Ganging Up On Me

After surviving a horribly freezing near-death experience with camping and after surviving a terribly unexciting fishing excursion earlier this summer, Steve decided it would be a wonderful idea to combine the two into a camping-fishing weekend.

And I’m not talking gay camping which, honestly, sounds like a whole hell of a lot of fun. Maybe I should try to be gay for a bit.

But no, I’m talking the kind of camping where the only perk is a hand sanitizer dispenser in the outhouse — which is a luxury. I’m talking gritty-unbathed-seven-day-campground-funk kind of camping. And I was only camping for one night.

Steve Annoying Ally

Camping would be more fun if I wore thermal underwears while convincing my small heater of a dog to stay in a mummy bag rated to -30°F all night long.

And if other campers took the 10pm quiet time as more of a “rule” and less of a “suggestion,” “if you want,” “but it’s not like anyone’s going to do anything if you stay up all night screaming.”

And maybe if it were more like gay camping.

Even though everyone was catching their limits of 6 fish on Saturday and I was promised the river was bursting with fish that all want to jump into my arms and go home with me, but I guess they were all done with that by the time we got onto the river Sunday.

Practicing Rowing

Fishing would be more fun if I spent more time lying on the beach with a book. I did, however, manage to catch at least 10 rocks and a nasty sunburn.

On the way back to Anchorage we stopped in Girdwood for a slice of pizza and heard that there had been some accident further north backing up traffic. We didn’t think too much of it until everything ground to a stop and this happened:

Long Line of Traffic - Back

Traffic jam! In Alaska! Crazy!

The only possible thing mentioned in the Monday paper was about a kayaker getting stuck in the mud flats. Which is an amazing story: people have died stuck in the flats. But he could have been more considerate and gotten stuck after I had passed by.

31 July 2007 · 21:36:15

7 love notes

I’m sure one day I will miss summer driving in Alaska.

love, Danielle at 01aug07, 08:13:57

OMG - you freaking crack me up. I used to hate tent camping - now we have our cute little camper and we love it. We’re off to Portage this weekend and Summit Lake next weekend. The beach / book idea is fabulous. That’s about all I’d want to do b/c I’m not a fishergirl.

xoxo

love, jamie at 01aug07, 10:48:14

I’m the kind of fishergirl who likes to sit on a boat reading a book and eating a bowl of ice cream with a huge net floating in the ocean calling all of the fishes to it. But tossing a string into a rushing river isn’t really my thing.

love, Valette at 01aug07, 11:25:57

Well, sorry you had such a terrible time. Next year you can hang out with the dog for the weekend and I’ll go without you.

love, steveo at 01aug07, 11:37:22

traffic like that is pretty much a daily thing in Seattle, it’s nuts!

love, at 01aug07, 11:51:11

“Fishing” is a good thing - catching, or not - if you can learn to become one with the earth, feel it’s majestic power beneath your feet, and stand in awe of it’s immense structure full of life and motion. Even when I catch nothing and go home with SORE muscles from hiking wooded river banks, I still marvel in the fact that “responsibility” can be left at home - aside from not falling in and drowning or getting eaten by big life things in the immense structure. I, still, will walk miles into our bear-infested woods without hint of gun powder or lead.

love, john at 01aug07, 16:39:07

beach, book, sun, warm…Hawaii, November nuff said R & J

love, at 01aug07, 21:37:11

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Jacques Philip