A couple in their mid-60s or so stopped by to chat with me today as I sat outside working. They asked how I liked my R-pod camper and said they met 30 years ago and were tent camping then and they’re tent camping now. They were on their way to Alaska, eventually, but before that, they planned on seeing Glacier National Park and Banff in Canada. They are in for a hell of a drive (I did it in 1999 to Anchorage).
I stayed in Glacier for a week last year and saw a grizzly bear fairly close up, which was on my bucket list, but I’ve yet to see Banff.
The fact that they plan to tent that entire time caused me to briefly reflect on how soft I’ve become by getting this camper. Although, if you’re car camping, you can make tent life much more enjoyable by investing not in a mattress made for camping, but in an actual air mattress, one from a big box retailer that you buy for guests because you can’t afford an actual mattress just for guests and also because your house is pretty small and you don’t want an entire room dedicated to a bed that gets used twice a year. Then you get an adapter for your vehicle cigarette lighter that allows you to plug in the little blower and pump that sucker up. Where you get into trouble as you age is when you’re on a hiking trip and sleeping on a tiny air mattress and you wake up 20 times during the night because something hurts.
I’m wearing insulated pants and my Arby’s branded hoodie today, because it was in the mid- to low-60s, and that’s evidently cold to me now. It’s the first-time I think I’ve worn a sweater in weeks. The next few nights it will get down to the mid-30s with highs in the low 60s.
Last night, while thunder literally shook the camper and rain poured from the sky for hours, I started re-watching Andor on Disney+. I rarely re-watch a show, and I swear I’m not a Star Wars “nerd.” In fact, I’ve been disappointed by nearly everything in the Star Wars universe since Rogue One in 2016, except The Mandalorian. But Andor is a great show even if you’re not a fan of Star Wars, in my opinion. The acting is incredible, and strip out the space aspects of the story and it’s still a great story structure that could work anywhere. It’s heartfelt, it’s not all black-and-white choices, it’s messy, it’s human—even if there are weirdo space creatures.
I grilled a steak for dinner tonight and am feeling powerful and good again. A good steak often fixes everything.
Issue: Daylight Savings Time has got to go. I hate it. My body hates it.
Leave a reply to Bex Cancel reply