Big Sigh
I got auto-enlisted a few months ago. Kathleen pointed out to me that I’d be going with Mitchell on the camping trip sometime in June. Camping in Big Sur.
Sure thing. I’ll go camping. No problemo. Sounds fun. Hmmm….
Essentially I didn’t think much about the trip. I’ve been busy slacking around the house. As the date loomed I resolutely did not imagine what the experience would be like and simply assumed things would work out.
Suddenly the trip was tomorrow.
That afternoon we hit the store for supplies though most food would be provided. Kathleen had me develop a small arsenal of sandwiches and snacks. Let's see... a slab of ham or sliced ham? Big decisions when roughing it.
That night Mitchell was excited and I felt a twinge myself. We rushed some stuff in bags. Up early we stuffed a few extras in the car and off to school.
Driving along to Mitch's school I thought to myself... Hey we're going to be sleeping in a tent.... It’s been a while since I slept in a tent. In fact we were sleeping in a borrowed tent. One that I hadn’t even seen before.
See I’m not big on sleeping in tents.
When I was a young tyke camping typically meant pitching a junior pup tent outside the front of my parents summer house in King Ferry. Flashlight in hand, door flap facing the porch with the light splaying out the wall of glass, I still felt a little uneasy.
I spent too much time being homesick as a kid. Afraid of the dark, the unknown.
I was so anxious and homesick that my method of resignation from summer swimming camp was simply to walk off. The camp was just down the road from our summer house. The road was the old railroad line at the base of Cayuga lake in King Ferry. About ¼ mile from our stairs up to the house. I went to camp for a day or two and quickly came to the realization that I hated it. One day Colin and I agreed we didn’t like it there and we simply up and walked out. We knew we could walk home and we didn’t like the camp so we did.
Except that some counselor called me back and I got embarrassed and upset. I think they called my mom. I don’t think I had to finish the swimming camp.
The tent in front of the porch was more manageable. But I don’t think I finished a night there either. I love the house. I love King Ferry. I love the lake.
I don't love sleeping in tents.
Fast forward to spring of 1978. My family had moved to London for a year. London sucked. I hated school. I hated being away from my friends. The place was hostile and strange. At the end of that hateful year my Dad took us all on a motor tour of Europe in a tiny camper. Slept 4. We were 5.
I didn’t fit in the camper (see I had already surpassed 6 feet the year before) and had to pitch a tent nearly every night of the trip. I could get it set up inside of 5 minutes. It was an interesting compromise because I had a modicum of privacy at the expense of sleeping on the ground. That was the most time I ever spent in a tent, a tent experience riddled with ambivalence.
Fast forward another 9 years and I was driving across the country on my motorcycle, tent strapped to my sissy bar. I slept in that tent one night. The rest of the way was in cheap hotels. I even brought my bike in with me one night to keep me company.
I’m not big on tents.
That one night on the bike trip was the last time I slept in a tent.
Now Big Sur is deliciously close to our house in Carmel Valley, about a 45 minute drive and resplendent with the amazing pacific coast. Mitchell and I towed one of his classmates, Stefan, and they played a homegrown version of draw poker in the back seat whilst I took glimpses of the morning light bouncing off the kelp forests swirling in the frothy morning tides of the pacific as I swerved gently around Highway 1's rollercoaster curves.
On sight of our first redwoods I announced we were close. We pulled up and Mitch's teacher, Jen Simmons, and I negotiated the logistics with the folks at the gate of the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park Campgrounds. Jen is not new at this trip. She has taken many a class here and gets the highest marks in my book as teacher/adventuress. The kids adore her and its understandable. She is experienced, fiercely fair, mothering and liberating. They're lucky brats.
The camp ground is essentially 200 slots meandering through the redwoods along a small valley stream that runs roughly inland from 1. Redwoods here hit about 200 feet. The park is busy with campers and 95% occupied. Campers, tents, trailers and now 21 screaming 11 year olds. I had no fear of bear attacks that night I can tell you. They must have hightailed it into the next county.
Mitch and I found a spot. Struggled only modestly on tent pitching and voila! We're camping!
A quick lunch of our hamsteaks and Jungle Jen asked me to assist in scouting the swimming hole. She drives a pickup. We found the spot and deemed it traversable. Returning to the campsite I realized our tent needed some repairs along the front flap zipper.
After some careful adjustments it proceeded to split completely leaving the front door of the tent wide open. Well after some considerable zipper arm wrestling I got it into a semi-sufficient state of closure. I noted that we best keep anything remotely edible in the car.
Snacks were relocated. In mid hatch closing I heard a scream. Campers flew in. Apparently our intrepid forest explorers had already discovered a wasps nest and already managed to annoy the occupants. Here I was worried about the elderly couple down the way.
Turns our young Brooke, a cute little blondie, had been stung four times. Sting swabs were had and after tears and careful ministrations the patient was back on her feet.
We collected the other campers and headed off to swim hole.
It was a lovely walk through the forest setting.
The swimming hole was clearly not well known. Tucked away in a twist in the Big Sur river, literally off the beaten path, the place was completely empty despite the packed campground. Sweet.
The kids slipped in, screaming at the cold temperature but immediately took to the slab of rock that was just below the water's surface and served as an excellent launching pad for cannonballs, general pushing and shoving.
That's Mitch on the right.
One of Mitch's classmates, Jessie, was accompanied by his mom, Jenny. Jenny is a nice lady, slightly shy, who works down at our local joint, the Running Iron, as a bartender. She had brought along some free Budweiser promotional swag, an inflatable raft that appeared to look like a jet-ski.
Imagine a large, inflatable, striped silver log with squishy handlebars and "Bud Light" on the side. The marketing pros at corporate clearly hadn't personally tested this contraption. Sure it looked impressive but...
OK an inflatable raft is flat right? A pool float is basically something you can lie back on. This device was almost perfectly cylindrical. You ever see Canadian log rollers? It clearly took every ounce of these kids strength to stay on top of this bastard.
Basic rider position was to lay on top of it and clutch each side with arms and legs straddling it like Ann Margaret hugging her bean covered pillow in Tommy. The thing was a torture device. Each kid who tried invariably grappled with intense energy, spun and quickly ended upside down in the water.
They loved it.
Each emerged eventually, shivering but smiling. We headed back to camp.
I arrived to discover that I couldn't create a tent ingress without zipper wrestling and destruction. More snacks were had and we were off to play softball.
Galen's mom, Meredith, was hyper-equipped with every supply imaginable including a small walkie-talkie so that I could radio our location. She's sweet and did a marvelous job being the camp mom.
That blur on the left is her.
The softball field was looping 3/4 mile hike. Mitch and I got picked on different teams. I played right field. I had my camera out taking a shot of Mitchell batting and he hit it right at me. I was literally in mid-snap and had to hustle the camera in my pocket to make the play. Look closely and you'll see the ball hitting the dirt hurtling towards me at the very top of the shot.
This park is beautiful. Fields, redwoods, green mountains. Idyllic.
Mitch is on Second.
On the bench Jen relates the following. Brooke's dad, Ron, was playing out in left field. Turns out his mother owned the property on which this whole campground sits. She had so sell it to the state a few dozen years ago to pay off a $400 tax debt.
We're about an hour into the game when a geezer comes by to tell us we have to vacate. They're watering down the dusty diamond for league play. We hustle over about 100 feet and continue play for another half hour.
League play? Here?
The game finished we hike back tired but elated. I got two hits, so did Mitch. I haven't played softball in too many years. We walk back and Jen takes the wrong road. I call out to point this out and she doesn't hear me. I thought about it and decided to just go with the flow. Jenny, walking nearby, agreed. We had to turn around a few minutes later. Jenny laughed. I felt deeply satisfied just walking around.
In Big Sur no direction is the wrong way.
We got back and dinner was cooking. Mark and Leslie Trapin came down to join their boy Jackson. It was Leslie's birthday. We helped with the dinner prep.
I coulda used a beer right then but the "root" variety sufficed. Grilled meats and good cheer around a campfire. It didn't suck.
Jenny seated right. Galen's dad, Scott, standing left.
Shortly after the meal Mitch came running over. "Guess who's here!" Turns out it's Kelsey's friend Alex spending the night with her class. She's a sweet kid and seeing her there made me feel even more at home. Hey I actually live here.
Mark and I manned the S'mores station. Mitchell had 4.
The sun was setting through the trees. The fire was warm. Jen rounded kids up for sleep. Mitch headed into the tent and immediately passed out. I did another round of zipper flaying. Darkness descended but I decided to join Scott by the fire. He's a good bloke. We had a very nice chat and it became truly dark.
Another of Mitchell's classmates, Alejandro, was sleeping in a tent nearby. Jen had noted that it was his first time camping ever, and he was by himself in a tent, at night.
He turned up at our fire. "I can't sleep. I'm kinda scared. Why don't we just sit here all night?"
Scott and I had a good chuckle and went through about 4 rounds of attempting to get him in bed. Finally no repeat visitation.
We chatted about our boys and politics. There's a gratifyingly large democratic population out here. The evening wound down. The smoke wafted gently. The heat on our feet comforting. We called it a night.
As we stood Alejandro called out from his tent "You guys asleep yet?" waking nearly everyone within a hundred yards.
I slept relatively well but damn it got cold. Probably upper 30's. That said....
Maybe this tent stuff isn't so bad.
The bugle played at 5:30. We had a nice breakfast courtesy of Meredith. Broke camp and headed out by 7am. Mitchell and class went bird-banding. I headed to Oakland for a job interview more determined than ever to never move from here.
Sure thing. I’ll go camping. No problemo. Sounds fun. Hmmm….
Essentially I didn’t think much about the trip. I’ve been busy slacking around the house. As the date loomed I resolutely did not imagine what the experience would be like and simply assumed things would work out.
Suddenly the trip was tomorrow.
That afternoon we hit the store for supplies though most food would be provided. Kathleen had me develop a small arsenal of sandwiches and snacks. Let's see... a slab of ham or sliced ham? Big decisions when roughing it.
That night Mitchell was excited and I felt a twinge myself. We rushed some stuff in bags. Up early we stuffed a few extras in the car and off to school.
Driving along to Mitch's school I thought to myself... Hey we're going to be sleeping in a tent.... It’s been a while since I slept in a tent. In fact we were sleeping in a borrowed tent. One that I hadn’t even seen before.
See I’m not big on sleeping in tents.
When I was a young tyke camping typically meant pitching a junior pup tent outside the front of my parents summer house in King Ferry. Flashlight in hand, door flap facing the porch with the light splaying out the wall of glass, I still felt a little uneasy.
I spent too much time being homesick as a kid. Afraid of the dark, the unknown.
I was so anxious and homesick that my method of resignation from summer swimming camp was simply to walk off. The camp was just down the road from our summer house. The road was the old railroad line at the base of Cayuga lake in King Ferry. About ¼ mile from our stairs up to the house. I went to camp for a day or two and quickly came to the realization that I hated it. One day Colin and I agreed we didn’t like it there and we simply up and walked out. We knew we could walk home and we didn’t like the camp so we did.
Except that some counselor called me back and I got embarrassed and upset. I think they called my mom. I don’t think I had to finish the swimming camp.
The tent in front of the porch was more manageable. But I don’t think I finished a night there either. I love the house. I love King Ferry. I love the lake.
I don't love sleeping in tents.
Fast forward to spring of 1978. My family had moved to London for a year. London sucked. I hated school. I hated being away from my friends. The place was hostile and strange. At the end of that hateful year my Dad took us all on a motor tour of Europe in a tiny camper. Slept 4. We were 5.
I didn’t fit in the camper (see I had already surpassed 6 feet the year before) and had to pitch a tent nearly every night of the trip. I could get it set up inside of 5 minutes. It was an interesting compromise because I had a modicum of privacy at the expense of sleeping on the ground. That was the most time I ever spent in a tent, a tent experience riddled with ambivalence.
Fast forward another 9 years and I was driving across the country on my motorcycle, tent strapped to my sissy bar. I slept in that tent one night. The rest of the way was in cheap hotels. I even brought my bike in with me one night to keep me company.
I’m not big on tents.
That one night on the bike trip was the last time I slept in a tent.
Now Big Sur is deliciously close to our house in Carmel Valley, about a 45 minute drive and resplendent with the amazing pacific coast. Mitchell and I towed one of his classmates, Stefan, and they played a homegrown version of draw poker in the back seat whilst I took glimpses of the morning light bouncing off the kelp forests swirling in the frothy morning tides of the pacific as I swerved gently around Highway 1's rollercoaster curves.
On sight of our first redwoods I announced we were close. We pulled up and Mitch's teacher, Jen Simmons, and I negotiated the logistics with the folks at the gate of the Pfeiffer Big Sur State Park Campgrounds. Jen is not new at this trip. She has taken many a class here and gets the highest marks in my book as teacher/adventuress. The kids adore her and its understandable. She is experienced, fiercely fair, mothering and liberating. They're lucky brats.
The camp ground is essentially 200 slots meandering through the redwoods along a small valley stream that runs roughly inland from 1. Redwoods here hit about 200 feet. The park is busy with campers and 95% occupied. Campers, tents, trailers and now 21 screaming 11 year olds. I had no fear of bear attacks that night I can tell you. They must have hightailed it into the next county.
Mitch and I found a spot. Struggled only modestly on tent pitching and voila! We're camping!
A quick lunch of our hamsteaks and Jungle Jen asked me to assist in scouting the swimming hole. She drives a pickup. We found the spot and deemed it traversable. Returning to the campsite I realized our tent needed some repairs along the front flap zipper.
After some careful adjustments it proceeded to split completely leaving the front door of the tent wide open. Well after some considerable zipper arm wrestling I got it into a semi-sufficient state of closure. I noted that we best keep anything remotely edible in the car.
Snacks were relocated. In mid hatch closing I heard a scream. Campers flew in. Apparently our intrepid forest explorers had already discovered a wasps nest and already managed to annoy the occupants. Here I was worried about the elderly couple down the way.
Turns our young Brooke, a cute little blondie, had been stung four times. Sting swabs were had and after tears and careful ministrations the patient was back on her feet.
We collected the other campers and headed off to swim hole.
It was a lovely walk through the forest setting.
The swimming hole was clearly not well known. Tucked away in a twist in the Big Sur river, literally off the beaten path, the place was completely empty despite the packed campground. Sweet.
The kids slipped in, screaming at the cold temperature but immediately took to the slab of rock that was just below the water's surface and served as an excellent launching pad for cannonballs, general pushing and shoving.
That's Mitch on the right.
One of Mitch's classmates, Jessie, was accompanied by his mom, Jenny. Jenny is a nice lady, slightly shy, who works down at our local joint, the Running Iron, as a bartender. She had brought along some free Budweiser promotional swag, an inflatable raft that appeared to look like a jet-ski.
Imagine a large, inflatable, striped silver log with squishy handlebars and "Bud Light" on the side. The marketing pros at corporate clearly hadn't personally tested this contraption. Sure it looked impressive but...
OK an inflatable raft is flat right? A pool float is basically something you can lie back on. This device was almost perfectly cylindrical. You ever see Canadian log rollers? It clearly took every ounce of these kids strength to stay on top of this bastard.
Basic rider position was to lay on top of it and clutch each side with arms and legs straddling it like Ann Margaret hugging her bean covered pillow in Tommy. The thing was a torture device. Each kid who tried invariably grappled with intense energy, spun and quickly ended upside down in the water.
They loved it.
Each emerged eventually, shivering but smiling. We headed back to camp.
I arrived to discover that I couldn't create a tent ingress without zipper wrestling and destruction. More snacks were had and we were off to play softball.
Galen's mom, Meredith, was hyper-equipped with every supply imaginable including a small walkie-talkie so that I could radio our location. She's sweet and did a marvelous job being the camp mom.
That blur on the left is her.
The softball field was looping 3/4 mile hike. Mitch and I got picked on different teams. I played right field. I had my camera out taking a shot of Mitchell batting and he hit it right at me. I was literally in mid-snap and had to hustle the camera in my pocket to make the play. Look closely and you'll see the ball hitting the dirt hurtling towards me at the very top of the shot.
This park is beautiful. Fields, redwoods, green mountains. Idyllic.
Mitch is on Second.
On the bench Jen relates the following. Brooke's dad, Ron, was playing out in left field. Turns out his mother owned the property on which this whole campground sits. She had so sell it to the state a few dozen years ago to pay off a $400 tax debt.
We're about an hour into the game when a geezer comes by to tell us we have to vacate. They're watering down the dusty diamond for league play. We hustle over about 100 feet and continue play for another half hour.
League play? Here?
The game finished we hike back tired but elated. I got two hits, so did Mitch. I haven't played softball in too many years. We walk back and Jen takes the wrong road. I call out to point this out and she doesn't hear me. I thought about it and decided to just go with the flow. Jenny, walking nearby, agreed. We had to turn around a few minutes later. Jenny laughed. I felt deeply satisfied just walking around.
In Big Sur no direction is the wrong way.
We got back and dinner was cooking. Mark and Leslie Trapin came down to join their boy Jackson. It was Leslie's birthday. We helped with the dinner prep.
I coulda used a beer right then but the "root" variety sufficed. Grilled meats and good cheer around a campfire. It didn't suck.
Jenny seated right. Galen's dad, Scott, standing left.
Shortly after the meal Mitch came running over. "Guess who's here!" Turns out it's Kelsey's friend Alex spending the night with her class. She's a sweet kid and seeing her there made me feel even more at home. Hey I actually live here.
Mark and I manned the S'mores station. Mitchell had 4.
The sun was setting through the trees. The fire was warm. Jen rounded kids up for sleep. Mitch headed into the tent and immediately passed out. I did another round of zipper flaying. Darkness descended but I decided to join Scott by the fire. He's a good bloke. We had a very nice chat and it became truly dark.
Another of Mitchell's classmates, Alejandro, was sleeping in a tent nearby. Jen had noted that it was his first time camping ever, and he was by himself in a tent, at night.
He turned up at our fire. "I can't sleep. I'm kinda scared. Why don't we just sit here all night?"
Scott and I had a good chuckle and went through about 4 rounds of attempting to get him in bed. Finally no repeat visitation.
We chatted about our boys and politics. There's a gratifyingly large democratic population out here. The evening wound down. The smoke wafted gently. The heat on our feet comforting. We called it a night.
As we stood Alejandro called out from his tent "You guys asleep yet?" waking nearly everyone within a hundred yards.
I slept relatively well but damn it got cold. Probably upper 30's. That said....
Maybe this tent stuff isn't so bad.
The bugle played at 5:30. We had a nice breakfast courtesy of Meredith. Broke camp and headed out by 7am. Mitchell and class went bird-banding. I headed to Oakland for a job interview more determined than ever to never move from here.
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