Last Day of Summer 2016

Last weekend, I decided to head up to Warren Dunes to go camping and take advantage of the fading summer weather with my pal, Jimmy Jam (JJ). Camping tends to be a bit of a humbling experience for me and sadly, this is not usually because of pensive, Walden-grade introspection. For example, on this particular trip I found myself humbled when I observed exactly how much equipment seems to be required to keep two reasonably healthy and competent adults alive and in relative comfort for all of two days. Roughing it indeed.

Even though the over-packing and over-preparing may be a bit of a blow to the masculine sense of self-reliance, I know from experience how deflating it can be to attempt a weekend in the woods and find yourself in want of some piece of equipment or other. As longtime readers of This Blog and You may note, I once neglected to include my sleeping bag in my camping inventory and I found the episode to be quite trying.

Still, any misgivings concerning our bulging suitcases and duffel bags notwithstanding, I couldn't deny that I was very much looking forward to enjoying food that we had brought. The appeal of spending time away from all (or at least some of) the amenities of home is a bit difficult to define, but for me, at least half the fun is preparing meals over a campfire.

JJ and I began preparations for lunch almost as soon as we arrived at our site. Neither of us had eaten much for breakfast that day and, seeing as we hadn't stopped for any sort of sustenance en route, we were quite hungry. Our lunch was to be stadium-style Johnsonville bratwurst simmered in a cast iron deep skillet along with halved sweet peppers, an entire vidalia onion (diced) and two tablespoons of unsalted butter for good measure. The resulting meal did not disappoint. Without exaggeration or exception, those had to have been the most delicious bratwurst I have ever tasted. The accompanying Dale's Pale Ale by Oskar Blues complimented the already spectacular flavor beautifully.

After a full afternoon of climbing, swimming, and being kind of lost in the woods for about forty minutes (true story), we returned to our campsite, again famished. Our menu for the evening was to be diced potatoes and a vegetable medley with a half-pound of Bob Evan's spicy sausage and sweet peppers mixed in, wrapped in a goodly amount of tin foil and placed directly on the fire. I learned to call this particular style of meal "Hobo Dinners" but I have come to learn that they are also known by the somewhat more descriptive term, "Tin Foil Dinners." This meal turned out to be pretty good but it did want for a bit more flavor and juiciness. As it happens, I'm to blame for both of these shortcomings inasmuch as I had agreed to bring barbecue sauce but I had forgotten to do so. Still, it was a satisfying enough meal and besides, everybody knows the best meal on a camping trip is breakfast.

I awoke the following morning and immediately set to coaxing the still-smoldering embers from the previous night back into flame. As I was busied with this, JJ, who was fiddling around near our picnic table, murmured purposefully, "Oh. That sucks." I turned to see what was troubling him. "Raccoons got into our trash." was his almost mournful reply. I shot him a mildly conciliatory expression and returned my attention to fire-starting. Having to clean up a little extra trash might be a bit inconvenient but no reason to get all crestfallen.

I had only just begun to kindle a few shy tendrils of flame from the smoking, ashy coals when JJ again pierced the early morning quite with a wail of defeat and exasperation. "Raccoons took all our food!" I hurried over to where he was hunched over our cooler and saw that he was right. Our cheese, sausage, butter, peppers, and onions were all gone. All that remained were a few eggs marked by tiny paw prints. While I admit it was not the predominant emotion that I was feeling at the time, I do remember being a little impressed that the mangy little egg thieves had been able to open the lid of our heavy-duty Coleman Xtreme© Series. But as I say, not so impressed that I wouldn't have gladly bludgeoned their furry little brains out for the safe return of another egg or two.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and JJ suggested that he go to the campground general store and see if they had any eggs and bacon while I prepared the fire. While he was gone I added more wood to the fire, put on water for coffee, and found about a dozen half-eaten sweet peppers all in a big heap about a dozen yards from our tent. Little rascals didn't even like them.

After a few minutes JJ returned and I took about eight strips of the bacon and lined the skillet with them, covered it, and set it on the fire. I then began to tidy up around the site and grind the coffee. My attention was drawn back to the bacon when it was pointed out to me that it had burst into flame. I looked, and sure enough, menacing tongues of flame lapped hungrily between the lid and the lip of the skillet. I quickly accoutered myself with our non-fireproof oven mitts and snatched the vessel from the fire ring, thereby sloshing the grease inside and causing the contents to go supernova. Again thinking quickly, JJ recalled that water was just the thing for extinguishing grease fires and deposited the boiling contents of our coffeepot over the skillet. Once extinguished, I rested the smoldering pot on our picnic table and removed the lid. Out belched an angry plume of concrete-colored smoke. Once we had fanned away enough of the haze, we saw to our astonishment that our bacon had vanished. All that remained was a thick, oily goo that roughly resembled paving tar. Disappointed but not defeated, I gingerly poured the inky mess onto the ground and tried to give the skillet a bit of a rinse with the water left in the coffee pot. I then reapplied more bacon but kept a sharper eye on it this time. Once I couldn't stand the sight of the bacon any more, I deposited them on a plate and added the eggs. The result was just the saddest-looking breakfast you'd ever see.

As it turns out, melted bacon residue turns breakfast black.

I hope you all had a great Labor Dabor Day.

-Ryan