Camp Tales 2013, part X: Leaky Memories

 

What year was this camping trip?  Hell, I don't remember.  I don't even remember where this was at other than it was Colorado--New Castle maybe?  Here's Doooders admiring the roses while I sipped on a brewski--in the public park, of course.  Wouldn't be a camping trip without a little law-breaking.

One of my favorite birthday cards that I gave away once was a picture of an old lady with a bubble over her head, and she was saying,

"My memory is so bad."  Another bubble pops up and says,
"How bad is it?" and the old lady replies,
"How bad is what?"

LOL.

Well, the past two years, we've been trying to remember what we did shortly after this picture was taken.  I KNOW that within this time frame, we found a super cool little tavern, and we went in for a "on the road brewski."

The only thing is, we can't remember the name of it, where it was located or when we were there.

"I'm not sure we were even there," Doooders remarks thoughtfully.

"But I distinctly remember this charming old tavern," I retort.  "It was shortly after this picture was taken.  It was even a brick tavern, and I remember looking in through the window!"  Doooders shakes her head and looks doubtful.

Maybe we DIDN'T go in and actually have a beer.  Maybe we just drove by a cute place.  How could our memories be that leaky?  It was after this trip that I started writing down everywhere we go.  Apparently, no matter how much fun we have, if we don't write it down in the camp log, a year later, we forget all about it like it never even existed. 
Sigh.

Aging, beer-drinkin' and camping--
it's a dubious mix, that's for sure.

What is Food Network Thinking These Days?

A

Ahhh, a lovely Gallette I made for friends this summer.

Speaking of food, you guys ever watch the Food Network show, The Pioneer Woman, hosted by Ree Drummond?

At the gym, when I work out I watch Food Network, and for the past year, at 10:00 a.m., it has been the lovely Contessa, Ina Garten.  I love her show, full of interesting information about classics, entertaining, wine, cheese, spins on classics and European dining.

But now at that time slot, they've changed  it around so Ree's show comes on when Ina's used to.

Before I start ranting, I'm sure Ree is nice.  I'm sure her neighbors like her, and she's a good mother.

But that show sucks ass.

The other day, I kid you not, she made lasagna WITH COTTAGE CHEESE IN IT.  As in, hello, 1980's.

I'm as enraged as "Adam" was about cooking from Northern Exposure.

If that was not offensive enough, yesterday, her "recipe" for enchiladas, was 1 can green sauce poured over a corn tortilla, with cheese on top, nuked.

Are you kidding me?  This is a "recipe"?

Then yesterday, she made burritoes: ground beef and cumin, refried beans outta the can, can of green sauce on top.

Again, these are "recipes"?  WTF, I call it cooking you did when you first moved away from home, right up there with Ramen noodles, Hamburger Helper.

OK, I get the whole "country thang," going on.

But the show sucks.  All the talented home chefs out there who don't have their own FN show, and we get this?  Can't Food Network turn to say, You Tube and find some bright talent out there?  Recently, I've found some good Paleo-blogger-foodies whose recipes are wonderful.  Why can't they get a show?

Why can't I have a show?

Now, I'm morbidly curious each day, to see what slop Ree's going to throw together.

Maybe Friday she'll show us how to say, fry an egg, or better still, make a peanut-butter sandwich, with jelly.  I can't wait!

Camp Tales 2013, part IX: Scatalogical Humor, part II

Friday, Oct. 25th (don't know why it says July)
My new cabin tent I bought a while back.  Here's Bennie attempting to drop off a log--don't even think of it, Bennie-Boy!

Pretty slick, eh?  Nothing beats a good tent unless it's a good cabin.

Bottom line is that you must camp with only people whom you've known for many, many years, and rather intimately I might add.

Why?

Well, if you're sharing a one room primitive cabin or a cabin-tent, you become acutely aware of each others' toilet habits.  I'm afraid in close quarters like this, there's no room for modesty.

I've only camped with FOUR people my entire life.  My childhood friend, Lynne, Gaylord in Nebraska, Robby and Dooooders.  Quite frankly, they're the only people I'd trust to camp with, since they are not offended by my frequent toity-events and scatological humor.  Dooders has learned over the years that ignoring my butt-trumpeting only encourages more butt-trumpeting.  She's learned to smile and just sadly shake her head.

Bowel-movements, discussion of bowel-movements, jokes about strangers' bowel-movements, toilet paper comparisons, and appropriate-stall discussions are all fairly common place.

"Don't use the second stall over," I noted to Dooders in Ouray.  "Someone took a big dumper and didn't flush."  Doooders nodded appreciatively.

Oftentimes, you even go to the dumper together if it's multi-stall building and you have only one key to your cabin between the two of you.

And well, if sitting next to one of your oldest friends, listening to an exclamation of sharts, farts, butt trumpeting shocks you, then maybe you're best off camping with total strangers and doing the "walk of shame" to the lavatory sink without eye contact.

It's not like you can stick your head under the stall and exclaim, "My aren't you making a merry assortment of butt-trumpeting.  By the way, I'm outta toilet paper.  You wanna hand me some?"  So there are a few rules, but not many.

Early morning flatulence has always been a strong suit of mine.

"Pffffssssssssssssst!  Crackkkkkkkkkkk!  POP! POW!" from my lower bunk bed, thunderously shaking the windows of the small cabin.

"Well, good morning to you, too," Doooder noted dryly, her head buried in her sleeping bag.

Really, there are only 4 rules:

1. Always inform your fellow camper of a rotten stall.
2. Always share your Handi-wipes.
3. Always inform your fellow camper if a stall's outta toilet paper.
4. It's always best to keep small talk to a minimum while on the crapper, especially with strangers.  So keep the, "It's been pretty warm out lately, don't ya think?" or "I shouldn't have had that whole bag of candy corn last night," observations to yourself.

I'm lookin' out for us all!  Stay tuned.

Camp Tales 2013, part VIII : More Scatological Humor

 

 

 

Ahhhh, the creature comforts of an inside toity.

 

But when you're camping, this is not so.  And it wouldn't be a Camp Tale if I didn't have some toity humor now would it?

 

Most toilets at campsites are vault toilets, literally, a big, foul bucket of shit, and most vault toities lack even the most primitive amenities: running water, or if you DO have some, it's cold only, often no soap, no paper towels, and usually no overhead lights, so you do your business in the middle of the night, in pitch black.  Not a very cheery notion, mind you, when, sitting there, you start thinking of what's directly under your bottom and all the creepy crawlers and spiders who might be laughingly eyeballing your anus and wondering what you taste like.

 

 So imagine it's 2:00 a.m. and you're snuggled into your mummy bag when you feel a good pee coming.  Oh, no, you think, so cozily wrapped up in your bag, with your pillow perfectly adjusted.  Maybe I can just ignore it and it'll go away.  Only the pressure is overwhelming,  "I'm gonna pee my pants if I don't go immediately" and you frantically start unzipping your bag, preparing to get dressed, find a flashlight and trot off to the pit-toity, which means a good hike through the woods and better lace up your shoes and get completely dressed while you're at it.

 

Just to take a leak.

 

Who wants to do all that?

 

I've never seen the point to all those steps.  Firstly, why the hike?  Secondly, it's at night.  Unless people have night vision, who's gonna see you takin' a leak?

 

So this year, as Doooders was strapping on her headlamp, sighing and pulling on her shoes, lacing them, pulling on a sweater, I slipped on my flip flops and said,

 

"Go ahead without me.  I'm gonna go right here," I said.  There was a pause as Doooders must have been mulling this over.

 

"OK.  But don't pee too close to the tent," Doooder warned.  I didn't bother with pulling on pants.  After all, I'm in the middle of the Utah desert, in the middle of the night.  Who's gonna see?  I pulled on my head lamp, to see where I was going, lest I stumble upon an angry rattler, and lurched out of the tent.

 

Getting out of a tent is always an act of acrobatics and balance as you step over the doorway and stand up at the same time without bonking your head on the rain-fly while simultaneously quickly zipping the tent up to ward off spiders, ticks, and other rude blood-suckers.  I wobbled a good three feet away, then mused another foot away or so might be prudent.  I assumed the splayed position, yawning then threw the toity paper in the fire ring, turned off my head lamp then stumbled into bed.

 

The next morning as I woke up and pulled on my shorts and went outside, Doooders stood brewing up some coffee.

 

"Dude," Dooders began and poured two cups.  "You gotta find a different place to pee.  I said not to pee too close to the tent."

 

"I didn't," I sorta lied.  "What's the big deal?   It's not like I peed on the tent or something," I noted.

 

Doooders proceeded to tell me, that with my BRIGHT head lamp on, and in my mildly intoxicated "Who cares" frame of mind, I had not thought to check to see where I was peeing in proximity to the shit-house.  Apparently, I peed in a wide-open clearing, and since there were others also peeing but peeing in the shithouse where you're supposed to pee in the middle of the night, everyone could see me peeing.

 

"It was like you had a neon light flashing over your head.  I could see you way over at the bathroom.  'Look everyone.  I'm peeing," Doooders described.

 

Oh well.  All's well that ends well.  I could have had an accidental "Shi-pee-pee" then that would have DEFINITELY been classy, suave and sophisticated.  Indeed, that would have been quite a show for a bleary, half-asleep camper.

 

Hee hee.  Stay tuned.

Camp Tales 2013, part VII: Campfire Questions

Nothing beats chips and dip and cold brews around the campfire.

When you're camping on vacation (only applies to real camping, not "motel-camping"), it seems Doooders and I have some rather lively, if not spirited campfire chats.

Something about the starry nights, the wind swept deserts and pine-studded forests just brings out the curious as you're stooped over the campfire, cold beer in-hand, staring primordially into the snapping and popping flames.

It's usually one really good stumper of a question, some years it's two questions, that neither of us can solve the entire week.  They're not necessarily intellectual or spiritual as much as just puzzling.

2011's was: "If pine nuts don't grow on pine trees, why are they called pine nuts?"  Good question.  Did we ever find out?  Nope.  The odd part was just now, as I was re-reading that camp log, I noticed further down, I'd written "Do bears eat them?"  Seriously, who the fuck cares IF bears eat them as much as ARE THERE BEARS IN OUR CAMPSITE?  WTF was I thinking?

The question is usually scribbled down in an alcohol-fueled haze then later researched after the vacation.  Naturally, even if Dooders and I were smart-phone-a-holics, they'd be rendered useless in the back country.   We usually camp in areas with no signal for miles, where even cold beer and ice is hard to find.  Last year, we were up in the Crazies, 40 miles from the nearest one-gas-station town, let alone cell phone tower.

Some years are, I'm afraid, too boozy, the remains of the scribbled question rather dubiously scratched down from the night before and hardly legible.  "Why dooos the K*&dls at Christmas time for gibberish ass-sneeze insize a mothball-cake?"  Later translated, WTF?

Other years are unmistakeably Cheech-n-Chong-like--such as the time when Doooders couldn't figure out if the strange soot stain on the rim of the campfire ring was a ghost-face, or simply an ad for Kriskuits--if you don't know what the hell  I'm talking about then I've made my point.

This year's question was a two-parter.  So we're particularly proud of ourselves.

Here goes--
1.  How can the reality show, Full Throttle, (based on the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally) be so popular when its stars are so amazingly stupid?  Go ahead and Google/Youtube it.  You'll be astounded.  A gal named "Angie" allegedly sits on men's heads and is photographed . . . for money.

2. Has there ever been an openly-Mormon rock-n-roll idol other than Donny and Marie Osmond?

Given we have had a Mormon running for the presidency, we found this question rather vexing.  There almost SHOULD be a token Mormon rocker, shouldn't there?  There was Creed, but who knows what brand of spirituality they claimed.  There's just something about rock-n-roll mixing with Christianity that doesn't float.  It's like combining gasoline and ice cream.  Doesn't mix.  But why?

Anyway, stoke up that fire and pass the Triscuits.  I'm on a roll.  More later.

Camp Tales 2013, part VI: Travel Food From Hell

 

 

 

Ahhhhh, now THIS is what I like to see on a camping trip: a fun biker bar, filled with long-haired handsome biker-rock-n-roll dudes.  Easy on the eyes.  Easy on the wallet.  What more could you ask for?

 

However,  this was not the case in Ouray, Colorado.  Sadly, this was from LAST year's vacation in Montana.

 

After we were skewled for being "old ladies" by the five-year old (OK, OK, 25 year-old) whose ass I should've kicked, we stumbled, half-starved, around Ouray trying to find food and stupidly going to the bar the baby-girl suggested for senior citizens--Ouray Brewery, an impressive, 3-story affair.

 

At the beginning it was promising; a cute little bartender recommended a fine pale ale as we sat on the 3rd floor terrace over-looking the quaint town.

 

"Ahhhhh," Doooders and I sighed after a nice long sip.  After all, it'd been an entire hour since our last brew.

 

We perused the menu, but every damned entre on the BAR menu was over $13 bucks.  This was just a tavern/"ale house" with food.  It's supposed to be cheap.  It's supposed to be greasy.  It's supposed to be good.  After all, it got good reviews on Yelp.

 

"Gawd, Doooders, everything on this menu is expensive," I noted.  Earlier in the day, Doooders had over-paid $15 for a cup of coffee with about a quarter cup of scrambled lifeless rubbery eggs on spring greens while I only had a $7 cup of coffee and entertainingly swatted flies at our table.  So we were REALLY starving by now.

 

"Let's get the Mozzarella Moons and the hummus with veggies.  How could they possibly screw that up," Doooders noted.  I nodded ravenously.

Doooders went up to the bar and posted our order then came back to our table looking pale and shaken.  What was it, I thought.  Did she see Cactus Man here?  Nothing else could have afforded such a scare.

"Doooders," I start alarmed.  "What's wrong??!!"

"The bill was $32," she sputtered.

"$32 bucks for two appetizers?!" I squeaked.  "This BETTER be fucking good."

Twenty minutes later, the bartender brought us over a plastic, tissue-paper lined basket with 4 wads of shriveled mozzarella, each piece smaller than a jalapeno pepper, and a strange grey blob of hummus served with 4 pieces of  celery with brown ends, the size of my pinkie, and some slimy carrots, which, starved, I proceeded to eat anyway.  Dooders passed on the celery sticks and carrots and ate the 2 pieces of red pepper, wiping the slime off them first.

"Do you have any bottles of Ensure to-go?" I wearily asked the baby-bartender.

"HUH?" he grunted.

"Never mind."

Well, the GOOD news was that no one got the squirts or threw up later at camp, AND a good lookin' biker from Florida sat down next to us and chatted to us for a while.  But our next Ouray trip means, bringing our own food, and cooking in camp.

And next time I see that woman, I'm gonna skewl her right in the ass. . . . Stay tuned for more Camp Tales.

Camp Tales 2013 part V: "Hey, OLD chicks Can't Go There!"

Doooders, at the head of the Historic Western Hotel's bar!

After an entertaining couple of hours perusing the Historic Western Hotel Bar in Ouray, and vigorously snapping pictures in hopes of capturing a forlorn ghost on camera, we grew weary and decided to refill Dooder's "Beer Prescription" somewhere else.

I hadn't had a single "good-lookin' rock-n-roll biker spotting" yet for the vacation, and it was getting old.  So we decided to hit Main Street and scope it out.

I spotted a young woman in her early 30's having a smoke outside the post office.  She appeared to be local and looked somewhat friendly, so Doooders and I ventured over to her to quiz her about Ouray's night life.

"Excuse me, do you know of any entertaining bars around here?" I asked.  "A biker bar perhaps," I added hopefully.

"Wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll," the girl started and looked us up and down as if we were Soviet spies.  "There is a good place down the street.  BUT," she paused, exhaling a long puff of smoke and giving us another questionable look as if she'd caught us peeing in public.  "It's where the YOUNG people go."

"Oh, YOUNG people," I mumbled sort of in shock as I looked over at Doooder whose mouth had fallen open.  What does one say to that?  "Well, I was just wondering if you knew of a good nursing home that has a bar in it?"  Or, "Thanks for compliment.  Do you know the direction to the local A.A.R.P. ?"

The young lady sighed as if we were impossibly daft, hard of hearing, and perhaps mentally-challenged because we were over 40.  "There's the Ouray Brewing Company down the street," she offered.

"Thanks.  I hope they give us our senior citizen discounts," I said sarcastically.  And we left.
 
Apparently, everyone over 40 needs to start wearing Depends and stock up on Ensures--this is news to me. 

What a fucktard.   It's not like we were dressed in "Mom Jeans" that go up to our boobs, or even worse, bling-jeans and spiked heels, like some sort of Cougars.  Where did she get off with that?  Step off woman.  You're lucky I didn't "Skewl" you and kick you in the ass.

So off we went in search of 1. good lookin' dude spottings 2. biker bars and 3. cheap food.

Stay tuned.