I finally got to the free primitive camping / ATV staging area I’d seen on a map. There were a few RVs. They had generators running and (presumably) people inside enjoying the AC. (I felt jealous.) Nearby were the horse people (including some horse trailers with living quarters… also with generators running).
There’s no conflict that I know of but horse and ATV people do tend to self segregate; maybe the ATVs freak out the horses? I dunno’. Judging from the distribution of horse crap and ATV tracks this was a long standing social order.
I reflected that people who piss and moan about racism or whatever other “ism” serves their needs should get outside more. The press is always angry that people to fail to mix in the perfectly diverse and therefore utterly uniform froth that Utopians demand, yet there are legitimate reasons people associate. The horse people hung out in one cluster. The ATV people in another. That doesn’t mean anyone is oppressing anyone. It probably has more to do with the axle position on a horse trailer versus an ATV trailer. Maybe the horses don’t like the smell of gas or the ATV people don’t like stepping in horseshit. Regardless, if they were forced to intermingle, it would suck for both.
A few RV’s didn’t seem to have ATV equipment (like an ATV trailer) or horse equipment. I gathered these were family units; grandma and grandpa snoozing in AC while their progeny, a generation or two distant, were out on Hondas and horses.
As for folks like me, it was too hot… there were no tents. Yet I was there and I could’ve put up a tent. I’d slept the night in a tent not 30 miles distant. That too doesn’t mean I was oppressed… just hot. I suspect the uses of this little area shift with the season. During big game season, hunters surely stampede the whole landscape (bringing their own ATVs and horses). There was a nearby sledding hill. After hunting season but before it’s the worst of blizzard season, kids are probably sledding up a storm. What a grand place to celebrate Christmas! Nearby snowmobile trails are impassible in summer (they can only be traversed when swamps are solid ice) yet they’re probably highways in January. They’d zip back and forth en masse yet scarcely know that ATVs and horses ruled the zone only a few months ago.
There was a winter warming hut, a hand pump for water, a smattering of fire rings, a few trash cans. All this was apparently maintained by what appeared to be volunteers in some sort of ad hoc randomness that made me love my people even more. It was clean but everything was well used and old. There weren’t a lot of government signs bitching about this thing or that. There was an array of recycling cans that would make an HOA Karen proud… all bear proof of course. The outhouses were good enough but more or less oven temperature inside.
I was, by then, utterly cooked in the sun.
I picked an empty campsite, dragged a picnic table into the shade, and sat down to write this post. I was carrying ice water (an unimaginable luxury in these conditions, traveling as I was) and drank greedily. It didn’t help. I’d gotten too hot to easily cool down. I had food but it was too hot to have an appetite. I stretched out on the picnic table to cool in the shade; maybe take a nap.
Nope. Too hot. Usually even the slightest breeze and a little shade will do the trick. One can cool slowly. Not in this weather. I just got hotter and hotter.
Think Curmudgeon, you’re an outdoors guy. How are you going to cool down?
I’d seen a lake about 8 miles back. I could jump in it? Meh… it was a swampy looking mess. I’d probably just wallow in warm mud and get eaten alive by leeches.
I wandered past the warming hut, assuming it was locked. Isn’t everything by the government locked? But it wasn’t! It was like the “before times” when the government served the people instead of the other way ‘round. Was the warming hut nice and cool? Nope! It was stuffy and sweltering.
Finally, I tried the hand pump. It had to be 100 years old but it was well maintained. A few cranks and out spilled cool clear water. I filled my hat and dumped the hat on my head. I almost had a stroke from the change in temperature. That water was cold! I shivered… which was ideal. I repeated the procedure a few more times. Thoroughly chilling myself.
I walked back toward my motorcycle but did a U-turn back to the pump and did it all over again. The second time was a charm. Now I could finally roll out.
