Last weekend I had the opportunity to go camping and canoeing for a long weekend with my SO. We had talked about this trip for awhile. It was one thing we both wanted to do, and we were able to hammer down the dates back in May and get all our collective ducks in a row to escape civilization for the extra days.
We left Thursday morning for the Current River in Missouri. I’ve never been. He’s been often. We both like canoeing and camping. We both love each others company. Easy trip. By Wednesday night when I got to his house, I was more excited than a four year old boy who just got to touch a monster truck.
Here are a few key points/tips and highlights from our trip.
• Don’t take a tent camping unless you have all the parts. Not having a rain fly means that you will get to sleep on a damp air mattress and sleeping bag at some point.
• Wasp stings hurt. But chewing gum is an excellent means of trapping the little fuckers inside their picnic table nesting site and letting them suffocate, starve and die.
• Chili cooked in a dutch oven over a campfire is amazing.
• If you go on a cave tour with someone and you have such a good time with just them and their cave commentary that you can’t remember the tour guide’s commentary, you’re pretty lucky.
• Having a campsite near the shower house and restrooms is a stroke of genius. Not only is it convenient, it also provides hours of entertainment.
• Drunk campsite neighbors are fun. And amusing. But not at 3 am when they are arguing about who gets to go outside to pee first.
• Doesn’t matter if you have NO food in your trash. Bastard raccoons will still investigate it at 2 am. And they’ll come back at least once despite how menacing you seem by flinging your flip flops at it initially. However, the shadow they form on the side of your tent can be pretty cool to see.
• Even if you “MacGyver the shit out of those wasps” with gum, you need to reinforce it with the wrapper so it doesn’t dry up and fall out of the wasp holes.
• The spring fed river is cold enough to double as an ice pack for your swollen wasp stung foot, if you can balance your leg on the edge and NOT tip the canoe as you dangle your leg over the edge.
• When you are having a good time in the canoe during a monsoon, it is important to keep paying attention so as to NOT steer into low hanging branches and knock your partner out of the canoe. (I AM SO SORRY!!)
• When you put your cooler in the canoe, having it tied or secured closed is key so that when you tip the canoe you don’t lose all the adult beverages you’ve brought along. You’ll be wanting those at the end of the day.
• It might seem like a good idea to internally make fun of the people who have attached neon bobbers to their sunglasses. But karma will get you when your sunglasses go floating down the river, never to be seen again because they aren’t attached to neon bobbers.
• If you climb up the 25 foot rock, the only real way to get down is to jump into the terrifying cold water. Be prepared.
• Dry clothes for the end of the day are essential. It will feel like heaven when you shower and put on warm dry clothes. Heaven.
• If you go camping and canoeing with the right person you will end the trip feeling exhausted and sore and that you’re way too old for such shit. But you will have already begun talking about the next time you’re going to do it, and he will have jotted down the list of what you will be packing next time.
I cannot wait to go again. And again.
We left Thursday morning for the Current River in Missouri. I’ve never been. He’s been often. We both like canoeing and camping. We both love each others company. Easy trip. By Wednesday night when I got to his house, I was more excited than a four year old boy who just got to touch a monster truck.
Here are a few key points/tips and highlights from our trip.
• Don’t take a tent camping unless you have all the parts. Not having a rain fly means that you will get to sleep on a damp air mattress and sleeping bag at some point.
• Wasp stings hurt. But chewing gum is an excellent means of trapping the little fuckers inside their picnic table nesting site and letting them suffocate, starve and die.
• Chili cooked in a dutch oven over a campfire is amazing.
• If you go on a cave tour with someone and you have such a good time with just them and their cave commentary that you can’t remember the tour guide’s commentary, you’re pretty lucky.
• Having a campsite near the shower house and restrooms is a stroke of genius. Not only is it convenient, it also provides hours of entertainment.
• Drunk campsite neighbors are fun. And amusing. But not at 3 am when they are arguing about who gets to go outside to pee first.
• Doesn’t matter if you have NO food in your trash. Bastard raccoons will still investigate it at 2 am. And they’ll come back at least once despite how menacing you seem by flinging your flip flops at it initially. However, the shadow they form on the side of your tent can be pretty cool to see.
• Even if you “MacGyver the shit out of those wasps” with gum, you need to reinforce it with the wrapper so it doesn’t dry up and fall out of the wasp holes.
• The spring fed river is cold enough to double as an ice pack for your swollen wasp stung foot, if you can balance your leg on the edge and NOT tip the canoe as you dangle your leg over the edge.
• When you are having a good time in the canoe during a monsoon, it is important to keep paying attention so as to NOT steer into low hanging branches and knock your partner out of the canoe. (I AM SO SORRY!!)
• When you put your cooler in the canoe, having it tied or secured closed is key so that when you tip the canoe you don’t lose all the adult beverages you’ve brought along. You’ll be wanting those at the end of the day.
• It might seem like a good idea to internally make fun of the people who have attached neon bobbers to their sunglasses. But karma will get you when your sunglasses go floating down the river, never to be seen again because they aren’t attached to neon bobbers.
• If you climb up the 25 foot rock, the only real way to get down is to jump into the terrifying cold water. Be prepared.
• Dry clothes for the end of the day are essential. It will feel like heaven when you shower and put on warm dry clothes. Heaven.
• If you go camping and canoeing with the right person you will end the trip feeling exhausted and sore and that you’re way too old for such shit. But you will have already begun talking about the next time you’re going to do it, and he will have jotted down the list of what you will be packing next time.
I cannot wait to go again. And again.
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