On June 23 I will have that on the previous Friday between two and 330 I grab stuff to camp from dad, packed the car, texted my friend and then drove over the hill to the Mission.
She had done a lot of packing and only a little shopping. We put things in the car. Our companions for the trip had dropped off the biggest tent ever two days before. We put it in the car before I dropped her at Costco and Safeway. I then waited while she put so much stuff in the car we ran out of room.
As I didn’t know where we were going really, we went the long way and I had a lot of trouble with the drive. The highway was not really hard but after crossing Skyline Boulevard but going down to the State Park was really scary at sunset. The car was really noisy.
I found our campsite as the sun was going down. Big place in blue Creek is in a deep Valley and the trees are huge so the light was failing fast. I dumped everything out while my friend quietly watched.
Our companions drove up moments later. They had had to register for the site. They built the tent and the ladies occupied the center of the site and could be heard a mile away. I got some fresh air and we made noise well into the night.
When the tent went up, we put the mattresses in, opened our bags and then we settled in. When we were ready for bed, I left the ladies to talk but they slept moments later.
It was really cold that night. I woke to everyone getting up. There was an effort to make coffee - the dehydrated kind. My friend had signaled she would pass but later she asked for some. She made basic food for all of us - croissants, cheese and a few other things.
We were lazy after that. While we quietly inspected the nearby forest and creek, we didn’t do much else. We were starting to get dirty. I remember noting dirt on my clothes and we even had to change. The spigot was a source of some of the mess.
Our companions started making tacos at one point. When everyone else was throwing stuff in the creek, I had to go to headquarters because I had to get a ticket on my car. I walked over and came back with a bit of coffee from the general store.
Later I convinced one of our companions to quietly walk over to headquarters with me. It was remarkably easy. We stopped at a quiet grove of trees to have a beer and enjoy the air. We then went to headquarters and look at the exhibits. We quietly had ice cream and made another stop on the way back.
My friend greeted us. We drank some of the tequila. A couple of us ran back to headquarters for firewood and ice. It was really heroic and possibly unnecessary. Back at the camp we started eating a third round of tacos. We made tequila drinks and tacos around the fire.
When we wound down, things were easy and all of us went to bed around 1030. I got up twice. It wasn’t especially cold. In the morning we ate potatoes and had more freeze dried coffee. The morning went all right but we needed to pack quickly.
I made tidied and broke down our stuff and packed the car. After our departure, our companions followed us to the highway along a one lane road. We waved at them as we drove away. I had wanted to go to a famous restaurant to get a cup of coffee but we drove all the way to the city.
This is an occasional series chronicling my life. This Notebook Analysis series is meant to be contemporaneous piece developed as an agglomeration of my notebook pages. In each of these posts I used my notes to develop my recent thoughts.
