Midnight Run
Photos and more Photos of our most recent camping trip to rakkity’s Grok Hill site. Matt, Robby and Joe drove up Friday afternoon after packing for all of thirty minutes. Due to a detour near the shopping center in Keene, they missed the supermarket, and instead bought provisions at a small, mostly liquor, store in Marlow. Adam and I followed Saturday afternoon, and re-provisioned at Shaw’s.
The weather was warm with plenty of rays from the sun , an equal number of mosquitoes, and only the briefest of rain showers. Most of us swam in Spoons Pond – Matt and Robby alone Friday night which always surprises me and I don’t know why.
Adam and I joined the guys Saturday night for dinner and we touched on some interesting topics which included : transsexuals (we all know why that came up), home schooling and transitioning to college, parents, and why the woods offers so much peace.
The funniest lines(paraphrased) of the trip:
Adam: How late were you up? I thought maybe 3 or 4.
Joe: We saw the sun
Matt: We saw it and ran into our tent. You know you’re up too late if you see the sun and hear some crazy-ass birds singing.
One of the arguably funnier (though thankfully unrecorded) moments — me flailing clouds of mosquitoes away with my towel so Mike and I could strip for diving into Spoons without losing pints of blood in the few seconds of nakedness.
Comment by el Kib — May 28, 2007 @ 12:35 pm
We can’t survive standing on the dock fully clothed so we think the best solution is to remove all protection and dive into the water? But for some reason the mosquitoes didn’t wait for our return.
Comment by michael — May 28, 2007 @ 12:46 pm
The pioneer in me loves the wilderness. The princess in me loves creature comforts too much to let my pioneer side indulge itself unless peer pressure intervenes. “So, when’s the next trip?” says the pioneer. “And can we hit Starbucks on the way?” says the princess.
Comment by Jen — May 29, 2007 @ 6:18 am
If Adam makes it, our cowboy/camp coffee is better than Starbucks, and the only creature comfort you leave behind is the queen sized bed.
On this trip, the guys (hard referring to them as boys anymore) created a two tier cooking system. The deep pit which is visible in the photos has an adjacent smaller pit over which sits a double grill for cooking hamburgers (or tofu pups) near the flame while keeping buns warm above. It’s quite ingenious, really, with a connecting tunnel to provide the right amount of oxygen to the cooking section.
Comment by michael — May 29, 2007 @ 8:11 am
Sounds good. I’m in. But I’m bringing my bed.
Comment by Jen — May 29, 2007 @ 9:59 am
I wonder if there’s some ambivalence about making it a multi-gender trip. I mean, a month ago I thought I heard an invitation for the next trip, but then I never heard a date. And my Mummy taught me that if people say “You should come sometime” it doesn’t exactly mean that. And then I noticed that this trip was all guys, and I thought that some of those conversations and activities might have been a little awkward (or quite altered) with people of other genders.
Comment by Jennifer — May 29, 2007 @ 9:27 pm
Fair enough. This turned into a trimmed down trip that didn’t coalesce until the last moment, and partly because of the size, Adam and I hung with Matt and Co. . I suspect more parents (doesn’t matter the gender) means more separation, which is fine.
Comment by michael — May 29, 2007 @ 9:54 pm
Glad to see the log book being perused, and presumably, written into. Next time, how about a shot or two of the log book’s comments?
Those tofu pups sound interesting. What’s the recipe? The Mrs and I do a lot of veggie BBQing.
Comment by rakkityed.schmahl — May 30, 2007 @ 12:11 am
The next time I’m up there I’ll copy Eileen’s return to Grok Hill post.
Comment by michael — May 30, 2007 @ 7:18 am