[at-l] day hike car camp trip report (long) part 2

[rbenhameda@comcast.net (Rami)]

I slept so soundly I didn't want to get out of my pack.  It rained a good part of the night and somewhere in there it thunderstormed.  I can hardly stay awake during a thunderstorm in the daytime.  At night I just grin like a cheshire cat.  It was around 6:00 in the morning and no one was stirring yet in the whole campground.  The only sounds were those of the raindrops collecting and falling off of the trees and down onto the carpet of last fall's leaves.  

I had to get up and see if the coals survived the night.  I dressed, tried to unzip my tent quietly, and put on my boots.  I opened the vestibule, closed my tent then reclosed the vestibule and stretched.  I really had to pee so I walked over to the woods and did.  As I was getting back to the fire ring, I heard Nathan waking up.  A few minutes later we were both digging the coals out of the ashes and working them back into a fire.  We had left our collected wood under the fly so it was relatively dry.

Soon the girls and moms started to stir awake.  It was time to start breakfast and begin planning our next hike.  The girls milled around and waited to be served after their morning potty breaks and hand washings.  Then it dawned on them that they wouldn't be served and they would need to do something about arranging breakfast.

Before too long,  Eggs were being scrambled, sausages were being browned, mellons were being cut and places being set at tables.  Then the thunder started to roll and the sky tasted steely.  Nathan and I had raingear which would allow us to stand outside all day long in a downpour and stay nice and comfy dry.  The girls were mostly tucked under the tarp.  

Breakfast went well considering the circumstances, but this storm as getting strong and was threatening to halt our plans.  Nathan and I started cleaning up and starting water on the fire for dishes just as the sun poked through a hole in the clouds.  After a few more ominous rumblings, the time between flash and bang was getting longer.  The storm was clearing. 

We divided the girls up between dishes, clean up, trash, and camp break-down and started them on their way to being ready to hike.  They all had a bad case of sloppy re-packing blues so it was beginning to look like it would take a dump truck to get all of their gear and food back home.  I bit of persuasive suggesting helped things along though.  No one really wants to have a cold wet muddy tent on their lap for 3 hours of driving home.

Finally we were ready to hike.  The access trail a few dozen yards from our camp site was not well marked, but we found it nonetheless.  It led down a horse trail to the American Discovery Trail which is a part of a much smaller 27 mile loop trail called the Adventure Trail (god only knows why).  The rain was falling again, but withouth the pyrotechnics this time.  

The trail here is through some moderate hills and plenty of ravines.  This is below where the glaciers came through so the land isn't all smoothed out like it is north of here.  The trail maintainers don't know about switchbacks yet.  If they want you to go up a hill, they just take you straight up the hill.
Straight up a hill, plus canvas sneakers, plus rain all night and most of the day equals muddy kids and unhappy minivan moms.  Nathan and I couldn't stop grinning.  We were beginning to look fairly foolish.

The girls gave way to their desire to have fun and didn't care any longer what someone at school might say if they were seen in such a state.  The trod almost knee deep in swamp-like sections where the river (the blue if you're checking a map) had washed her banks and left a little on the flood plain.  The confidently ambled straight up the trailbed riverlet only to come sliding back down on hands and knees.  They picked up and relocated millipedes and thought nothing of the millipede poop on their hands afterwards.  They didn't even need to break out the hand sanitizer with the sparkles and colored beads suspended in solution before having a snack break.  These girls were having fun.

The only sad part was that they were never going to do this again.  They have other trips planned, even ones to state parks.  All of them, however, will involve beds in rooms with doors and prepackaged entertainment.  They were only there to earn a badge to sew onto their vests.  This wasn't supposed to be a lifestyle modification hike.  I have hopes that one or two of them will one day return to the woods and enjoy herself.  I'm not holding my breath though.

We finished our hike (3.8 miles) in a little more than 4 hours.  This was a better pace than I had anticipated.

When we got back to camp, the only thing left to do was re-pack the tents, police the area, and dispose of the trash.  The girls would be lunching on the way home.  The moms made them take showers before they would let them into the minivans.  There were outlet malls to visit and they didn't want to be seen with children who had touched mud.

Nathan and I helped pack the tents, directed the policing of the campsites, and said good bye.  The minivans were all ready and it was time to go.  After driving three hours to get home, and picking up my pack and boots from the back of Nathan's car, I turned around to see Susan coming across the street with a giant smile on her face.  She looked pink and happy and smelled like she had been busily toiling all day.  I felt positively blessed.  My daughters love being outside, they rarely complain about anything, they have the right shoes for mud hiking, and they don't think it's a bad thing to have mud in your hair.  Susan not only doesn't mind that I do this kind of stuff, she's a bit jealous that I do it so often.  How could any guy be any more lucky?

-r



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