Thoughts from first camping trip
Whew! Does a hot shower and a soft, warm, dry bed feel good! Things I have learned from my first weekend camping with a bunch of bio nerds:- You get your money's worth, when it comes to tents. (Becky admitted that OTL bought a bunch of tents, including the one I rented out, from a clearance sale at Target.) Kat and I didn't have it too badly - the tent leaked at the seams and the door zipper didn't close all the way, but we slept in the middle of the tent and were relatively dry in the morning...
- Fires are cool. Gas lamps and gas stoves included.
- Clean bathrooms that don't smell like "butt" (in Colleen's words) are heaven. Or, in my words, "an orgasm for the senses."
- Walkie-talkies are very cool, but only if you have fresh batteries in them.
- A must: lots and lots of warm socks.
- Mafia is infinitely more entertaining with bio nerds. Sample causes of death: slit in the throat with a cormorant beak, beaten with a frozen raccoon, and drowning in a bucket of elephant seal semen.
- I haven't yet decided whether it's really cool or really disturbing that there were a lot of couples at the seal beach:
"Hey, honey! Let's check out elephant seals frolicking in the surf (in reality, it was more like, "females squashed into submission") for Valentine's Day!"
"Sure sweetie!"
And a list of memorable quotes/events:
- Me, listening to the walkie-talkie: "..I think they just said, "ramrod.."" (Turns out some people made up code names without anyone's knowledge: Gray Surburban was Ramrod, blue Surburban was Omega Bull, and the blue Subaru was Omega Cow.
- Colleen and Co. playing "Shoop shoop" in Ramrod over the walkie-talkie for Megan in Omega Bull (since Omega Bull did not possess a sound system). And Megan's subsequent singing along to "Shoop shoop" over the walkie-talkie.
- Colin unsuccessfully trying to split firewood with a teeny tiny hatchet, and Deedee's successful (although unwieldy) attempts at doing the same.
- A raccoon making off with a bowl of salad dressing the first night. It literally carried the entire bowl off into the bushes.
- The giant rubberbands I stole from choir being very useful...
- Colin: "My stick is very monogamous!"
- Dr. Karnovsky, on the prospect of seeing the elephant seals: "Ooooh, I'm so excited!" *wiggle*
- Suzy stopping the entire caravan at a turnout since she spotted gray whales in the ocean. While we were there, we also saw 8 sea otters (one of them a baby), a group of sea lions waving at us, and a pod of common dolphins. Why can't family trips to Monterey be this cool?
- Going around the walkway at the (crowded) elephant seal beach, asking everyone in our group if they wanted to go to the bathroom...since the nearest one was 2 miles away and we were organizing a bathroom trip there.
- A subordinate male elephant seal faking his retreat from a female every time the alpha male looked his way, then chasing after her again a minute later. (He'd actually remove his flipper from the female's back and turn away a bit, then jump on her again when the alpha male wasn't looking)
- Megan stripping off her shirt at the beach across the campsite and running into the ocean.
- CJ finding a ginormous stalk of kelp on the same beach and bringing it back with him.
- Our theme song of the trip (probably due to us watching the elephant seals mate for half a day): "I wanna have sex on the beach! C'mon move your body! Sex on the beach..."
- Megan and/or Dr. Karnovsky singing loudly in order to wake us up at 7:30AM...
- CJ blasting aforementioned song from Ramrod early in the morning the day we left the campsite.
- Becky and I getting stranded on the sandbar in our kayak...three times. ("Uh, Becky? I think we're on the beach again...") Three other kayaks in our group were unfortunately following us, and had the same predicament.
I'm sure I'll think of more later...but laundry calls!
posted by sugarfiend @ 8:47 PM
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