Take Five, People

I am preparing for the annual camping/sailboat outing which takes place 'out East'.
Or, Indiana.
I believe that after last year's camping infestation of college kids I swore I would never camp again. This may have been a rash statement, made in the throws of sleep deprivation.
Or, I will do anything for a 'mini-vacation'.
Or I have a very bad memory or how uncomfortable I was.
I don't ask anymore. I think it is the pre-Alzhiemers.

Consequently, my brain is not really wanting to focus on much of anything except how to pack three days worth of food into a cooler on ice without poisoning anyone.
So I thought in lieu of a new and entertaining post, I would take you all on a little mini-vacation of your own.

Welcome to the Sailboat Races!

Some of the racers preparing their boats.

 There is a scene in the movie Jaws where everyone is talking all East Coast and the only sounds you hear are the water lapping the shore and sails flapping. I had a very distinct feeling of being right in the middle of this scene while I watched the racers set up. I kept a very trained eye out for that enormous dorsal fin and that guy who likes to grate his fingers down the chalkboard in Chief Brody's office. Oh, and Richard Dreyfus.

More boats. And the tent? This is where the really loud HORN lives.

We were just observers on this particular race day. Hoping to get an idea of how the whole process works. The best I can tell, there is a configuration of buoys which you are expected to sail around.
BUT - you don't start sailing around these buoys until the person in the white tent (see above) sets out a series of flags and blasts an air horn into the peaceful calm at which point I jump and, if in the boat, most likely fall into the lake.

These boats are lined up and ready to race. Or, they are coming across the finish. I don't know. 

The boats are divided up into two categories. Larger, heavier boats and smaller, more petite boats. We would naturally fall into the larger heavier category. I feel slightly insulted. But, the larger heavier boats get to go first so NEENER to all you people who always picked me last in PE.

 I call this Boats. With dock.

Standing on the shore, watching as the various rigs floated away, the race began to look more like people having a lovely afternoon on the lake while I sweated and got bit by flies on the shore. There was no swooshing and near crashing like in America's Cup. Although I did watch one kid lean a little too far over the rail and slide - slow motion - into the lake. His buddy was in complete control of the boat and actually stopped immediately allowing for re-boarding with only a minimal amount of lost time.

Seriously. Beautiful.

We left for home before the races were over. But best as I could tell, we were the only losers, for not having taken our boat and entered too.
Oh well.
Next time.

As God is My Witness, I Will Never Go Camping Again...probably. Except for next year. Or if we sail to the Keyes...

Hello Civilization!

It has taken a week, but I think I have finally recovered from my camping trip. As discussed in the previous post, I have not camped in twenty years. But its just like falling off a bike, you remember the pain.

Here are some highlights:

1. I can not sleep in a sleeping bag. If God had meant us to sleep in a sausage casing he would not have given us four appendages. I gave it my best shot but around 3AM, after sliding off the air mattress for the fifth time my other personality woke up, kicked its way out of the flannel lined sack and let go with a string of expletives that silenced those annoying cicadas. The following night I unzipped the blanket and used it like an enormous blanket. Better but not the deliciously soft cocoon of bedding at the Holiday Inn Express.
2. Two tents are more than enough for 90 college students. Right?
   Of course that's enough because if you are not going to sleep, why waste time putting up a tent. Around 5PM on Saturday we noticed a growing mass of twenty-somethings wandering the campground. Turns out they were planning to go spelunking on Sunday. Plans for Saturday seemed to include walking the campground while eating Doritos, playing Frisbee and congregating in herds of ten to fifteen.
3. If you give left over chicken drummies to a pack of feral students they will love you more than Twitter.
4. Nothing brings out the Old Fart Sweatshirt like a car stereo blasting music at 2AM and nothing stuffs it back into the bag like the conversation of the kids not sleeping five feet from my tent. Seems Becky is willing to try a three-way, but only if she finds the other girl attractive. Good to know, Becky. Now GO TO SLEEP!
5. French Press coffee is delish anywhere and makes you look extra sophisticated. Especially when surrounded by college students drinking Mountain Dew. Sunday morning, the campground resembled a mass casualty drill. Body bags littered the lawn. (There were no tents – see #2) Thank heaven I cooked the bacon on Saturday. I am pretty sure the scent of frying pork fat would have turned my cast iron skillet into ground zero of the Zombie Apocalypse.
6. Clean up and unpacking time from a camping trip is 2:1. For every one day of camping it takes two days to do the laundry and wash up the supplies.
7. I really did have a good time. But I am pretty sure I would have had just as much fun if my tent were more like the Four Seasons. I am willing to seek grant money for the research. 

The real reason for the trip was actually a sailing event – the Lake Monroe Small Boat Messabout. Our fifteen foot sloop handled like a dream. We had great wind on Friday and looked like total professionals. Saturday was pleasant and calmer which was fun for playing chicken with the other sailors. Sunday was calm which made leaving the lake a little easier as it looked like no one was getting the good wind. And like everything...

Here are some of the Sailing Highlights:

1. If I can get hit with the equivalent of a bucket of water I will get hit with the equivalent of a bucket of water. It doesn't matter how fast we are going, how windy it is or how calm the lake is. I still get off the boat looking like the Gorton's Fisherman, without the yellow slicker.
2. Sailing brings out my inner Evil Knievel. I am normally not a thrill seeker but there is something about climbing out onto the bow of the boat that makes me want to go fast. Fast. FAST! I can not begin to describe the sensation of flying across the water, powered silently by the wind in the sheets, the thrill of coming about as the boat dips port or starboard into the water then righting and flying off once again.
3. John Cougar does not appreciate the pop in. (Mr. Cougar has a house right on the banks of Lake Monroe. We sailed back and forth a number of times, shouting and waving. I even sang a chorus of Hurts So Good. But no one ever acknowledged us. Maybe they weren't home.

Even with all the camping. I met some delightful new friends, became reacquainted with some old ones and saw such a sky full of stars that there were no words. Bart and I spent as much time as we could on the water and at the end of the weekend we were planning the next trip out. I guess Rat was right:

Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing -- absolutely nothing -- half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats."
"Simply messing...about in boats -- or with boats... In or out of 'em it doesn't matter. Nothing seems to matter, that's the charm of it. Whether you get away, or whether you don't; whether you arrive at your destination or whether you reach somewhere else, or whether you never get anywhere at all, you're always busy, and you never do anything in particular; and when you've done it there's always something else to do, and you can do it if you like, but you'd much better not." ~The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame

The possibilities are endless...

If you enjoy sailing, have a small boat, are interested in building your own boat or just want to hang with people who know way too much about epoxy then I encourage you to check out the Messabout: https://sites.google.com/site/lakemonroemidwestmessabout/home

This is Why God Invented the Four Seasons

It's that time again. This weekend will be our second outing to the Small Boat Messabout at Lake Monroe, Indiana. Last year we stayed in a 'kitche' motel. This year we are camping.

I have not camped in 20 years.

We camped a lot when I was a kid. We had a pop-up camper which gave us a place to play Crazy Eights when it rained. I loved walking in the woods, alone, daydreaming about all sorts of romantic adventures while listening to the Commodores on my Sony Twist. As I recall, the only job I had back then was gathering firewood. Which usually ended with me dragging half a tree into the campsite and being informed that it was too wet.

I still can't build a fire.

My husband - BART*- was one of those tent campers. The hardcore, no electricity, brush your teeth with water you squeezed from wet tree limbs sort of camper. This is our first attempt at camping as a couple:

If this tent's a rockin' it's because it's about to collapse. Please call 911 or Hotels.com.

If you haven't noticed, the tent is supported by rope over tree branches. Why would this be? Well, it seems we forgot the tent poles. We seemed to remember the rope. We had been married about three months.

It is a wonder we are still speaking.

Our last camping trip was with our children and our beagle. It was dark when we got to the campground. The kids wanted to sleep. The beagle wanted to smell everything within a five mile radius. The campground attendant wanted to run us out of town as – in the dark – we had set up camp in the CLOSED part of the campground. I don't know what his problem was. It wasn't as if he had to vacuum the dirt or rewash the bugs.

So, it is now 20 years later. My list of things to take is three full legal pad pages long, Front and Back. We have discussed the merits of air mattresses. I spent all of last weekend obsessing over what food we would take. I settled on cheese, salami, fruit and veggies for lunches, a hearty soup for dinner #1 and a hearty salsa and jerk chicken for our potluck contribution for dinner #2. I am on the culinary fence for breakfasts. Bart will want to be out in the boat ASAP both days. I will want to enjoy a nice cup of coffee and I will be sad if I get up on Sunday to the smells bacon and pancakes and all I get is a crappy granola bar and some withered up grapes.

As always, Bart was very helpful. He asked, "But don't you want to write a blog called Other People's Bacon?"

I asked him if he packed the tent poles.

Stay tuned for Camping – the sequel.

*BART –  not his real name, is one of the many almost correct but not quite names my Grandpa called my husband whenever they were together. Names have been changed to protect...well, no one really.