Saturday after his flag football game ended at noon, Griffin and I headed up to camp out in the foothills, which is to say that we came back to the house and tried to gather everything together that I hadn't already gathered, drove into Boulder and did some grocery shopping followed by a stop at McGuckins Hardware for a whittling knife and a lantern for the tent, which stop was then followed by yet another at Pam's parents' house to beg some firewood once I realize I'd forgotten to buy firewood at the grocery story. We were out of town by 3:30.
Up lefthand canyon and through the thriving metropolis of Ward, CO to head North on the Peak to Peak Highway, we headed to Camp Dick / Peaceful Valley - where, though I knew everything reservable was reserved months in advance, I hoped we'd find a randomly open campsite. No such luck. Thank God for that, because in talking with the campground host, we learned of easily accessible Forest Service land to camp on just up the road. Perfect.
Griffin and I took a while setting up camp. He'd convinced me to bring the HUGE 8 person tent that we'd purchased recently, so that we'd have experience setting it up when we went with the whole family. In retrospect, I'm glad we did and that I now have the experience of setting it up, voluminous as it was for Griffin and I to sleep in with our two pads and sleeping bags.
Food. Not once did I break out the camp stove, as one of Griffin's stated goals in camping was to cook food in the fire. So we did. We cut up and wrapped potatoes and onions in tinfoil and let them cook in the coals, and we roasted corn on the cob in a similar fashion. Add bratwurst cooked on skewers, and it was a feast. We were stuffed, with just enough room for s'mores. We looked at the stars, walked up and down the road, and called it a night.
This morning, we replicated dinner for the most part, added eggs and orange juice, and called it breakfast. We dawdled around our morning fire for quite some time before heading up the Sourdough Trail the mile or so that separated us from the Peaceful Valley / Camp Dick campgrounds (3 miles by car, but only 1 mile by hiking trail). Great hike with an excellent bridge across the creek just a little ways in. If we go back there, I'd like to hike in and camp by the creek.
Griffin and I talked about space on the hike, and he asked me if there'd be any harm in jettisoning our trash into space. We talked about global warming and the sun exploding in a billion years anyway. We talked about reincarnation, and if Einstein came back as a monkey, would he be a really smart one? Or Thomas Edison monkey - would he be able to invent the lightbulb? Griffin's least favorite notion of death is that there is nothing afterwards, and his favorite idea is that one would be a spirit that could exist in the world and interact with other things that had died, his example being that of a dead banana, which I believe he could actually eat.
It sprinkled on and off as we came back to the campsite, broke down the tent, and loaded everything into the car. One more small fire to roast a couple more brats to eat on English muffins with dill pickles. We left camp at 3:30 and made it down in time to bathe before heading down to Denver with the ladies to meet Tom and Gavin for dinner.
A friend and classmate of Berit's texted her tonight on the way home. She evidently didn't know she needed to read two chapters in her book (The Great Gatsby) and write up two log entries. There was some minor disagreement in the car since my reaction was, "well, looks like you're screwed," while Pam voted for stopping at the Barnes and Noble and picking up the paperback since Berit's library copy was at school. Compassion won out over tough love, and Berit is finishing up her work right now, as I type this.
"What??" Berit looks at me, because I'm smiling sideways as I write about her.
"Nothing."
"Why are you looking at me like that, then?"
"Me? I'm not..."
"What are you writing?"
"Oh... my..."
"Review?"
"Right."
"Cool."
