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Yes, it's true. I went camping. Saturday my grandfather spontaneously decided to take my family out to dinner today (Sunday) to celebrate my birthday. (A month late, but who's counting?) None of them expected that I would be out of cell phone range all weekend and that I would only find out about it while driving home too late. All my adult life these spontaneous Sunday dinners worked out with the kind of always-at-home schedule I used to keep, or at least worked out with my addiction to communication devices. Today they all sat around the dinner table questioning the veracity of my brother's report, fifteen minutes earlier, of my whereabouts. "Matt? Camping?" Mom says they asked each other over and over again while sitting around the dinner table. "Camping? The same Matt I am thinking of?"
No mistake. We were unprepared, since in my imagination our hosts had a luxurious vacation home with mowed land like a golf course, with a lake on their property. I must have been thinking that no one in their mind would go camping otherwise. That is my own narrow-mindedness. It was a one-room condemned shack with no indoor plumbing and several condemned buildings which are scavenged for firewood every year. It made me feel all the more grateful for their gracious down-home hospitality, like the widow's mite. Rachel got the worst of my unpreparedness-- I'm fairly resilient when it comes to sleeping on the ground in freezing temperatures. Bugs leave me alone while eating her alive for some reason. And unlike her, I could go without showers and sanitation for two days if it's worth it. For me the hardship is the lack of internet access. Not even livejournal phone posts were working.
In this case it was worth the hardship. It was very affordable as relaxicons go. Highlights of the weekend included:
-- the huge potluck cookout (I brought the shrimp rings which were very well received)
-- swimming in the beautiful lake (we were not camping on the shore; it was a public park several miles away)
-- singing funny songs and telling jokes in wonderful company
-- teaching many people to play Navia Dratp, Emergo and Gnostica
-- giving big hugs to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
twoofdtm
-- backing up quickly when a couch was thown on the bonfire, and it turned into a twenty-foot tall solar inferno, that set logs on fire that weren't even in the fire pit
While swimming it occurred to me what one of the main attractions of a beach is. I noticed everyone was striking the water with their hands and moving lots of sand around on the beach. This behavior is not acceptable in other environments, but beaches are intrinsically stable. Water and sand go back to the way they were when you found them, so you can cut loose. Another thing I noticed is that lots of people consider inebriation to be a form of recreation. Oh yes-- and shooting guns too. To each their own. Enjoyment is like beauty-- in the eye of the beholder.
Bill said I seemed often out of place. But a time-traveler is almost always out of place anyway, don't you see? That's in my element. I felt well-received and on balance had a good time which I hope to repeat next year. With better preparedness.
No mistake. We were unprepared, since in my imagination our hosts had a luxurious vacation home with mowed land like a golf course, with a lake on their property. I must have been thinking that no one in their mind would go camping otherwise. That is my own narrow-mindedness. It was a one-room condemned shack with no indoor plumbing and several condemned buildings which are scavenged for firewood every year. It made me feel all the more grateful for their gracious down-home hospitality, like the widow's mite. Rachel got the worst of my unpreparedness-- I'm fairly resilient when it comes to sleeping on the ground in freezing temperatures. Bugs leave me alone while eating her alive for some reason. And unlike her, I could go without showers and sanitation for two days if it's worth it. For me the hardship is the lack of internet access. Not even livejournal phone posts were working.
In this case it was worth the hardship. It was very affordable as relaxicons go. Highlights of the weekend included:
-- the huge potluck cookout (I brought the shrimp rings which were very well received)
-- swimming in the beautiful lake (we were not camping on the shore; it was a public park several miles away)
-- singing funny songs and telling jokes in wonderful company
-- teaching many people to play Navia Dratp, Emergo and Gnostica
-- giving big hugs to
twoofdtm-- backing up quickly when a couch was thown on the bonfire, and it turned into a twenty-foot tall solar inferno, that set logs on fire that weren't even in the fire pit
While swimming it occurred to me what one of the main attractions of a beach is. I noticed everyone was striking the water with their hands and moving lots of sand around on the beach. This behavior is not acceptable in other environments, but beaches are intrinsically stable. Water and sand go back to the way they were when you found them, so you can cut loose. Another thing I noticed is that lots of people consider inebriation to be a form of recreation. Oh yes-- and shooting guns too. To each their own. Enjoyment is like beauty-- in the eye of the beholder.
Bill said I seemed often out of place. But a time-traveler is almost always out of place anyway, don't you see? That's in my element. I felt well-received and on balance had a good time which I hope to repeat next year. With better preparedness.
