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(five pages, handwritten) so i haven’t changed the ‘diary’ style.
Marcy Dam, Monday, July 30th
Long day, short night- watched the sun rise around 5:30. easy drive, Berlinetta… approximately 280-300 miles to Lake Placid. Ryan slept the whole way. we had plenty of sandwiches packed; stopped once for gas and eat.
It’s 11:05 by a blazing campfire in front of the lean to (our favorite with the grassy peninsula to Marcy dam lake). The moon is half or less and setting. When we were fishing as it got dark the moon accentuated a complex peak to the south of the dam. Good day. we swam once in the rocky river effluvium- not as cold as i expected. We swam at a sandy beach where it is deep enough to swim out and around. Not going to mess around with the bears this time. too many people hang their food while camping at Marcy for it not to be a wise thing to do. (we lost food even with the bag hanging because the squirrels eat little holes and food drops down). Easy wood gathering. Easy fire start.
Didn’t catch anything with the ‘nightcrawlers’ we got at a corner store. Try again tomorrow as early as possible.
Hamburgers and chicken vegetable soup. Ryan fell asleep about ten-thirty listening to the “Ramayana”. Smoking less.
Tuesday: Up at dawn. Ryan made coffee. Went for food and fished with worms. No luck.
Breakfast: Three eggs and nine bacon, koolaid and milk. Second coffee and clean up on a rainy morning so we made the car trip with empty pack to bring up the rest of the supplies. Spent fifteen minutes on the dry side of a big pine tree… didn’t have time to just stand there waiting so we trudged on up the trail. Ryan had his cheap red poncho so his shoes and his pant legs were soaked. i dressed lite and had left my poncho in the car to come up on the second trip to the parking lot. Anyway, we pressed on in the heavy rain. dried off and changed at the car with the heater on. Went to the “Mountaineer” for boots for Ryan and a better poncho. Closed. We missed by half an hour.
The guy there at the Mountaineer had that bearded skinny intellectual/backpacker i’ve seen about six times up here already. He was also at the Lake Placid Camping Supply place where they also had no boots for ryan. We went to a shoe outlet. Two salesgirls were putting away stock. We asked about the boots. At first, they said no. I said, “They don’t seem to care about children here in Lake Placid.” First one, then the other joined in the search. We had to decide and try on three pairs. they once had a fight over Ryan’s foot. We hurried. Made one more stop for brandy.
Finally, at about 7:30 packed our packs. No rain but got dark on the way up to the dam. Ryan was a little scared once. His new boots of course gave him a nice heel blister on each foot. No fire that night. Read the “Ramayana”. Ryan and I weren’t that hungry and settled for hot chocolate and lemon chicken soup, some candy. Bed at 10:30. I read ’til midnight. No stars.
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Wednesday: Found a blue rock iridescent. Barefoot day for the ‘rock hopper’. He and I went up to the monkey spot. I swam au naturel, ryan had to keep his underpants on. It was really cold this time and we didn’t get past my navel. Remembering when he was two letting him go like some kind of giant frog. It really was freezing then but the kids didn’t mind at all because it was such a sweltering hot day in the sun.
We had started the day late. Woke at 9:30. very stiff even with the air mattress. Breakfast- three eggs, six bacon, coffee and hot chocolate. then, clean-up and shave. first tooth brushing for both of us and vitamins.
Ryan enjoying his book “Nintendo Ninja Gaidan”. Ryan did two mountain watercolors.
Then we gathered some wood. Ryan fished with bacon for bait. 12 ‘apsaras’ swimming when we went to the dam itself to fish. Explored a little before dinner fished and swam at the sandy beach. dinner: rice and chili and hot dogs, tea and cocoa. Some goodies. Problems with chipmunks and squirrels and a bear clawed my pack. Read the “ramayana”, beautiful half moon minus a bit more. Starry night by the campfire. Ryan fell asleep 10:30. Kept fire going until midnight. Went to sleep relaxed.
Thursday: I saw the dawn and rolled over. Ryan made coffee 9:30. Got food, had breakfast after i washed last night’s dishes. Three eggs six bacon three pancakes w/maple syrup, tea, kool aid. Ryan did the dishes then soaked his feet for 35 minutes. we used some hydrogen peroxide on his sores and of course the healing sun. Wash, shave, vitamins etc.. Ryan finishing Gaidan ninja in hammock. Ranger lady came and gave us the usual lecture… “dead and down” for firewood. Deerflies on my ankles won’t let me rest. Swam with raft. picking blueberries by the moss bank shore from the raft. lazy day. Two interloper tents went up on ‘our’ grassy spot. Ryan shy. Dinner: Chili, rice, peppers, biscuits with hot dogs.
Ramayana for ninety minutes. Woke up at 4:00 a.m. coughing…. glad to have the Robitussin for the cough.
Friday: Up at 8:30. Ryan made coffee. I spilled the last three eggs; ate what i could salvage. then we filled up on pancakes and maple syrup, water and milk. the interloping tenters from Montreal left at 11:00 a.m..
After the usual ablutions took off for Avalanche Pass an easy 2.8 miles. ryan went barefoot, I in my sandals. One canteen and a camera. We swam at Avalanche pass from the rocks. No telling how deep it was, like a fjord with cliffs on both sides. I dove down as far as i could go and no bottom. We both swam to the middle of the lake. Awesome, the colors and the light. On the way up we had another swim at monkey pond… shampoo and sunbathing.
we got back around six. Dinner: Hot dogs, stroganoff, noodles with the last of the rice. First canister of fuel for the Coleman stove…. hooked up the second one. Hot chocolate for both of us. Ryan now reading in hammock, “Simon’s Quest”. fire ready at 7:00 p.m.
I was never one who enjoyed camping but it’s always interesting hearing about someone else’s adventures.
LOL … easier to take when it’s someone else’s discomfort, eh?
It’s strange how air mattresses can leave you as crippled as a bad bed, isn’t it? I think that the critical bit is the amount that they’re inflated, and too much is as bad as too little. I’ve not used any of these new self-inflating pads, so I have no idea how well they work.
Don’t even get me started on air mattresses. If your knees go all the way to the tile floor when you get down on one, they are not thick enough for me. Well, at least, not thick enough for an older person with arthritis.
i would love to camp again but i don’t think it would be wise to go alone. there are some good air mattresses out there nowadays where they are full enough to take double knees. they are so heavy though. with a tent and a coleman burner with canisters and food, maybe 80 lbs to carry. well, maybe when i finish losing this 70 lbs i added since i settled down in north hollywood seven years ago. ten pounds a year just eating regularly. now i have to be patient about this aim of mine to lose 70 lbs. i am encouraged by the 20 i lost already so far.
nope. not a gun person. oh, i like them enough but when they are around sooner or later they get used for what they are designed for, putting holes in the living.
“the great trochanter of the femur,” oh yeaaaahhh.
i camped at big sur for a week almost every year since i got here in 2000. i was alone all but one time when i brought with me the mother of my first son who was suffering from alzheimers. at night in the tent with the flaps off she would wake up looking around in wonder at the stars through the netting and say something like “where are we? are we in a boat? i’m colddddd..
Sad and funny at the same time.
i always felt that ‘roughing it’ once a year was very good for the health. i am sure i suffered a lot, but it was for good reason. and with the kids, it was so they could at least experience the night sky. well, and get friendly with snakes and frogs and things that live in the woods. at night you could hear the beavers felling trees with their strong front teeth, then the final crash of the tree into the water.
I remember at about age 14 or 15 going camping with a high school friend and her family. At that age, for me, it was fun and new. My family was not the camping sort, picnics yes, but never camping. Her father and brothers were going boar hunting and we were camping in the desert of Arizona. Wish I could remember where because I know there were trees where are camp was, but desert all around. My friend’s name was Carren. She and I went traipsing way out into the desert and we did not get lost and I know for certain it was because of her. She was always looking over her shoulder to see where a certain hill was. On the other side of that hill was our camp. It never occurred to me to do that but then, I’d never been hunting, hiking or camping.
Reading this again made me remember how delicious breakfasts were when camping with my friend and her family. It must be the cooking over a campfire makes things taste good or something. But then when she and I went hiking all over the desert, the sandwiches we made tasted pretty good too.
I kept wondering what a wild boar looked like and kept thinking we’d run into one. She had her shot gun though and knew how to shoot.
This ‘diary style’ makes me want to look for all the notes I jotted down over the years. I’ve dubbed them ‘notes on the fly’. I’d talk about the people around me and such. Many are/were on paper napkins (those are probably the ones long gone).
i guess being outdoors communing with nature makes me positive and tht affects my appreciation. also, we work up an appetite. ‘notes on the fly’…… i have lots of little boxes full of little notebooks. i keep telling myself that i will sit down and type it all… but i never do.
Got yourself a little snake gun there on your hip, Scott?
The two-knee test is only slightly better than the one-knee test; the area-loading is almost the same. The butt-test is a little more revealing, but the real, true test is lying on one side … you’re spreading the weight, but there are some crucial test points: the iliac crest, the great trochanter of the femur, the elbow, the shoulder and the keys in your pocket. 😀
I don’t mind going alone if I know the area and what I’m likely to encounter (and what’s likely to encounter ME!), but even in such places, I prefer to have a large calibre revolver handy. In unfamiliar places, I’m much more likely to have a rifle along.
derwandersmann,
nope. not a gun person. oh, i like them enough but when they are around sooner or later they get used for what they are designed for, putting holes in the living.
“the great trochanter of the femur,” oh yeaaaahhh.
i camped at big sur for a week almost every year since i got here in 2000. i was alone all but one time when i brought with me the mother of my first son who was suffering from alzheimers. at night in the tent with the flaps off she would wake up looking around in wonder at the stars through the netting and say something like “where are we? are we in a boat? i’m colddddd..
I’d have to have a mule for a pack that big! Or a llama. 😀
now why didn’t i think of that? it must have weighed a hundred pounds. i couldn’t do that now. now, i will camp beside the car if i can find a nice place. somewhere in big sur of course.