Camping with a Superhero

` Yes, I did indeed spend a night in the woods with a bona fide superhero. Just to warn you, we were not mauled by animals such as angry badgers, so I'm afraid this trip is not as exciting as I had wished it was.
` But if you'd like to know about it anyway, then by all means, keep reading!

` Let's see... it all started the other day. *wiggly-wavy filter, harp strains* Before my errand-run that morning, I decided to go upstairs and observe Daryl’s achievements of making the house habitable. While I was up there, I couldn’t help but take a Crappy Digital Photo (CDP) of the mountains while they were still swimming in mist.

` Later on in the day, after blogging my last post, I found myself next to superhero Lou Ryan (with my CDC in hand) aboard his Chevy Luv, headed in the general direction pictured above. Irritatingly, the engine became more and more troublesome the higher in altitude that we got, so instead of driving out into back country, we had to settle for a little camp ground called Squire Creek.
` It didn’t matter that much, I suppose, considering that we were only ‘car camping’ this time. Next time, perhaps, there will be lots of fun hiking and bear attacks involved! As it was, the woods were quite nice for a non-alpine area!


` I only wish I could display better pictures, but the CDC is the only DC I have for you! In fact, one CDP was so bad that I had to horribly disfigure it with Microsoft ‘Crappy’ Photo Editor in order to make it look better!


` Anyway, after we had set up the tent, he began changing into his civilian clothing. You know, so nobody would recognize him. Having a superhero in such a vulnerable position, however, I decided was just too much.
` I pounced and began grappling with him. However, in the middle of all this, the park ranger pulled up and asked for fifteen dollars.
` Blast! Foiled again!
` That we didn’t expect – of course! – being that the really remote campgrounds that Lou is used to have a much different policy.
` So, we gave him the damn money and decided to take a walk. Now, this view here...


` ...is from just past the tent. As you can see, there is a riverbed with all kinds of animal tracks on it. However, not much water could be found – a huge flood had rerouted the river and so there were more humungous logjams than water towards us.
` So, we had to walk a little ways before we came across the water, upon which we threw rocks into: Having had much practice at this, Lou was finely skilled at both hurling large rocks into the air and having them make barely a splash as well as skipping the flat ones across the surface. In fact; one of them skipped diagonally across the river and into the far bank!
` I, on the other hand, having virtually no arm strength and not having practiced in many years, only managed four skips.

` I really need to start pumping iron again.

` There were also a lot of singing frogs and birds, the latter flying everywhere, rutting, and all kinds of fun things.
` Of course, I couldn’t really photograph much with the CDC, so there’s not much to show save for one shot – over a logjam – of the snowy peaks, past a rural home on the far bank.


` Yes, you can see just how much closer we were than before! If it weren’t for the unexpected behavior of the Luv’s carburetor, we would have been on one of those mountains!
` No matter, at least it was nice and warm down where we were! In fact, Lou even let me be the Supreme Overlord of our entire campsite!


` As the sun went down, and the blackness crept in on us, we started and tended a campfire with Lou’s own invention – a type of bellows that blows on both the upstroke and downstroke. Something strange happened here as well – the fire actually became so hot that the end of the metal hose glowed orange!
` I think Lou’s super strength can be thanked for that.
` A little later, he got his camping stove going and boiled some water for our freeze-dried pasta with vegetables and parmesan cheese. I was quite impressed with how much it all seemed as if it had not needed to have been reconstituted!
` Could have fooled me!
` After dinner, Lou displayed yet another of his superpowers: Musical talent in the woods!


` Heck, I can’t even do that! (Pianos are very heavy, you know!)
` I can’t say I did a whole lot myself, considering that I was Supreme Overlord. I didn’t even request one of my favorite songs of his, called ‘Life in a Box’: I’d become so drowsy that I’d forgotten to do any of my evil overlord-type things.
` It wasn’t long until we were both snug in our sleeping bags, in the tent, with a lantern hanging over us. I was tempted to take a CDP of a strange shadow cast on the outside of the tent – the type seen in the Austin Powers movies – but I figured that it might not come out due to dimness.
` Also, it was kind of cold out there when I emerged to brush my teeth. And back in my sleeping bag, my feet were freezing. (Even the half-asleep Lou said; “Brr!”) In fact, they remained fairly cold all night. Should have taken off my pants, though strangely it didn’t occur to me considering that I was more or less in bed with The Great-But-Humble Lou Ryan!
` Chilly feet or not, I emerged fully alive and unmauled by bears to see another day. (Of course, things may have been different if we had made it to our original destination!)
` I snapped this CDP that morning to give you the idea of the thickness of all the ferns growing among the horsetails and on the mossy trees.


` After some eggs and cheese (having eaten our entire loaf of raisin bread the night before) we sat by the fire, reading, smiting mosquitoes, and becoming even more saturated with smoke.
` No large predatory animals attacked us, which was rather disappointing since I was hoping for some wild creature to slink down and try to maul us. So far, the wildest creature that Lou has ever defended me against (for the most part) was a middle-aged lawyer who wanted me to draw him naked.
` At around eleven o’clock or so, we packed up our things and descended from our elevation, the carburetor becoming progressively more stable, back down to our dinky little marine-side city, whereupon everything became Hopelessly Mundane: We took a shower, I called my mom and my brother and wished him a not-so-miserable thirty-fifth birthday, and then I went back home to get some lunch.
` ...This time, ‘lunch’ consisted of Berry-Overflow Cheerios, which are prepared beforehand simply by eating ¾ of the cereal without eating any berries. Takes a lot of willpower to do.
` But before I could indulge in the sweet goodness which turns my Rice Dream bright purple, I decided to capture one last image:


` Pretty soon, I think, one of us will be crowded out by the moving in of new tenants, thanks to the skilled work of Darryl. Yes, indeed, we inhabitants of this house have to compete for parking rights – however I think that if I’d moved into the garage just to the right (as I almost had) I would have had an actual parking lot! And laundry, to boot! And only $300 in rent!
` As it is, someone who owns running-away-prone Scottish folds lives in the room I almost rented out. But then, that room is much worse than mine, and has a view straight into the McDonald’s.
` Anyway, that was an unusually pointless sidenote into my living situation. Makes me wonder what other pointless ramblings I can possibly foist upon my readers.

` The possibilities are endless.

` But, to spare you, I'll go home.