05.29.2003 - 10:23 p.m.

When my parents asked where I was going with all that camping gear I was digging out of the storage space I answered, �Dolly something, I forget. I think Beth said it was in Virginia, or something. I dunno, I�m not in charge of navigation.�

Sometimes its important to be a little vague with the parental units. Otherwise they worry unnecessarily about wilderness areas where the maps are admittedly inaccurate, or about former military test areas full of old mortars. Or about bears and careless hunters. Really very silly things to worry about; if this weekend had killed me it would have been a fall off of a slippery hill.

(This is where we went. As you may be able to tell, I had no internet access over the weekend.)

******

On the first day of the backpacking trip you think it�s the coolest thing ever that you have to travel half a mile up the river/creek before you find a place where you can ford it.

On the second day you wake up just stiff enough that your morning stretch is a religious experience. You have to adjust your straps so they miss the bruised areas from yesterday. By midafternoon you want to stop, to rest, to cry, but you do none of these things because you know there is one and only one way out: to carry everything you have over whatever lies between you and your car within the next twenty-four hours. Then there is the potholed access road and the four-hour drive back to Maryland. After that, you can sleep. If you�ve aired out your tent, of course, but yeah, then you can sleep. So get the fuck up and keep walking.

On the second night you wake up wincing every time you shift in your sleep. By the third day, you hoist your pack onto your shoulders with grim economy, because you can�t spare the energy to lift those thirty-five pounds even a fraction of an inch higher than necessary, and also because in that instant where the pack is at its highest, it is possible to rest it on your shoulders the way you place a saddle on a horse, adding the weight with a minimum of impact.

On the fourth day you want to do it again. After you air out your tent, anyway.

-stonebridge

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