A camping I will go...?

Talk about a waste of my time. I went to Birch Run to an RV and Camper show, just to find out that my car, which is supposed to tow 3500 lbs. Can't tow 3500 lbs. Which means I have to get a pop-up or smaller, something around 12-1500 lbs. I have a 2017 Ford Escape with a 2.0 EcoBoost engine. Geez..

To top it off the little girl who took money, at the door, short changed me by $5. I gave her a $20 and she gave me $9, the cost to get in was only $6.
I didn't notice until I got to the grocery store, 45 miles away. I know I am getting old, but I guess I put too 
much trust in humans.

A wonderful (active) year...

It has been another great year for me. I wanted to keep doing what I have been doing, this past year, in order to have a lifetime of being dis-ease free. As of the 12^th of December, I have been relaxing, just taking it easy for the rest of this year until January, where I will start up with all of the activities I enjoyed over the past year.

I am planning to join Planet Fitness, again, so I can get my legs in better shape for those long hikes and those long bike rides, 50+ miles at a time. My longest in 2016, 45 miles and I did that 4 times.

Anyway, here are my results for this past year:

ran – only 73.1 miles – (2015 - 235 miles, What a year a difference makes)

Walked – 425.4 miles – (2015-754 miles, ouch…)

Biked – 475.7 miles – (2015 - 410 miles)

Hiked – 294 miles – (2015 - 95.5 miles)  

Kayaked – 17 miles – (2015 - 4.2 miles)

For a grand total of – 1285.3 miles – (2015 1500.4 miles)

 Down a tiny bit, in some categories, and up a few in others, only because I either forgot to add the extra times to my recorder or my  GPS logs failed because the batteries on my phone died. But I did add a lot more other activities such as, Camping 6 times in 2016 (8 times in 2015), Laser tag, and going Zip lining.  

I ended up gaining about 15 pounds and maintained a weight of 200 lbs. for a large part 2016, considering I had lost 76 pounds in the prior years.  

I don’t know what I have doing for the end of this year, but I've gained 15 pounds since the end of November. I think it has to do with all that cake and Rum and Eggnog I have devoured in the last two week. Compounding the fact that I have done no other activities but sit and watch Movies on Netflix for the last two weeks.

In a few days I am going to have to get back on track and do what I have been doing for the last 2 and a half years. This year I plan to add more just to make sure that when I go to the doctor for my annual checkup all my numbers are lower than they were for 2016. 

Let's get ready tooooooo...backpack!

The last of my backpacking gear came into today. I packed everything into my 70+10L backpack. Total weight; 25 Lbs. (24.6). The only things missing, I only have partial food, (b'fast and 2 days of snacks.), water, (I ordered a water bladder, should be here in 5 days.) and I don't have any clothes in the pack. 
My next weekend trip is in 14 days. I should be totally ready by then.

Today marks the beginning of a new Adventure!

My God, it's full of stars...

I went camping this past weekend, three fun filled, relaxing days. My only complaint, my air mattress continues to deflate. This in turn causes me to wake up with a sore back, which is still hurting as I sit here and type this blog post.

On Saturday, early on, the rains came and they came. Most of us decided that we would drive over to the beach house and get out of the coming rain. Seconds after we got into the beach house the rain started falling, sideways! Even though the rain only lasted 20 minutes we stayed for in place for an hour.

While I was there, I ate something, and to this very moment I can’t remember what it was I ate but it was probably sweet and I know I had some coffee. Now that I think about it, I remember that the cup wasn’t clean and there was some strange looking crud at the bottom of the cup which I didn’t notice until I finished the coffee. I have the feeling the guy who brought his coffee maker never cleaned out.

Around the time it started getting dark the group all got together and we started a fire and we sat around drinking beer and wine. Someone then pulled out some cheese and crackers, which I needed to counter the effects of the beer.

I noticed the clouds were beginning to clear and the stars came out, but it was still bright out, basically because of the quarter Moon.  Mars and Jupiter were very clear and bright, I should have gotten up and gotten my binoculars but the beer was having a slight effect on me.  Anyway, the big dipper and a bunch of stars came out, but nothing amazing. It was like being at home sitting in the back yard looking up at the stars in the sky. Then the clouds filled the sky again.

I got my first telescope when I was about 11 years old. Not knowing a lot about astronomy the only thing I could see was the moon. I don’t ever remember seeing stars or planets, way back then, and I don’t remember what happened, to this day I think my brother broke my telescope knocking the secondary mirror out. I spent hours and days trying to glue the mirror but it just wouldn’t stay in place. This was way before Super Glue.

In my life time I have had three telescope, two reflectors and one refractor.

All of them were cheap and I could never see any of the planets, though, the moon came in clear, big and bright. A few years ago my brother came into town and he brought with him his telescope. He had a cheap telescope, one he purchased at a pawn shop. But, he had purchased expensive, but not too expensive lenses, and that made the difference.

With his telescope and lenses I, for the first time in my life, saw the rings of Saturn, heck; I even had a clear view of Mars! All this did was get me salivating whenever I saw a telescope. I have a page on Pinterest with all of the telescopes that I could ever wish for or dream about. The one I want, though, is $14,000! Hey, I can dream can’t I?

Back at the campground, I decided to go to bed about 10:30. I figured that I had enough to drink and I was hoping the alcohol was enough to help me sleep. For whatever reason I cannot sleep in a tent, considering someone in the next tent was snoring so loud and for just about all night, but I digress…

Around 2 am, my stomach started talking to me, loudly. Not only that I had a sharp pain in my lower abdomen and it got sharper as I laid in my tent. I stayed there for about a half an hour before I decided to get up and walk a 100 meters to the camp restroom/showers.

Even though I was in pain I happened to look into the sky. I have, in my lifetime never seen that many stars! Some were so bright; they looked as big as flickering baseballs in the sky. I even saw the Milky Way, the center of our galaxy. It wasn’t as bright as I have seen in pictures but I could see the entire outline. If it weren’t for the pain and those pesky mosquitoes I would have pulled out my chair and sat and watch the stars, as I was, in awe and wonderment.

I made it to the restroom, did my thing, 15 minutes later I slowly made it back to my tent, but I didn’t go in, not right away. I stood there and just viewed the stars as long as I could. The two things I lacked that night, a telescope and a real camera, I have a point shoot right now. I could have gotten my binoculars but, I would have had to get back into my tent to get my car keys and If I went back in I was going to try and go to sleep.

From what I understand, Michigan has four Dark Sky sites and I just happened to be in one of them, Tawas State Park, Michigan. I didn’t know that at the time and felt I like a kid in a candy store looking at millions and millions of stars glowing and flickering the night away.

A camping I will go...

I love camping, well; I like it a lot, really. I just got home from my latest camping trip to Tawas State Park, for this past weekend.

It’s kind of funny; I always try to remember to bring the important things that I need to have a successful camping trip.  Most times I forget those things. Usually I will do something like, a blanket but forget the pillow. Or, forget a pan or spoons or something. This weekend I forgot my little pan, so I could make pancake for breakfast and I forgot my giant patio umbrella because I read that it was going to thunderstorm on Saturday night.

This weekend I remember to bring a pillow but I didn’t take a blanket, to completely cover me, because I was thinking on bringing a top sheet. I didn’t realize that it would get cool that first night or for that matter the second night. So, for the first night I blew up my sleeping pad and laid my sleeping bag on top of the pad. I was fine for a while, though.

Late into the night I started to get cold, considering that it only got into the 50s, it was too cold for shorts, no socks and a t-shirt. So, the little blanket I had, a throw blanket, 4’x 3’, which was only big enough to cover my feet and legs, but not my upper torso or vice-versa.

I remembered that I had bought a couple of towels. I got the largest towel, which is about six feet long and covered my legs and used the tiny blanked to cover my upper body.  It was a bad night, I just couldn’t keep either towel or blanket on me and the cold was overwhelming. I don’t remember sleeping much the first night.

On the second night, Saturday night, I was thinking that I would have to use the second towel because I took a shower and that big towel was wet. I had, earlier, looked at the weather report and it stated that the temperature was going to be in the 40s! It actually got to 48 degrees!

Then it hit me, like as if someone dropped an anvil on my thick head…I had a sleeping bag. Why didn’t I just use it? I got in my sleeping bag and was toasty the rest of the night; I was too warm, now that I think about it.

 I had realized a tiny bit, and a day late, that when I am sitting around the campfire with the gang, I should not have had two glasses of wine, and three beers. Those liquids seem to help me forget more than old age ever will.

I Love camping, but…

(1) Facebook: " For the longest, I have been trying to find things to write about in regard to my writing life. It’s either boring or non-existent, now and in the past. I have been trying for many days to find things to write about in that area…but I digress.
Anyway, I went winter camping this past January, and I realized I love camping; it was my first time camping in the cold, cold climes of winter, in northern Michigan. After talking to my neighbor, the gung-ho former Marine, he has gotten me totally interested in backpack camping, however, as far as equipment goes, I fall far short.
Three years ago, I joined a social group, which included camping, hiking and just about everything outdoors. Considering that, I have been camping for over 25 or more years, including camping as a cub scout. However, with this group I have gone camping 10 times since 2015.
Throughout those many years, I have only gone car camping, which help me carry all the equipment I could load into my car, enough to last an entire weekend, or more if I wanted to stay longer. In addition, all have included either a 20 or so mile bike ride or a hike.
As far as backpacking equipment, all I have now is a Day Pack, it, in its self, is large enough to hold all of the things I need to go on a 15 mile hike, my longest so far. I can carry my water, extra clothes, food, well, some nuts, bananas, apples and stuff like that, and my walking stick. But, that’s where Day backpacking hikes end and weekend backpack starts.
This past November I got the opportunity to camp at Sleeping Bear campsite near the shores of Lake Michigan, an entire weekend. However, it was kind of car camping because, my car was a little more than 15 feet away from me. However, I really enjoyed that weekend and now I like camping in cooler weather.
I do have a four season tent, (the advertisement states that it is a four season teat and the manufacture states that it is only a three season tent. I’m guessing for legal reasons...), which I bought earlier last year, and a sleeping bag, rated to 30 degrees. My only problem, I cannot fit all of that equipment into any of the backpacks I own.
On the other hand, considering, the temperature, that weekend, got down to 27 degrees both of those nights and the wind was gusting to 35 miles or more all night long, but I was toasty and warm all night long. For whatever reason, though, I cannot sleep, soundly, in a tent anyway.
Before I joined those outdoor groups, I usually camped with another group, but they camped once a year. And those weekend were on the shores of Lake Eire. For whatever reason, and the fact that the water was beating onto the shore, the noise kept me away all night long and that started my never being able to sleep in a tent. I guess I am more comfortable in my own bed."

To me honest, I have no gear that I could use to go backpack camping, yet. I might be able to squeeze my tent and the rainfly a large enough backpack, though. As it is now, I am saving to purchase a 60 liter Plus 10 Backpack. I should have enough money by the middle of August.

In the meantime, I am putting together a list of things to purchase, light enough to go backpack camping this coming fall and winter. Then I will be ready for a new adventure. I just hope I don’t freeze to death on one of those marches to the campsite. That kind of happened, my feet freezing solid, this past January when I forgot my second pair of wool socks.

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