; I'm not sure I would have, so I was glad that we turned back about a mile in. (Not to mention how much fun we would have had trying to set camp on top of several feet of snow.)
So we went back to the car, changed out of soaking wet clothes , stood around for a little while in the beautiful weather (no sarcasm there, it was fantastic) and then proceeded to look for another campsite. Eventually we ended up walking a little ways down along power lines and camping there, which was much nicer than you'd think. Sure, we were within sight of civilization in the form of the power lines and occasional headlights off in the distance, but the ambient noise was waterfalls and we slept in tents under lots of stars and on the whole had a good time. Yay!
We got back Monday evening, which was when I started writing this entry but then fell asleep for sixteen hours, which is why it's Tuesday as I finish this. Mmm, sleep. But lots of work to catch up on... guess I better get to it.
In my book, frankly, it was more. When my family does the camping thing we tend towards the artificial side: a campground with numbered sites and outhouses. And frankly I think there is nothing at all wrong with this, particularly when you're dealing with the logistics that we generally are. But.
This weekend's slug trip to Maine was intended to be real honest-to-goodness Camping capital-C. Hike in carrying everything, set up camp in the middle of the woods with no civilization anywhere in site, fire and food, then head back out. Of course what started as "1-3 miles" turned into 3.8, and "an easy hike"... well, so my definition of an easy hike is one that I, the quintessential lazy geek whose exercise comes chiefly from climbing the three flights of stairs to my floor, can do and only be mildly exhausted. And (although I suspect hardk0re camping people who write such books work from different definitions) it probably would have fallen more or less within this category if it weren't for the fact that the entire trail was covered in 2-4 feet of snow. I'm fairly heavy of tread in general, but even the lightfooted among us were sinking waaaay in on a regular basis. Some of the group would probably have been able to finish; I'm not sure I would have, so I was glad that we turned back about a mile in. (Not to mention how much fun we would have had trying to set camp on top of several feet of snow.)
So we went back to the car, changed out of soaking wet clothes , stood around for a little while in the beautiful weather (no sarcasm there, it was fantastic) and then proceeded to look for another campsite. Eventually we ended up walking a little ways down along power lines and camping there, which was much nicer than you'd think. Sure, we were within sight of civilization in the form of the power lines and occasional headlights off in the distance, but the ambient noise was waterfalls and we slept in tents under lots of stars and on the whole had a good time. Yay!
We got back Monday evening, which was when I started writing this entry but then fell asleep for sixteen hours, which is why it's Tuesday as I finish this. Mmm, sleep. But lots of work to catch up on... guess I better get to it.
