Having deployed a campsite that felt like a mansion it was time for the last lesson of the day. I don’t have to do Jack Shit if I don’t want to!
Honey Badger, my dirtbike still perched on the trailer, called to me. “Let’s go explore!”
I was drawn to it. I had a dirtbike and a few hours of light. Yet I was tired. Do I have to always explore?
“Yes! You have to always explore!” The bike explained.
The siren song of unexplored trails tugged at me. Yet, I’ve been trying to mellow out. I deliberately intend to get in the habit of “chilling out” more often. (Not an easy thing for me.)
It took real effort to be lazy. How odd is that?
“Be lazy” was the plan and I (just barely) stuck with the plan. I fished around in my truck for another paperback. I’ve just finished re-reading Children of Dune but I had a “beach book” on stock. Soon I was engrossed in the lazily written, slightly overwrought, B- writing of “The Perfect Storm”.
One beer led to three and eventually I wasn’t reading. I was drinking and enjoying the birdsong. At sunset I dragged my “trash-can of legit firewood” to the firepit. Some places don’t want you bringing in external firewood (for good biological reasons). Buying wood in $7 shrink wrapped packets breaks my cheapskate heart. My solution is nail-free kiln dried palette wood, carried (brilliantly) in a waterproof trashcan!
This place, being dispersed Forest Service camping, was fair game for gathering firewood from the adjacent forest. I’d brought my little electric chainsaw. Could be fun! But I had enough beers in me that I shouldn’t have been operating a can opener much less a chainsaw.
Wisely, I merely played with fire.
The place had a serviceable fire ring but I folded out my portable firebox which is a lot better for cooking (and uses far less firewood). I put that on top of the grate over the fire ring.
I stoked it up and let it burn down to good cooking coals. The wait for coals wasn’t long but I got distracted by beer. I had to relight it and stoke it up again. By now it was dark. I lit my Coleman lantern, which attracted every bug for miles around. The bugs here weren’t as bad as my last campout so I shrugged them off as I cooked bratwurst on the firebox grill. I even toasted the buns. (We can’t be uncivilized now can we?)
God I love camping when I can bring a huge cooler! Mustard, relish, ketchup, cold beer, endless bratwurst. Life is good. I retreated to my screen tent, left the lantern outside but shining over my shoulder, and ate like a king. Then I listened to shortwave radio in the cool evening air.
I picked up a blues show from Miami. It felt like I was in 1980’s eastern Europe; listening to free music from a happier society just across the iron curtain. I listened to civilization from across time not distance but the feeling was the same. I made a brief foray into local FM and was assaulted but autotune ghetto shit. Some skank singing about her skankness? Count me out. Local AM was sleepy classical mixed with NPR’s propaganda feed; not interested. Far distant Miami had what I needed; 60 year old virtuoso guitar-work from Lightnin’ Hopkins. Florida wins again!
Darkness settled in. Loons and owls joined the crackly SW broadcast. It was a magic hour and time seemed to slow.
I wanted to go out and turn off the lantern but there was a wall of bugs waiting for me to leave my screen tent. Inside the screen tent I wore a t-shirt in bug free peace. Outside, the bugs swarmed. I guess that proves the screen was working. I left the lantern on… who cares if I waste a little fuel?
I sent an all-is-well message to Mrs. Curmudgeon on my SpotX. “Camped at location X. I’m happily drunk in a fabric cage.”
Satellites orbited unseen overhead. Messages crossed through networks of immense complexity. The NSA pondered the secret meaning of my words. Elon Musk considered how to turn the information to a profit. Text in space was routed back to terra firma, shunted along trunklines, emerged at a cell phone tower, sent in packets to Mrs. Curmudgeon’s phone, and displayed as if it wasn’t a miracle of technological prowess. This entailed a short delay. I started to wonder if Mrs. Curmudgeon would fret at my cryptic message. I needn’t worry. Her response came back through the aether; “That’s great, don’t forget you brought pudding. Love, Mrs. Curmudgeon”.
Pudding? Heck yeah! Is there anything more decadently indulgent than chocolate pudding while camping? I really had forgotten. She knows me better than I know myself!
Two servings of pudding and an undisclosed integer of additional consumed beers and it was time for bed. I managed to turn off the lantern without dropping it and soon after was sleeping like a baby… a big hairy drunk baby, but a happy innocent one nonetheless. It had been a good day.
WTWW at 5.085mhz is almost always playing a really nice mix of music at night, and they are audible in Texas most nights. They broadcast from near Nashville, but I don’t know which direction they focus on. There is the occasional religious message, but almost all the SW broadcasters are religious. It’s not intrusive. I’m pretty sure their North American coverage is mostly accidental.
They have a neat “instant request” feature if you have internet. You can select songs from their catalog online, and they’ll play them shortly after.
And even though they’re godless commies, night time music out of cuba is usually in the 6-7 mhz range, if you like latin jazz…
nick
Does Honeybadger, being of Japanese descent, speak in the dulcet tones of a geisha inquiring if honourable hairy-san wants another sake while she strums her samisen, or is it Colonel Saito demanding you get back to building that wretched bridge?
The voice is more like a glittery CGI warrior goddess from a B movie played totally seriously even though it’s a comic book level concept. If anything could smite enemies and prod me to go Conan-ing about, it’s my Yamaha TW200.
AC: sounds idyllic.
My inner geek needs to know: what antenna? I built a Heathkit GR-64 SW receiver OMG-years ago (still have it) and was transported to faraway exotic places. Thanks for rekindling that pleasant memory. Interestingly, I discovered that the same incident as reported by the BBC, VOA, and Radio Moscow appeared to be three dissimilar incidents. Curious…
Also, did your Thermacell yet again prove its usefulness?
I have a TecSun PL880. I bought it in 2014 and the price has since gone down. I’m using the built in antenna… I’m sure I could improve reception with a better antenna but I’m lazy. I mentioned the purchase in my blog back when it was new.
Speaking of news sounding different from different places, I keep meaning to prep one of my HAM radios for news gathering. At this point I want to talk with someone local before I believe a damn thing on the news. During the period of time between early November 2020 and January 2021 I had a hard time in my hinterland location discerning what was and was not happening.
I did not need to deploy a Thermacell when I had the screen tent. With slightly less buggy conditions and the screen tent I was pretty well set.