The Dumbest Camper
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After roofing my friend's house in the middle of a Montana summer, not too hot, only about 90 degrees or so. Still, that is too hot for most people who live in Montana. We, my friends and I (which counted as four) decided that to relax we would head out of town to the cool embrace of trees and the soft gurgling of a slow moving creek for six days. My friend, who had just finished conning us to help him re-roof his house (reminiscent of Tom Sawyer), knew just the spot. The same spot that he and his family took weeklong outings to when he was a child. Since it was hot, and we were bored, and still in our teens, it was a perfect idea. (A perfect idea is one that this particular friend would make that sounded like a good idea) So we divvied up our change, pooled our paychecks, and went shopping. Myself, since I camped whole bunches as a child with my family, had a general idea of what to bring, what not to bring, what was necessary, and what the heck, it might come in handy. Bro, my friend, had a good level head, common sense you might say, and so he devised a list of what he should bring. He and I took some time and discussed various accoutrements and finally agreed on a list, which contained the following: toilet paper. We figured the rest of the stuff we could pick up at the store. Well our friend (and I am purposefully keeping his name out of this as he might read it, then give me a severe heiny-paddling) decided to put himself in charge of what to bring. The ideas of his are as follows: We don't need tents, its too hot to rain and we should sleep under the stars we should only pack enough food for one meal a day each; after all we are roughing it okay, only two ideas but thank god we only listened to the food one, cause, as we campers all know, IT WILL RAIN! So Bro and myself packed a tent each, old junky throwbacks to the LSD age where new age materials referred to the freaky clothes people wore. But hey, mom and dad bought them on sale at Kmart on blue light special (yes we had Kmarts back then in Montana) so they had to be good. So with all our gear packed, and the toilet paper checked regularly (ever try using moss....ewwwww) and the limited supply of food we set out camping, five hours late due to our friend not getting up until 2PM. Great start here. We finally get out to the Pintlar area off of the Big Hole river, its hot, we're tired of being cramped in a truck held together with bailing wire and duct tape (I seriously am not making that one up...it was Bro's truck...that should explain everything...if you knew Bro), and we are ready to stretch our legs. We gather firewood; well Bro, Brian, and myself gather firewood while the friend surveys the camp for signs of use. He's very possessive of government-controlled land that his family camped on. And of course finds the ever-present beer can and throws a fit. "People can't take care of a campsite should not be camping." We sluff his ranting off and continue to do the work while he putts around. Finally all the wood is gathered. Nice dry wood. Nice coal building wood. Nice breakable tinder and kindling. So the friend, after all the wood is gathered, decides that HE is going to build the fire. He brags how his family showed him how to build a one-match fire. A fire built by scratching only one match. So he carefully gathers the kindling in the center of the fire pit that he dug out. A fire pit that you could bury a corpse in, it was so deep. Everything is nicely set up; the paper crumpled ever so carefully, the wood in a nice conical design. He gathered all of us up to watch him light a one-match fire. And with a grin on his face, he struck the one match. Five matches later a small wisp of smoke rises out of the fire pit. It soon catches onto the small sticks of kindling and with careful determination the friend blows on it and snuffs it out. Frustrated he puts more kindling on then tries again...and again...and again...and again... you get the idea. We eventually coax him to a standing position and Bro gives it a shot. But wait there is a catch. Our friend does NOT want the hole he dug filled in; it has to be that deep. So Bro leaves it that deep and finally gets a decent flame built, but we have to keep blowing on it because no air can fuel the fire. What a grand thing. So we blow on it and try to keep our pitiful little flame alive long enough to get a nice set of coals because by this time we are starving. The fire eventually gets high enough where Bro and I can now pitch out poor excuses for tents. While we are doing this, the friend decides to feed the fire with wood that he just gathered. You know, green (still wet from being ALIVE), not dry, wood. We, as normal thinking human beings ask him, "Why the heck are you putting green wood on the fire?" He answers matter-of-factly, "I want to burn up all the green wood before we start burning the dry wood." What??? How could an experienced camper as our friend let us to believe he was, think that we could actually burn wet wood? In a two foot hole? Without a nice bed of hot coals? Oh my god! So he plops this nice thick green log on the fire and of course the fire goes out. What a surprise. By this time Bro, Brian, and myself have opened up a bag of chips and have momentarily satiated our hunger while our friend blows on the fire, cursing its existence, and telling us that he cannot figure out why the rackin-frackin thing keeps going out. (Rackin-frackin is not the terms he quite used but this is a family website I am submitting to) So the whole first day of camping was spent watching him blow in to the fire pit, trying to get a nice flame going. Why flame? Because that is how our friend thinks food is cooked Not over hot coals, but over large flames. Inevitably he blows enough on the fire to make these super magical large flames and the grill is then placed over the fire and our friend throws a couple hamburger patties on the grill. When the outside of the hamburgers are brown he takes a bun, puts the two patties on the bun, douses the patties with ketchup and mustard, then takes a big ol' bite. Surprise surprise, the hamburger is still raw. "Oh I like it raw sometimes," he said as he polished off the burger. "You guys want one?" We talked a bit and decided that salmonella was a bad thing when a hundred miles away from a hospital. So we ate more chips. Next day, Bro and I woke up early and filled the fire pit in a bit and spaced the rocks a bit farther apart, allowing that much more needed air in to feed the fire. We broke up the dry stuff, sawed and axed the thicker portions and made a nice breakfast cooking blaze. Took all of one hour to have nice cooking coals and then we made omelets. Mmmmmmm.....omelets. Brian woke up right after we finished our food so I cooked him an omelet as well. He enjoyed it. Then the three of us-our friend, sleeping in his sleeping bag a bit away from the fire pit-drank some coffee for a couple more hours and enjoyed the morning. Our friend woke up and wondered where his omelet was. He stared at me indignantly and I simply stated that if he could not wake up before noon, after all the cookware and eating utensils were cleaned, I was not going to dirty them up again to make him breakfast. So he used the cookware himself, cooked some runny eggs, and half raw bacon while the rest of us went fishing. When we got back we noticed our friend down by the creek with the cookware, cast iron skillet, scrubbing it with handfuls of sand and rinsing it in the creek. His explanation was that was how the settlers washed their dishes. Dammit, we aren't settlers, and I am not going to buy another set of cast iron cookware just because he is too lazy to heat water and use soap. So the day wanes by, he leading us on hikes through the Pintlar Mountain Range, which I must say was a beautiful excursion. He did know his way around the mountains, which was about the only thing he knew. So by the time night fell, and we came back to camp, we were all hungry. Of course our friend, before heading out on this FUN trip, only wanted to buy enough food for one meal a day. Needless to say he was the first one to dig into the food and rustle up some grub...just as soon as Bro and I built the fire. (We thought it best to be in charge of that since dingleberry couldn't light a fire in a methane factory) So the friend cooked himself a nice portion of hash, which consisted of a two pounds of hamburger, diced onions, green peppers, a couple slices of bacon, and lots of potatoes. He ate his fill and still there was enough left over to feed the rest of us. Knowing that our food supply was small, we tried not to eat anything, but the smell of food, the lure of the rumbly in our tumblies, we ate. The feeling was this: Try to keep your arm when feeding a nice steak to a starved tiger. On the third day we ate breakfast again... SURPRISE our friend woke up on time to have someone else cook his breakfast. We sipped on the coffee for a couple more hours...enjoying the sun peaking through the thick cloud cover and when the thunder hit, Bro and I ran for our small, Kmart tents while our friend dove for cover into the truck. Brian packed up his sleeping bag, threw it in a garbage sack, and then dove for Bro's truck. Bro and I were really surprise that our tents did not leak... much... during the several hour downpour. And when it was all over...and we poked our heads into a wet wilderness, we were amazed to see that it was evening, the fire was out-typical of most rainstorms-and the spot where our friend's sleeping bag lay, was a large clump of bloated soaked material. When our friend asked Brian wherein his sleeping bag was, Brian nonchalantly picked up a tied garbage bag and pulled out a perfectly dry, dark blue, mummy bag. Now hungry by this time, our friend reached into the cooler to pull out some hamburger. Surprise...it's all gone from last nights feast. He pulls out the grocery sacks, all that is left is six eggs, a few shavings of cheese, a little bit of diced onion and green peppers, and a whole loaf of bread. Thank god Bro and I had the good sense to hide a bag of chips. So we made chip sandwiches that night and talked about going home since we were out of food, and our friend's sleeping bag was soaked. Our friend, however, said nay. The settlers did not have a choice on going home, so we should just rough it. Tighten our belts and stick to it. First off the settlers had something we teenagers did not. Rifles. And the ability to shoot an animal without being sent up the river. Fishing was out of the question until the next day, but Bro hates fish and he would rather starve. Me... I have a four fish limit, I eat the four fish I catch that way my truck never gets smelly from dead fish on the long journey home. So our friend tries to wheedle out of either Bro or I our sleeping bags. His reasoning: You two have tents; all I have is a wet sleeping bag. Our reasoning: Be prepared. If you no prepare, you suffer! The third night was spent with Bro and I in our respective tents, big enough for just one person each...barely...Brian on the now dry ground in a warm sleeping bag, and our friend in the truck, cramped between the gearshift and the steering wheel. The morning after saw us end our planned six-day trip on the fourth day. Tired and hungry, we packed up our gear and headed home, but only after our friend filled in the fire pit, and spread the wood that we gathered away from the campsite. He did not want anyone else camping there. Like spreading the wood around would stop anyone from camping. Sheesh! On the way back to town he said that we should not have eaten the food as much as we did, we said that we should have bought more food, but he disagreed. Well the point was moot and for the next hour and a half of driving, no one spoke. We were just too damned tired. Lessons learned: Pack enough food to eat every day. Pack a good tent. Pack a good sleeping bag. Be in charge of the fire, the cooking, and the cleaning. In other words, leave the friend behind. |
