Friday – Big booma

Friday – Managed to get a half-day off from work. I asked my boss, and he hemhawed “well, this is really rather short notice… but I understand it was spontainious on your part. I can say ‘yes’ this time…” and he signed my vacation request.

Went home. Took a short nap, then loaded up camping gear and biking gear. Changed clothes, packed the clothes that I thought I’d need, and left. I ran down to the grocery store to ice-up my cooler, and realized – I had left my bike computer (odometer/speedometer/clock) sitting on my dresser. So I drove back downtown, ran upstairs, got it, ran back down, hopped in my car and drove off. Two blocks away, as I entered the freeway, I realized – I don’t have my cellphone. I left it on the dresser when I changed clothes. I shrugged. I didn’t anticipate needing it anyway.

Got to College Town – picked up my hydration pack. Also bought the water bladder for it, and then purchased some dehydrated foods. “Backpacker” magazine did a review of several foods last month, and so I bought a couple to try out this evening.

I made it to the campground by 7:00. There was only one other camper in the tent-camping area. I thought that was odd considering the beautiful evening, but *shrug* the park was mine! *grins* My first chore was to forrage for wood. So I assembled my bike and rode to the nearest trail point. Just a few dozen feet in, there was a large downed branch from a dying tree.

I rode back to camp with part of a tree in tow, then set about pitching my tent. *smiles* It went up quick, even in my relaxed unmotivated mood. (practice makes more perfect). I started water to boil for the foods, then set about trying to start a fire.

I thought often of Trynity on my outing over the weekend – but only one other time did I miss her more, than during the next hour as I tried in vain to start a fire. She is an expert fire builder – the only drawback to her skill is her penchant for building bonfires when a tiny cookfire would do (as an up-n-coming low impact/LNT camper, wasting available fuel on such a huge fire is somewhat annoying to me…but, they are beautiful, and I am quickly lost in the large roaring flames).

I had several strikes against me: the branch had been downed just the day before during a powerful rain, so the bark was wet. I had a poor range of wood diameter – leave stems turned quickly to twigs which turned to log, very little in between. Also, I had few enough pieces that a proper tee-pee was impossible.

Over the hour that I prepared, ate, and cleaned up from dinner, I managed to get some twigs to burn for about two minutes at a time. I also cleared my lungs out nicely, too. A few other campers scraggled in, but we all remained pretty equidistant from each other.

The meals were Natural High’s “Monterey Chicken w/Mexican rice” and “Apple Cobbler”. The Monterey chicken was delicious, if a little heavy on chili powder. I doled out two heaping platefuls for myself, plus a final large spoonful. I was ravenous, and managed to eat “both servings” with ease, but if I had a another side dish, like potatoes or something, I would have been quite satisfied with the portions.

The apple cobbler was amazing! I let it soak and thicken (and cool) in my skillet/lid. I sprinkled the crumb topping on, and dug in. I couldn’t tell it was from a “just-add-water” bag! Amazing. Simply amazing, and an excellent end for the day.

Sealing my trash in a ziplock and putting the rest of my tools away, I left the skillet lid out for the ants to clean, or possibly a rain to rinse. There was a little lightening on the horizon of this vanishing evening, and part of my hopes for camping out this evening (apart from saving driving time in the morning) was to test the weather sturdiness of my tent. Which is to say – I wanted to see if the rainfly was really waterproof, and how it handled “real” rain.

I should have been more careful what I wished for.

For the next 2 hours, the lightening stalked our campground, and surrounded it, at some 30-60 mile range… then it drew in for the kill. (I must add that during that 2 hour span, had I been camping with a tentmate, they would have killed me first, if not I them. …..the Monterey Chicken, or maybe just the chili powder, had some fast-acting and pungent effects!!)

I am energized by storm energy. But even so I wouldn’t have been sleeping! The lightening flashes and thunder rumbles were averaging 1 per second in the instant when the storm hit. I would like to have been foolish enough to have been outside on a large stretch of flat, unadorned ground while this lightening storm passed through, if only to see what it was “really” like. I have a vinyl window in the roof of my tent, but my face was down, under my pillow of a bag, hoping my hollas of suprise and wonder were not annoying the neighbors, or the cities in adjacent counties.

I endured 4 hours then of pure terror, with a 30 minute respite while the storm rebuilt itself. Its amazing how scary the storm is when you are lying under two thin layers of fabric, and have metal rods arching over you, with their ends pushed into the ground. By 4 in the morning, I was tired enough that the waning storm energy could no longer rouse me, and I had become used to the sounds of terror outside.

I woke up to my travel alarm clock at 6:15. I decided it was my birthday, and if I wanted to sleep in a bit, I would. So at 6:45 I actually got dressed, packed, crawled out, and struck my wet tent. It was overcast, but the haze burned off with my sleepiness as I took on the highway running into Metro Area, and to my bike journey.