out of the woods
Sep. 13th, 2003 04:28 pmYesterday I went camping with my oldest son James -- a father-son outing, and a chance to just focus on each other.
We went to Memorial Park, near Pescadero in the Santa Cruz mountains, and camped among redwoods. It was quiet, and the high redwoods give the area a classic cathedral-like feel (rays of light streaming down). And it was 15 degrees cooler than at home :-).
[Aside: I don't know why I don't go camping more often... I guess it's that![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
patgreene isn't fond of sleeping on the ground, and keeping up with David and Kevin in the woods is taxing. And I don't have any local friends or partners to take, otherwise. But I love waking up outdoors, improvising, being immersed in life and nature...]
Anyway, I cooked steaks and potatoes, and in the meantime taught James how to light and build a campfire. After washing up, we made s'mores and played cards -- I taught him spades and some new poker variations -- while fending off a family of four raccoons (including a baby that they held out of the campsite while foraging). Later we heard rustling... shone our flashlights, and were surprised to see a skunk a few feet away (instead of the raccoons again). James was frightened -- especially after the skunk merrily sauntered up to our table, then went *underneath* the table between us (between James's legs!). I told him to freeze... eventually the skunk wandered away.
This morning, we only had an hour for hiking before we needed to break camp... but James was determined to make it to the summit of Mt. Ellen, nearly 2 miles each way (and 800' vertical) from our camp. He took off... I was hard-pressed to keep up at times. We covered the 1.5 miles base-to-summit in 20 minutes. Whew. I was drenched in sweat. But we made it back to camp on time... then broke camp and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway to Pacifica.
In Pacifica, we went tocaptivatinglove and grynz's birthday party, and had a relaxed time. I finally met chiefted in person, saw M again, and rendezvoused with patgreene and the younger kids. Who then spent the next two hours climbing and jumping out of a tree near the picnic site... quite a party when there are regular choruses of "jump, jump!" (grin).
We went to Memorial Park, near Pescadero in the Santa Cruz mountains, and camped among redwoods. It was quiet, and the high redwoods give the area a classic cathedral-like feel (rays of light streaming down). And it was 15 degrees cooler than at home :-).
[Aside: I don't know why I don't go camping more often... I guess it's that
patgreene isn't fond of sleeping on the ground, and keeping up with David and Kevin in the woods is taxing. And I don't have any local friends or partners to take, otherwise. But I love waking up outdoors, improvising, being immersed in life and nature...]Anyway, I cooked steaks and potatoes, and in the meantime taught James how to light and build a campfire. After washing up, we made s'mores and played cards -- I taught him spades and some new poker variations -- while fending off a family of four raccoons (including a baby that they held out of the campsite while foraging). Later we heard rustling... shone our flashlights, and were surprised to see a skunk a few feet away (instead of the raccoons again). James was frightened -- especially after the skunk merrily sauntered up to our table, then went *underneath* the table between us (between James's legs!). I told him to freeze... eventually the skunk wandered away.
This morning, we only had an hour for hiking before we needed to break camp... but James was determined to make it to the summit of Mt. Ellen, nearly 2 miles each way (and 800' vertical) from our camp. He took off... I was hard-pressed to keep up at times. We covered the 1.5 miles base-to-summit in 20 minutes. Whew. I was drenched in sweat. But we made it back to camp on time... then broke camp and headed up the Pacific Coast Highway to Pacifica.
In Pacifica, we went to
captivatinglove and grynz's birthday party, and had a relaxed time. I finally met chiefted in person, saw M again, and rendezvoused with patgreene and the younger kids. Who then spent the next two hours climbing and jumping out of a tree near the picnic site... quite a party when there are regular choruses of "jump, jump!" (grin).
