Ready For (Almost) Anything

Haven't I been a good boy scout?

I paddled your canoe, I taught you mouth-to-mouth.

For a good turn daily,

Baby, I'll be prepared.

That's courtesy of local folkie Doug Wintch.

Well, this is my last posting before my trip; I'll be back on Sunday or Monday, hopefully with nice pictures. I'm hoping that, if I take good photos and show myself to be heroic and resourceful, Foul B**tard will hire me to join his new corporation of slackers as backpack porter. Really, David, you don't want to strain yourself with anything that's heavy, and you need your hands free to grab at...what was her name?

Well, before I head off on any adventure, I always like to document my expectations, so I can compare them to reality when I return.

1. We will find a great camping spot, but it will not include a good tree in which to hang the food up. We will hang it less than 5 feet from the trunk of the tree and a bear will get it. That happened to us once. It even ate the sunscreen. ALTERNATIVELY, we will find a really great tree to hang our food in , and hang it up so well that we can't get it down again. That also happened to us once before. Simon had to throw rocks at the food bag to dislodge it, and we ate crumbs and pulp for the rest of the trip.

2. We will be written up in People magazine's "Worst Dressed" feature because of our darling matching hats. I want to say for the record that I needed a new hat and picked one out; then Simon copied me and got the exact same hat, in a slightly lighter shade. Now we look one of those cutsie couples who wear matching sweatshirts and stuff. It was my hat first.

3. The fashion police will venture even into the deepest wilds to arrest me for wearing my old, bright blue down jacket. On John Denver's Greatest Hits (so, circa 1975?), he's wearing this same jacket. Except mine is rattier and grimier.

4. We will nickname back-country trail #170 the "Scout-o-Bahn", because it will be packed with Boy Scouts on their August High-Adventure trips. This is bad because we will have to camp in close proximity to them and listen to them all night ("Dude! I can fart the ABCs!"); this is good because, when one of them kicks a rock down on my head while goofing around on the slope above me, he will be able to patch me up, thereby earning "First Aid" merit badge.

I have to pause here to say that my father is a career Boy Scout, if there is such a thing, and is presently in England at the Boy Scout World Jamboree. He got in touch with my in-laws, of course, and I guess they're getting together today. Simon pointed out that they don't know each other very well, and that they haven't seen each other in years. "No problem," I said. "He'll be wearing his uniform. How many other 76 year-old guys will be standing in the pub in a neckerchief?"

5. We will get to the top of King's Peak and I will be photographed holding a string of Tibetan prayer flags aloft in triumph. This can't happen, actually, because I don't have any Tibetan prayer flags; but they somehow seem to work their way into all of my "get-to-the-top" fantasies. ALTERNATIVELY, we won't get to the peak, it will piss with rain, and we'll spend most of the trip huddled in the tent, reading. Not HP, I'm afraid. I've conceded to the excellent advice of the Blog-iverse won't be taking it.

Regarding reaching the top... Simon and I went to see "Mama Mia" at the Capital Theater last night. Very, very funny and fun if you like shaking your a**to ABBA now and then. At any rate, we were sitting there in the mezzanine during intermission and Simon said, "So look from the orchestra pit....up....to the chandelier. That's about...100 feet. We only have about 8 times that height to climb up the talus and boulder field." Thanks. Thanks very much for pointing that out.

6. I will "get blood", as my children say. I usually manage to cut, abrade or contuse myself when backpacking. For once, we are actually taking a first aid sandwich baggie with us, though. There was a hike in the past when I gashed my leg open, realized I had no Band-Aids, pulled my sock up over it and tried not to think too hard about it 'til the hike was over. Kind of a bloody, sock-fuzzy mess - I still have a scar. This time, we even have gauze and s***. So organized!

Have a great weekend!