Roughing It

We destroyed a grill, a griddle, and my car's alignment and clutch. My feet are covered in chigger bites and it took two showers to wash all the sand out of the concave parts of my body. But it was all worth it.

Last weekend Cody, Christian, Jayson and I went camping. And when I say camping, I don't mean sissy state-park-plug-in-my-entertainment-center camping. I mean dig-your-own-latrine-and-watch-for-snakes camping.

The express purpose of our trip was to open the channels of communication between us regarding our relationships with God. One of the occasional paradoxes of life is the ease of communicating intimate things with strangers, while feeling impeded with those familiar to us. The four of us all went to a Christian school together and are on the same page religiously, but it bothered me that I discussed my spiritual life and Biblical topics with church-acquaintances, but rarely did with my close friends.

Of course, such a trip has plenty of auxiliary purposes such as not bathing, playing with fire, killing bugs, digging holes, sleeping, staring blankly or other manly things.

The location of choice was near some land my grandfather has in Louisiana on the Sabine River. It is about 45 minutes east of Jasper, Texas near Burr's Ferry.

Day 1
We got to the property at about 6:00 PM on Friday. But, getting back to a camping spot is not so easy. We stopped to check in with one of the local land-owners. He looked at Cody's truck and my Saturn and said, ``Yall aint gonna make it back there in those cars. Well... The truck might.'' We took that as a challenge, and set off.

``Cody, is your truck 4-wheel drive?''
``No...''
``Oh, um... Don't worry, we'll be fine.''

The problem is that where we were going the roads were not roads by any definition you may be familiar with. They are only considered roads because they are not trees. Anything that is not trees is either river or road. And in some places it is even hard to distinguish between those two... But, I digress. The point is that these rutted, muddy avenues were the means to reach the camp site, and the Saturn S-series was not designed with them in mind.

I did get stuck once, but my esteemed colleagues pushed me out. To thank them I sprayed mud in their faces.

After arriving we set up camp. Everything went smoothly except the fire... You are probably wondering why you want a fire in 120 degree heat, but you have to realize that when men go camping all meals contain meat and/or marshmallows, which must be cooked over an open flame. Therefore we suffer the heat in order to have warm food.

As I was saying, the fire did not go so smoothly. Christian, Jayson, and Cody put their heads together and used every flammable liquid we brought (yes, including gasoline) to try to get the fire going. (The wood was wet or something.) After three hours, using some combination of oil and citronella wax, Christian got a fire going. We roasted our hot dogs and s'mores, played some mediocre spades, and called it a day.

The most memorable event of the day went something like this: ``flagibulfppplahnat!'' That is my best approximation of the sound Christian made when, according to him, a bug flew into his mouth and nose.

Day 2
Breakfast: the most important meal of the day. For us, that was the case not because of what we ate, but because of what we learned. We learned that a slow burning open flame is not quite hot enough for frying bacon. We learned that a great way to make your fire burn hotter is to use an air pump as a bellows (Cody's idea). We learned that it is actually possible to make your fire too hot by becoming a little overzealous with the bellowing.

It was touch and go there for a while as the coffee pot and griddle started to slide into each other. We soon realized that this was due to the fact that the grill supporting them started to melt. The grease fire complicated things a bit, but we did remember not to throw water onto it. On the other hand, we did not remember what it was we were supposed to do w/ a grease fire so we basically watched it burn.

Fortunately, the bacon was salvaged. Of course, the Teflon from the griddle was now chemically bonded to the bacon instead. And, when you bit into the bacon it tasted more like charcoal than usual...

After breakfast we decided to try our hand at fishing. Let's just say we were about as much threat to the fish as they were to us. So, we didn't catch anything. But that's not the point of fishing anyway. The point is to put really really stinky stuff onto a hook, then forget its on your fingers and get it all over yourself.

Another lesson we learned is that there are some subtle nuances to camping downstream from a dam. For one, when the dam gets opened the water is going to rise. Now it might not be immediately clear, but our experience has taught us that when this happens, what you thought was a good place to set your equipment is in actuality the bottom of the river, and not a great place to leave your equipment.

Don't worry, we saved everything from the rising waters and had some fun frolicking in the water.

We encountered a few wild animals on the trip. Jayson saw a snake slither by his feet. I had a fish swim into my crotch. And we all developed a certain fondness for the insect life...

We also made a new friend in a stray puppy. We named him Ojos because of his one blue eye. Personally, I was the hard-hearted one who kept trying to send the puppy on his way, but the other guys are big softies. So they fed and snuggled with him while I jealously watched.

For lunch, Jayson cooked burgers. Another lesson learned: in rare circumstances burgers can stick to the foil you are cooking them on and make it impossible to flip them over. In such a situation do not panic. Simply pull the burgers off the fire and rip them apart in an effort to separate them from the foil. Then you may flip the burger remains onto a new greased cooking surface, then serve and enjoy.

For dinner, Cody cooked steaks! This went relatively smoothly having learned much from our previous cooking endeavors. They were evenly cooked and seasoned to perfection with just a dash of ketchup.

After dinner we had a Bible study. I discussed the Grace Bible Church philosophy on inductive Bible studies. We went over the steps of Observation, Interpretation, Application and Synthesis. Christian provided an interesting passage, and we spent the entire time looking at a single verse (Ezekiel 28:17), exercising each of these steps. I was very pleased! It went very well, and I hope we have more studies and discussions in the future.

After that, we lit up the lanterns and preserved our legacy of playing some of the worst Spades ever. I mean really horrible. It was great.

Day 3
Sunday we broke camp and enjoyed leftovers. It was the best fried egg-burger-steak-cheese and watermelon I ever had.

Having traveled the muddy roads before, we navigated them expertly and made it out without incident.

I would love to share more stories such as who had bowel movements where, but some stories are better left at camp. Thanks for reading, dear blogfan!