Outdoors

I am not the "outdoorsy" type. It doesn't even matter how you define "outdoorsy," because however you define it, if you met me, you would know with a startling immediacy that I am not it. I don't hike very well. Jogging has resulted in no less than two of my three sprained ankles in the space of two years. Skiing? Forget the fact that I'm hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the nearest slopes, skiing is simply not for me. Same for snowboarding, obviously. Waterskiing, skating, bicycle riding, hang gliding, or any number of outdoor activities I complete with a frightening amount of dangerous incompetence. Even walking can sometimes be troublesome and before I know it, I'll end up face forward on the pavement.

I'll try to be brief, because my incredible and outstanding inability to function outdoors is actually not the point of this post, but I want to relate to you the last time I attempted anything serious outdoors. This was back when I was with he-who-shall-not-be-named II, and we thought it would be a fine idea to go camping. Camping is pretty simple, right? You pitch a tent, get a little fire going, have some s'mores, get ridiculously drunk and have rowdy sex which most certainly annoys any neighboring campers. How difficult could it be? And to top it off, it's fairly inexpensive, as far as vacations go, as long as you already have the gear. So, I borrowed some of my parent's camping gear. I was directed that it was in the family storage unit, and given the key. I retrieved everything that was available, and we picked up a few things at Wal-Mart (outdoor camping stove, metal skewers, beer, etc). We checked the weather and, though it was winter time (mid-November) found it to be favorable in the mountains of West Texas. We hopped in the car early and headed out to Fort Davis, Texas (which as you can see is in the middle of fucking nowhere).

We caught an early evening star show at the McDonald Observatory (which was amazing) and during the show we noted that it was actually quite cold. We were seated on cement benches and we were sorely underdressed for the occasion. Regardless, we left the Observatory and drove the short distance to Davis Mountains State Park. We found a campsite and, using two lanterns and the headlights of our car, set up camp. There were some problems. For example, the tent that I thought I'd grabbed (you know, the one with room for roughly 8 people if you're on pretty friendly terms) ended up being a one-person pup tent. I had inadvertently grabbed the wrong tent; I didn't even know they had more than one! If you've never been in a one-person pup tent, allow me to guide you, through the power of your imagination, into being in one. Pretend you're lying on the ground. Your arms are at your side, but you cannot move them away from your body -- there is simply not room. The roof of the tent slopes downward from the top (which is behind your head) and touches your nose. Your feet stick out the end. Now, imagine that except with two people. Even if you're EXTREMELY familiar with the other person, this is not going to be a comfortable position.

At this point, it was roughly 36 degrees. The weather had promised an invigorating but manageable 38 degrees, even in the mountains. We started a fire. I could write a blog in itself about getting the fire started but suffice it to say it was nearly impossible (even though we had lighters) and one of us got a third degree burn (not me). When we finally DID get the fire going well enough that we felt it was safe to exhale and not worry that an errant breath would put it out, the fire itself illuminated about three feet in any given direction from it. On the outskirts of that three feet were at least four javelinas. Javelinas, if you didn't know, are wild boars. Not pigs. Boars. They are not Wilbur from Charlotte's fucking Web, they are vicious animals that could quite literally tear you into pieces and would probably eat off you while you were still alive if given half the chance. So, that was intimidating, although the fire seemed to keep them at bay.

It was cold. Very cold. We had no way of knowing how cold, but we were huddled up by the fire. Despite the chill, we were determined to drink a bit and toast some marshmallows, have some s'mores, as that was the plan. We did this for maybe thirty minutes but we were quite exhausted by this point, so we decided to try to get some sleep. This would prove to be 100% impossible for me. First of all, it was REALLY cold. The ground was cold, my toes were cold, my face was cold and my fingers were cold. Second of all, we didn't fit very well in the tent, despite being okay with being completely smushed into each other. It just wasn't working. I felt a tinge of claustrophobia at being in a space so small, my arms folded on my chest like the living dead, my breath hanging in the air. I snuggled under the sleeping bag, but my breath on the bag caused precipitation to form and freeze on the inside of my sleeping bag.

I didn't sleep, and eventually moved to the car. This was not much better. By this point, my toes were tingling, my fingers were sore and my face was numb. I could have tried to turn the car on for heat, but I couldn't leave it on all night long and I'm certain the warm air would just cause more precipitation as it faded, making me even more chilled. We could have gotten up and left, but where would we have gone? We were in the middle of nowhere, and even the state park wasn't staffed by anyone this late at night. I ended up spending the next eight hours wide awake, wondering if I'd get feeling back in my toes or not.

At the slightest hint of sunlight over the edge of the west Texas mountains (the sun rises there an hour later than it does in San Antonio, I might add), with just the faintest hint of a hazy light, we were both up immediately. We didn't so much as break down camp as we tore everything down, wrapped it up and shoved it into the trunk of the car. There was no sense of care, no organisation, we didn't even put the tent back in the box, just scrunched it into a ball and tossed it in the trunk with the lanterns, stakes, cooler, chairs and anything else we had brought with us. In the three-and-a-half minutes it took us to tear down the campsite we had the car running, and jumped in, our fingers numbed. I should also add that the gallon of water we'd brought with us to drink from during our camping trip was frozen solid. We later found out that according to the weather (mind you, this is the same weather that told us it'd be a "low of 38˚") the temperature had gotten down to 22˚ that night in the mountains.

We drove to Fort Davis which was a ghost town. Nothing was open - not even the gas station ("convenience" store, my ass). We drove to the next nearest town, Marfa. It was a 35 minute drive, if I recall correctly. We were both positively exhausted. Cold, dirty, tired, hungry and grouchy, we pulled into Marfa and found a greasy spoon. They could have served us cold lard and I'm fairly certain we would have taken it gratefully so long as it came with a cup of hot coffee and was served in a heated building. We spent the remainder of our weekend vacation in Aspen, Tx which was having a pretty nice little art show in town, and had good live music at a fun little dive bar. The rest of the trip was great, and the observatory was fantastic, but seriously: fuck the outdoors.

So, that whole thing wasn't the point of this post, but I've put enough here that I think I'll save it for later. Next time: I get a wild hair up my ass and decide to learn to fish (by myself)!