Camping in the Cold
January 19, 2003 |
So I went camping this weekend. You’re probably thinking “what the hell, you must be on crack.” Well, maybe I am, I don’t know. But before we get to that, I’ve got to set the scene. So here goes.
I’ve been looking forward all week to going camping. Yes, I know I went last week but I’m pretty into it right now. My dad FedEx’d me my tent and some other camping items (Coleman stove and tent heater). So I’m all set. Friday I went with Kyle (the person who will be joining me on this camping adventure) to Publix to get provisions for the trip. His uncle had given him some caribou meat so we figured we’d make a stew out of it. We bought carrots and onions and celery and green peppers and potatoes and some V8 to fill out and base the stew. So I’m pretty excited. We part our ways and decide to leave the next day when we get up, probably early afternoon.
Friday night came the first pitfall of the weekend. Well, I had a great night Friday but that story can wait for another topic. But around 3:30 am I find out that we might not be camping after all. Kyle informs me of a few… we’ll call them setbacks that might hamper us the next day. If it wasn’t for my great night I would truly have been pissed but non the less, that was that.
I woke up around noon on Saturday and was had all my stuff packed, just in case. Well low and behold, Kyle took care of the setbacks and we were on our way close to 4pm. We arrived and set up camp and I started the fire. Well, I don’t know what the problem was, the fact that it was so cold, that the wood was crap, or the 6 inches of sand in the bottom of the firepot, but i never really got the fire going. It put off a little bit of warmth, but nothing to write home about. So in disgust I decide to start the stew (and turn on the tent heater which I found out had no effect outside the tent). The stew took about an hour and half or so too cook and was great. We even shared with some other campers down the way. The stew was really good, nice and hot, however I did end up burning all the taste buds on the tip of my tongue off; leaves a nice raw feeling in my mouth. After dinner we cleaned up and went to bed. After all, there was nothing else to do and do to lack of fire and bitter cold, yeah, it was bed time. The good news is that the tent heater was amazing in the tent. It was nice and warm. So I fell asleep.
I woke up at some point in the middle of the night and noticed that the propane for the heater had run out. I was smart enough to bring a spare tank of propane into the tent but stupid enough to forget the matches. So I said screw it and went back to sleep. I woke up again when the sun was starting to peak over the trees (which was about 8:30 am) and decided to get up and attempt to get the fire going again. After searching for kindling for about 30 minutes and coming up with a nice bunch, I started the fire. The winds, combined with the crappy wood, prevented this from happening. At close to 10 am (without the feeling in my fingers) I woke Kyle up and started cooking breakfast. Luckily at this point the sun had reached the top of the trees and started warming things up. Breakfast consisted of pancakes, and lots of them. This was a good thing. After breakfast we tore down the site and left.
Now you might be wondering how cold it really was. Well, according to my thermometer it reached into the upper teens. To put this into perspective check this out. When we started unpacking everything on the site at around 5:30 pm Saturday a few chunks of ice fell onto the table. Well, they were still solid when i got up at 8:30. Also, in the 30 or so minutes after washing the knives off after cutting up the meat for the stew, the water was frozen on the blade. So yeah, it was a little cold. Will I be making it three weekends in a row by going camping next weekend? No. I’m going to wait until it gets a little warmer.
All in all it was a fun trip, just a tad on the chilly and frustrating side. Not to mention the fact that when I got home I dropped my huge glass pot while cleaning it resulting in chunks of glass everywhere.
By the way, in writing this article I realized that yes, you do capitalize the days of the week. Good ol’ spell check.