Oh The Great Outdoors

I recently said “YES!!!” to a three day camping trip with friends in the wonderful Golden Gate Canyon Park. I lived through dangerous chipmunks, sleeping in a cave, storing enough smoke in my hair to last through three showers, and coming to the sad realization that I looked like a drowned cat. Apart from that, it was worthy of a campfire song. Who wants to come out of the mountains looking like normal people any ways? Quite accidentally we came out looking (and smelling) like wilderness women—our hair matted, our clothes wrinkled, our eyes watery from smoke and our skin painted with dust. In other words, it looked like adventure (and lots and lots of rain) had been bestowed upon us in a particularly rugged way.

We got off to a kind of crooked start. Our two room party tent could not possibly fit on the platform provided. So we pitched it regardless, leading later to the stuffing of all seven of us into one room of the party tent. We then quickly started a fire and deemed ourselves rulers of the outdoor world. I bet the great outdoors was laughing at us. Yes, laughing so hard that it cried and the rain began to pour down. The occasion for the trip was a birthday party, and we hurriedly engulfed our cake and nervously sang happy birthday as the thunder and lightening grew more sinister. Then we jumped up and ran to our cars, laughing in the breathless way you do when your butt has been thoroughly kicked.

What the great outdoors engaged in then was Chinese water torture. With all seven of us stuffed in one room, there was no escaping the drops of water from above than infiltrated our tent. Plop, onto the forehead. Plop, right into the eye. Plop plop plop. Water pooled around the edges and soaked the two people sleeping on the outside. We were, as far as the story is concerned, sleeping in a cave. A cave with party lanterns, but a cave nonetheless.

At this point our teenage sense of invincibility was flickering out. We were exhausted, cold, smoky from the choking tendrils of the fire we needed to regain some warmth. But of course we didn’t go home—every adventure has some good and some bad, and we weren’t about to give up after just living through the bad. We explored. A big rock (perfect for Titanic poses), a hike, frisbee and campfire talk. We played the game Quelf—a game of strange rules for a strangely determined kind of person. My rule was to laugh when anyone else laughed for the duration of the game. Another’s task was to speak like an irritable gnome. Another still was to bark if anything living came within a 15 feet radius. This did not bode well when new campers moved in.
The most surprising thing was that the food was delectable. I’ve never had so many smores in my life. Preparing a hot dog over the fire felt like a sacred ritual, one I gladly ate. An awesome camping meal is a breakfast burrito in a bag—bacon and sausage broken into small bits, cheese (of course!) smushed together with a cracked egg in a ziplock bag. It is then put into a pot of boiling water and plopped on a tortilla. Yes, it is definitely weird that I miss the food part of it, but I think without infinite possibilities we felt more grateful for what we did have. As our stomachs survived on gooey sticky often blackened camping food, our minds survived through picking each others thoughts. It was good to fall into the goofy teen stereotype, and to laugh like crazy when rabid chipmunks jumped on our table and stole mouthfuls of food (even an apple!). But it was also good, in as serious of mindsets as we could muster, to recognize one of our last times together, in a beautiful place, before the world receives us back to reality again. 

Reflections on Water

Spread Eagle, Wisconsin is the destination of my Midwest travels. Tucked away like a good secret, it is not on most maps. I like it that way. This particular detail makes it like an oasis, a hidden kingdom, a hideaway safe from probing tourist eyes. The drawback is the inability to explain its magic to anyone, especially without a point on the map to reference. It is a long running joke with my friends, the fact that the cheesy connotation of Wisconsin does not leave much room for beauty and adventure. For years people have dutifully asked me of my two week stay here, counting down the minutes until they can recall Paris, Madrid, Prague. Can a small unknown town in the U.P. compete with such worldly destinations? I say absolutely—it’s all about where you look.

The stunning sights of Wisconsin lie right at my doorstep. Well, pretty much. I run at full speed down a flight of stairs first, at which point I reach the dock that stretches out into one of a chain of nine lakes. It is from this dock that I have gained my most valued sunset memories. On this dock I sit for hours talking with family that stops by, splashing my brother, waving to friendly cheese-eating Wisconsin people riding by in boats. I maneuver not the crowded streets of a European city, but of my mind. I watch as fireworks explode right over my head, shot from an island within swimming distance from our house. The light is almost close enough to touch.

This year I decided to take on kayaking. I started off kayaking with others, dragging groggy relatives out of bed early in the morning. I was awed by the Salvador Dali-like reflections frozen on the surface of the water. There’s a certain still, silent beauty to a world with no one awake. And it is a privilege to be the first to move, to awaken the lake with the gentle waves of a paddle. But I still had the sense that there was more to be found. So I woke up at 4:30 to kayak into the sunrise.

I may have settled for the fog that lingered like ghosts on the water. I was grateful for the golden scratches in the light blue sky, trajectories above and below me. But the world showed me all it had. The fog was illuminated with light, and the sun was bigger than I have ever seen. It had more of a presence, more stories to tell. And those stories penetrated in rays through the island I circled. It was so bright I could not look for long. I imagine that is what my heaven will look like, so I was only allowed a sneak peak. A bald eagle flew above me, thrusting itself into the first light above the tree line. As a writer, it is a big deal to be lost for words, and for the first time I was.

After coming home to Colorado, I was at a party and asked how Wisconsin was. Immediately after, a guest asked another guest about his experience in Spain’s Running of the Bulls. As the two circles of conversation converged, a light chuckle broke out. It appeared I had been upstaged. What a pity, I thought. They had just missed out on the story of the single most miraculous experience in my life. And unlike Paris, Madrid, Prague, it’s not a point on the map. It’s a point in the heart.