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.