Trip Planning Is Not Our Thing

Hanging out with Mary and her sister Rose and her cousin John and the rest of the crowd, we often did stuff with little to no planning. (After all, we planned for the Northville trip and look where that took us?)

So, one day someone suggested we go camping at the state park in New Paltz. (It’s actually called the Minnewaska State Park, a detail that I just found out. Like, right now.) I think Rose had been there once and thought it was cool, so we all decided to go.

There were about half a dozen of us or so, and we piled into the car that afternoon and hit the highway. Misfortune quickly struck as we blew a tire, and as fortune had it the spare was flat. So we had to wait around for the driver’s cousin to fetch another spare from his house and bring it to us.

Oh, and for the cousin to get off work to be able to do this.

So after bumming around the rest area for a few hours, we finally got on the road again. The directions were pretty straightforward, and we were able to stop for a fast food dinner along the way.

We reached the campgrounds well after dark, and couldn’t see much of anything to tell where we were going. So, we pretty much stomped into the woods and decided to camp right there.

Being the pyro outdoorsman of the group, I grabbed some firewood and built a quick campfire. We arranged our blankets and went to sleep. (None of us had any real camping equipment. As I said, this trip was very unplanned.)

I decided to stay up a while to tend the fire.

I ended up staying awake all night doing that.

An actual outdoorsman would have known to gather enough wood for an all night fire, which we’d need since the temperatures dipped into the forties or so. (Again, no planning.) By the time I’d figured that part out, it was already too dark to venture far from the flames.

While staying awake, I got to experience some of the nighttime sounds in the woods. The rustle of leaves, small predators on the prowl, and John grumbling about his back. He kept tossing and turning and complaining about something under his blanket the whole night long. Apart from that, it was very peaceful.

As dawn approached, I started to get a better look at our campsite. The fire almost out from lack of fuel, but the sun starting to peak over the horizon, I could see more and more of our surroundings.

And it didn’t look very good.

You know that look of a swamp when the water level is way low, so that tree roots are sticking out of the ground? That was where we’d chosen (in the dark) to camp.

And John? He laid out his blanket over the biggest snarl of roots around.

We visited the waterfall and hung out a bit, but the lack of restful sleep (or, in my case, any sleep) cut the outing short and we ended up taking an early (uneventful) exit.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *