Growing up in rural America, I’ve been on tons of hunting trips, as us rednecks are so fond. I always knew that come September, when bird season began, to expect lots of my weekends to be jam-packed with hiking, campfires, and those oh-so-fresh communal toilets. Toilets aside, it was all great. I loved camping, it was something we were good at, it was something I was good at. Be that as it may, there was one camping trip we seriously dropped the ball on. Primarily my father’s fault, but I don’t want to point any fingers.
So, it was the time of year to hunt mountain quail. Which means a long trip up to higher elevation, where these little critters like to flock. We all packed our bags, my dad borrowed my grandpa’s new tent, and we set sail up the windy dirt path to Kennedy Meadows. It was cold when we finally got up there, and it was definitely freezing by that night. My only solace was knowing I was going to be wrapped in nice warm blankets, surrounded by my parents’ body heat in the tent.
However, I neglected to notice something crucial when helping to set up our tent. The tiny thing was only designed for two campers. Which is funny, because there’s three of us. It was basically two cots sewn together, with a tarp overhead to shield from the elements. There was a long metal bar separating the two cots, being that children are second-class citizens in the family dynamic, this is where my bed was for the night.
To make matters worse, the blankets that were packed were like all paper-thin. So, there I was, my spine bruising from the pressure of sleeping on a pole, freezing while covered in what felt like tissue paper. I’d try to scoot closer to either of my parents for warmth or back-relief, but was always forced back into the middle. Safe to say, I was definitely not sleeping that night.
Then, I wanna say around 2AM, a layer of moisture made its way into camp. The dew covered everything. The blankets felt icy cold and damp, my ears started to sear with frigid pain, while it felt like my nose was turning pitch black. I was enormously uncomfortable, so I definitely let that be known. My mom was a light sleeper, so all I had to do was kick her and she woke up. The kick was so effective, that she sprung up, disturbing the water droplets all over the tent, which rained down icy death upon us.
The mist woke my father, and there we all sat, shivering, wet, and completely exhausted. Now was a very important time, I had to be super strategic in my moves. Who should I appeal to in order to go home, and out of this horrible situation? My mom has my dad’s right testiscle in her back pocket, so I knew the answer to the question. So, I started to paint things very negatively. Kept reminding her about the cold, the uncomfortability, all that combined with her irritable tiredness, was enough to send her over the edge, and demand the trip over. Which myself, and my damaged vertebrae, were extremely stoked about.
We spent the rest of that early morning driving home. The heater was turned up high, and I fell comfortably fast asleep on my mom’s shoulder. In the end, I was a very happy camper.
