Build Me an Ark

Well, the weekend camping trip is over. After 4 days of nearly constant rain, Sunday dawned clear and cooler. Perfect for packing up and trudging home.

The days preceding the trip home were filled with rain, fun, good food, rain, good friends and rain. The Drunkshoes tournament was nearly canceled due to the horseshoes disappearing in a bog. We learned about the life expectancy of a 12x24 foot dining fly (3 years, max, before it leaks everywhere). There were lessons in tying new and inventive knots in guy ropes. There were lessons in emergency tarp repair when Jobu dropped a limb on my tent (a small one, but it sounded like a gunshot from inside the tent).

All in all, the trip was a good one. I came home tired, but refreshed, and am looking forward to the next one.

Thanks, guys.

Gone to Texas

Well, not exactly.

In about 90 minutes I'll back the Jeep out of the driveway and head for points North. Maybe I'll even get a chance to fish between downpours and stupid campfire tricks.

See y'all Sunday.

Ready to Roll

The trailer is loaded, the Jeep is packed to the rafters with clothes, cameras, extra shoes, rain gear, and enough fishing tackle to eradicate at least one species in North Georgia.

I'm ready for the (predicted to be soggy) Spring edition of Mountain Madness 2009, a festival of pyromania and trout, good food, and good friends with a lubricant of beer thrown over the top.

Around 0900 tomorrow, I will be on the road to a) one convenience store for ice, b) WalMart for gas, c) WalMart in a town in Northeast Georgia to meet Greg (and more ice), and d) the campground. With any kind of luck at all, we should be setting up the dining canopy and tents before the monsoon starts. Around 1600 we should be joined by Ted, and early the next morning by the bulk of the Legion of Doom.

Assuming the rain does not ruin my cameras, I'll post some pictures on Sunday, after the carnage has run its course.

Stay well and enjoy life. I know I will for the next few days.

Yuk!

According to most of the weather-guessers, we're in for a typical camping trip. Rain and an occasional thunderstorm ought to keep us busy putting the rain fly back on the kitchen. If nothing else, we should become adept at tying taught-line hitches in the guy ropes. The up side to this is that I sleep like a rock while the rain is falling on the fly over the tent. Thunder and wind, on the other hand keep me awake, but the storms are due during daylight. We can always go wheelin' in the rain.

Aside from the obvious impending dampness, I'm looking forward to this trip. I expect to have a local dry spot created by a LOD campfire, great food compliments of Greg, and a load of laughs thanks to the Legionnaires.

Since I'm on a roll about the weather, I think I ought to offer the following observation about The Weather Channel. I have never seen a group of people who derive so much satisfaction from imparting doom and gloom. There is a positive glow on the talking heads' faces when they're forecasting blizzards, tornadoes and other meteorological havoc. These people are absolute sadists. Even the local forecasts overstate the possibility of evil weather.

Watching these idiots makes me wonder how the heck humanity survived long enough to get to the point where fools like them can stand in front of a camera and tell the world how bad things are. What did our animal-skin-clad hunter-gatherer forebears do when the weather threatened? They quickly learned to get in out of the rain. Why were they not wiped out by the raging winds, freezing cold, and blazing heat? They learned to cope with the weather.

Rain, and the occasional thunderstorm is not the end of the world.

Y'all come to the mountain top and have some good, soggy fun.

Pay Before You Play

Today has been one where I've taken advantage of a fortuitous alignment of the planets to get some long-standing chores out of the way.

Marilyn has departed to points east to visit with Missy and Vi, Gretchen has flown toward Gratis, and I'm full of energy thanks to about 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. So, I used the opportunity to knock off some Jeep maintenance prior to our mountain trip. The brakes were squeaky, the heater blower only had two of its 4 speeds (loud and "What!!!???"), and the parking brake would only hold if it was uphill in both directions from where you parked.

On my way home from Wally-World this morning, I stopped into the local auto parts store and picked up new brake pads for all four corners. A four hours and a pending hernia later (33 x 12.50 tires are heavy), the Jeep stops on a dime, the emergency brake holds like a champ, and the heater now has 4 speeds.

The brake job took about an hour, most of it spent cleaning up the old parts. The e-brake fix took 5 minutes with a wrench and a pry bar to hold the linkage, but the replacement of the resistor for the blower took forever and a day. I spent nearly an hour trying to find the stupid thing. It's just a flat resistor, held in with two screws, with a 5 prong plug on one end that fits into the air distribution box near the blower. The genius who designed the Jeep put it directly behind a heater duct, and camouflaged it with a courtesy light and a 4-way junction in the wiring harness.

Once I found the thing, removed the light, loosened the duct, and warped the wiring harness out of the way, it only took 15 minutes to find the right sort of 5/16 inch wrench to remove the last screw. Putting the new one in took 3 hands and about 10 minutes of finagling to get the thing into the hole around the heater duct and wires. Putting the last screw in was a contortionist's nightmare. I was literally upside down between the passenger seat and the underside of the dash.

The only good part of the whole chore is that the resistor I bought months ago was the right part. That and the fact that it's done.

Now that the Jeep is cool for the trip, I get to spend tomorrow cleaning the camping dishes, and packing all the various tarps, tents, chairs, tables, stoves, saws, axes, lanterns, and sundries into the trailer so they can be unloaded in the order they're needed and ride without shifting.

Like I said, you've got to pay before you play.

Stay well.

Spring Has Sprung...

...and it's time for the annual visit to Jobu-Land for the Legion of Doom's Mountain Madness.

Some time in the middle of next week, some where between 15 and 20 of my closest friends will join me in the woods of the Northeast Georgia mountains for 3 or 4 days of fellowship, fun, and fishing. Sons, sons-in-law, friends, friends of friends, relatives of friends of friends, and total strangers will camp together for what seems to be fated to be a soggy weekend.

About 25 years ago, my buddy Ted invited me to go trout fishing with him. We climbed into his truck, and headed toward the place where we now make our springtime pilgrimage. Once there, we met some of his friends, who became known as "The Wild Bunch". No one knows what has become of them, but Ted and I still fish in the same place.

One offshoot of this first trip was an urge to camp and fish. Over the years, we've learned to stay dry in downpours, warm in frigid weather, and to sweat when it's hot. The constant seems to be that each trip has increased the sophistication of our equipment, and the time required to set up and take down camp. When we arrive next week, we'll set up a gourmet outdoor kitchen under a 12x24 tarp, pitch tents, unload cords of firewood, and generally unwind.

The growth of my sons into young men, and their inclusion in some of our camping expeditions, instilled in them a desire to camp on their own. Young men being what they are, this soon gave birth to the Legion of Doom. These intrepid young men have surpassed Ted and I as professional campers. Their living accommodations include pop-up and hard sided camping trailers, and a collapsible bar, while Ted and I still use our tents.

Another area where we have been eclipsed is the building of campfires. The Legion are professional pyromaniacs. Some of their "stupid campfire tricks" are the things of legend.

Today I'll be going through the trailer, ensuring that the equipment is in order, and repairing and stowing enough equipment for a company of Marines.

Rest assured, when we camp, we do not rough it.

As someone once said, "I think I've fallen among thieves, thank the Lord."

I'm really looking forward to the weekend with old friends.

Stay well.

Happy Birthday, Slade

Over the years, this family has run through a fair number of Sons-In-Law. You are by far the best so far, and I'm proud to have you as a part of the family.

I hope your birthday was a good one, and wish you many more.

Dad

The Attack of the Mole People

My back yard looks like it was attacked by mole men. There are two huge mounds of earth that look like the ant colonies in "Them!". They are, in actuality, the remains of two huge pine stumps that were in the way of progress.

Progress, in this case, is the construction of a shed to house the yard maintenance equipment, Christmas decorations, and assorted rarely used stuff that's currently cluttering the garage. It's also going to have a covered area on one side where I can shelter the boat. Who knows, we might even be able to shelter a vehicle in the garage once this is completed.

Thanks to Sandy who put me on to Rex, the stump man, and Sara, who helped me back fill the craters.

If anyone needs a reasonable stump grinding service, let me know, and I can hook you up. He showed up when he said he would, was quick, and did great work. Thanks, Rex.

Stay well.

Note: I know, the fence needs to be pressure washed. :)

Happy Birthday, Sandy

You've been a Joy for as long as I've known you.

Love ya much.

Dad

Wally the Weather Dog, You're Fired!

You've let me down, big time. 3+ inches of rain in the last 3 days and now 5 inches of heavy, wet snow.

Well, at least I know what I'll be doing once this stuff melts.

I've got 4-6 inch diameter pine limbs falling like snowflakes. The upside is that the Legion of Doom should have a lot of fire wood for their spring get-together. The real problem is going to be getting the huge limb out of the crepe myrtle tree without committing crepe murder.

One other little chore that the snow has brought with it is some bodywork on the lawn mower. There's a limb across the hood and a small dent that will need to be tapped out.

At least the phone is back on. Yesterday's monsoon knocked out the phone service in most of Monroe for about 24 hours. It came back just after 4 PM. The funny thing is that the DSL was back on this morning, but the voice was out until 4. Kudos to Windstream for working through some really sloppy weather to get things back together.

The snow is interesting, but the reaction of the people to it is hilarious. Rednecks jump into their 4 wheel drive vehicles and cruise around trying to get into trouble. Regular folks who see snow on the roads every 10 years or so try to burn down to clean pavement and spin their way up the hill in front of the house. Once the "I can make it up this hill" crowd is done packing the snow in front of my house, the kids are out sliding down the hill on cookie sheets. It's actually kind of neat to see people playing in it.

I remember when 5 inches of snow was nothing. Of course, that was in Cleveland where they have enough snow removal equipment to plow all of Georgia. One result of growing up with, and learning to drive in snow is that both of my 4 wheel drive vehicles are setting in the driveway, and will remain there until the roads are clear or I have an emergency that will require leaving the house. Trying to drive in this stuff, in this part of the world, is an invitation to be hit by someone who does not know that it takes 4 times as much distance to stop on snow, and that driving slowly (as opposed to the normal 10 over the limit) is probably a good idea.

Stay warm and dry, and stay in if you can.