2scoops vs the elements

“im not one for writing trip reports but here goes: the original intent was to backpack 10-20 miles of the tecumseh trail, starting at the southern trailhead by yellowwood state forest. that trail turned out to be disappointing. i was already dismayed by the rain, but not enough to turn me around. what turned me around was, 2 miles in, and i had already done over a mile of trail that was nothing more than old logging road that someone blazed and called it the tecumseh trail. the hike started out nice, i saw a couple of box turtles and four white-tail deer. but it wasnt enough. so after 2 miles i turned it around, and after much deliberation, decided to head to nearby deam wilderness in hooser national forest.

i decided on taking the peninsula trail to lake monroe, and see if the one campsite ive been coveting was finally free. so, after initially driving to the wrong trailhead, i got started on the correct trailhead, only to slip and fall the second i step foot on the trail. oh yea, it was muddy. it was muddy sloppy muddy all the way down the four miles to the lake. especially at the end. horses have tore that place up, and since it just rained, well, ask cmb what its like. i get to the lake, and ive got a whole mile section of lakeshore to myself, except for the fishermen. the lake was pretty high, and the area i wanted to camp in was under water. but i did find a good site near the tip of the peninsula. once i got camps set up, i took the opportunity to get my first skinny-dip of the year in. the water was cold, so it didnt last long. i lounged about and read for awhile, no campfire. temps were perfect even if the weather overall wasnt. it had stopped raining before i hit the trail in the deam, but that wasnt a permanent respite. sometime after sunset i saw a storm system coming in from the west. turned out it was mostly wind, very little rain or lightning. but what it lacked in the latter two, it more than made up for in the wind department. im no meteorologist, but the wind was strong enough to rock the tent with me in it, so im guessing 40 mph? well it eventually died down and i fell asleep. typically, when i backpack solo, my dreams tend to be a continuation of my reality where i was when i fell asleep. this time was no different. i dreamed that when i awoke, i discovered i had been kidnapped and taken to virginia just outside of d.c. (why, i have no idea) and they were hiding my tent from me. my tent is a walrus rapide (thanks mike!) and i was going around saying "wheres my walrus?". it seemed so real. i was getting really pissed, but realized i was dreaming and made myself wake up. it was bizarre. but i digress. anyway, the next morning the winds were even stronger, and this time it was purely wind, no rain, no lightning, nothing. i packed up inside my tent, and once i got out of the tent, it tried several times to blow away, even with a loaded pack in it. once, when empty, it succeeded in completely escaping the campsite before being stopped by a tree, or id still be chasing it now. needless to say, breaking camp was not fun. so i got out of there, put up with four miles of mud and slop, and hiked back to the car. the end.”

“Damn. I thought this was going to be like
There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium,
And hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium,
And nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium,
And iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium,
Europium, zirconium, lutetium, vanadium,
And lanthanum and osmium and astatine and radium,
And gold, protactinium and indium and gallium,
And iodine and thorium and thulium and thallium.

There's yttrium, ytterbium, actinium, rubidium,
And boron, gadolinium, niobium, iridium,
There's strontium and silicon and silver and samarium,
And bismuth, bromine, lithium, beryllium, and barium.

Isn't that interesting?
I knew you would.
I hope you're all taking notes, because there's going to be a short
quiz next period...

There's holmium and helium and hafnium and erbium,
And phosphorus and francium and fluorine and terbium,
And manganese and mercury, molybdenum, magnesium,
Dysprosium and scandium and cerium and cesium.
And lead, praseodymium and platinum, plutonium,
Palladium, promethium, potassium, polonium,
And tantalum, technetium, titanium, tellurium,
And cadmium and calcium and chromium and curium.

There's sulfur, californium and fermium, berkelium,
And also mendelevium, einsteinium, nobelium,
And argon, krypton, neon, radon, xenon, zinc and rhodium,
And chlorine, carbon, cobalt, copper, tungsten, tin and sodium.

These are the only ones of which the news has come to Harvard,
And there may be many others but they haven't been discovered.

(from An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer)

But instead it was more like
Oh, the ocean waves may roll
and the stormy winds may blow
But we poor sailors go skipping to the top
While the landlubbers lie down below, below, below
While the landlubbers lie down below, below....

(Irish Trad.)”

“Good trip report dude so the tent I gave you sill has guts in her thats way cool dude.

Now I know I should have gone backpacking this weekend.

8)”

“I thought you'd wash out that tent before you gave it to him, Mike.”