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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. 
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| Having a mobile tent is working out great for us. We love camping, and we love using a tent, but with age, it's been getting more difficult. Sleeping on the ground was replaced with air mattresses, then we upgraded to a portable frame so we could get off the bed more easily, and our small tent gave way to bigger tents and more equipment. It was time to get a camper. Because we enjoy tenting, we eventually purchased a used, in pretty good shape, pop-up camper (a mobile tent). We can keep most of our camping equipment in the camper, we have a small fridge, a sink, a stove, and ten gallons of water complete with a water heater. It has a pull-out dining area, a couch, and two pull-out queen-size (closer to king-sized) beds as well as a furnace. But, since we purchased it and fixed it up, we have only used it a handful of times. We took it out twice last year and twice so far this year. And, we have only been able to get a campsite with an electric hook-up once. That was in June of this year and we really didn't use electricity much at all. Even though we enjoy roughing it, we would also like to enjoy the accessories we have with our mobile tent. We will finally get the opportunity to do just that, over the weekend of October sixth through the ninth. Yes, we are going camping in October, in northern Minnesota! We will be camping at La Salle State Park north of Itasca State Park for four glorious days. The forecast calls for some rain throughout the weekend, with daily highs of about sixty degrees, and lows dropping near freezing. Of course, the weather forecast around here is about as accurate as asking the Magic Eight-Ball, so we will see what comes. We may get some rain, and it's possible, but kind of unlikely, to even get a bit of snow. So, with the forecast, you would likely think we are a bit bummed. But, it's actually really exciting to think about camping in October, having some rain, the possibility of snow, and being able to weather it out in a mobile tent. We have a furnace, and the campsite has electric hook-ups, water hook-ups, and even sewage hook-ups. We don't have a bathroom or shower in the mobile tent, but we do have the means of running our gray water into the sewer. They also have very nice bathrooms and showers at the campground, as well as a washer and dryer (coin-operated) and firewood. This may be the last campout of the year, but it's looking like it may be the best one since we purchased a mobile tent. Snuggled in a hoodie, sitting around a fire, or sitting in shirt sleeves in a warm and toasty mobile tent, what ever the weather brings, we'll enjoy our October Campout, |
It's been way too long since I've added an entry! But, I have been adding some poetry to my other book, "Pages of Pint-Sized Poetry"  so there's that.I've been wanting to write a bit about our second camping trip this season and now seems like a good time. Our first campout was in South Dakota and worked out well, but our last one was just a short distance from home, in a State Park, but with no modern amenities. What? You know, like Gilligan's Island! Maybe not that bad, but we had no electricity, no water hook-up, no showers, and only a vault toilet. Not that we mind camping like this. We only recently stopped using a tent and have upgraded to a mobile tent (pop-up camper). We can carry ten gallons of fresh water, we have a three-way refrigerator that's kind of small, but it does the trick, and it has a gas water heater. It also has a gas furnace that we can run off of the battery, but it does draw the battery down rather quickly. Let's say between the furnace and the fridge we would likely drain the battery in about a day, but with the fridge on gas, the furnace will work about two days. Thankfully, it was pleasant weather, but it did get cold at night and we did run the furnace a bit. I also packed along another deep-cycle battery and we purchased a small, quiet, and very portable generator for this type of camping, so everything was fine; we ran the generator for about a half-hour the first night only because we needed AC current to inflate the air mattresses. For remote camping, it was a bit crowded. We had reserved two spots just because we like to have quiet and room when we camp. But shortly after we arrived a group moved into the remaining campsites to our south. A group of young women, teenagers, to be precise, out camping with their grandmother. They were tenting, and luckily we had a hammer along because the ground was hard and they were having a rough time driving stakes down. All in all, they were pretty quiet, didn't bother us, and kept to their sites. Except at night, being in a mobile tent, it doesn't block sound and they laughed and giggled through the night. Late Saturday afternoon, we had started a nice campfire in the second site and were just getting ready to start our dinner cooking over it when a car pulled up and a young guy and lady got out. He said we were at his campsite and pulled out his phone to show us. We informed him that we had reserved it and my wife went to get her phone to show him. To keep it short, it turned out that we indeed had reserved that site, he had messed up, or the online reservation was messed up. It turned out he had reserved the site the prior weekend. They apologized for bothering us and proceeded to walk back toward their car. I stopped them just as my wife returned with her phone, explained everything to her, and asked them where they were from. They had driven four hours to go camping! We knew that the park was full and it wouldn't be very likely they would find another spot, so I asked my wife if she was okay to let them use the second site. She agreed, and they looked like they were going to go into shock. ""Really! You'd let us camp here anyway?" I nodded, and then added, "We even started a fire for you, all you need to do is enjoy it." They offered us thirty dollars, but since they had already paid double that for the previous weekend, I told them it wasn't necessary. He insisted, especially since we had a nice fire burning. In the end, we took twenty dollars, loaned them the hammer so they could get their tent set up, and threw in a bundle of firewood so they could keep it burning. Everyone around us seemed to enjoy the weekend camping, and we had a good time as well, but the best night was Sunday after everyone around us packed up and left and we had the entire area to ourselves. |
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