Camping

In a weekend chock full of sports _ NFL Week 6, NHL, Major League Baseball playoffs _ you might think that I would choose to write about something related to them. However, I'm sure you know me better than that by now, and you know that I frequently ignore professional sports and write about my own adventures for strictly selfish reasons. But, for this particular column, I have no choice but to write about myself because I was in no position to watch sports for most of the weekend.

While many of you undoubtedly spent your weekends in your warm homes, in front of your big television sets watching sports, I spent my Columbus Day Weekend in isolation _ at a campsite in Vermont with Haley. Not only did I have to experience life without professional sports, I also lacked other basic essentials such as electricity, food, a working tent, fire, and a good flashlight among other things.

It is important to note, that whether outdoorsmen such as hunters, campers, backpackers, and hikers are actually athletes has long been debated. In order to make this column "sports related" I am going to go out on a limb here and say that camping is, in fact, a sport.

I should have known that things weren't going to go as planned as soon as we left on Saturday afternoon. Right off the bat, two key factors were working against me: Haley was sick and it was pouring outside and the weather forecast predicted rain all weekend. Haley and I discussed postponing our vacation but I am stubborn and had been looking forward to this trip since the summer. I convinced her that both her sickness and the bad weather would pass. At 2 p.m., two hours after our planned departure time, we took to the road.

Approximately three hours later when we crossed the Vermont border, little had changed; it was still pouring and Haley was curled up in a ball in the front seat. Although the weather didn't appear to be clearing up, Haley assured me that she was starting to feel a whole lot better. I took solace in the fact that rain or shine we would be able to stay dry in my tent.

At about 5:30 p.m. we pulled into Woodford State Park in Wilmington, VT. It was already getting dark, and the campgrounds were officially closed for the night. A sign posted on the office window informed us that we could pick any available campsite and pay in the morning.

We settled on a site with a lean-to, just in case the tent wasn't as waterproof as I had remembered it being when I used it five years ago. With the high winds, heavy rain and Haley's sickness we decided that we would set up the tent in the lean-to and thus have double protection from the elements. We took out the tent and set it up in five minutes. After admiring our craftsmanship, we decided to test it out.

In retrospect, after five years of sitting in my basement in White Plains, maybe I should have checked out the tent before we left for the wilderness. But I figured that the tent was probably in perfect shape because it had been untouched since I was 16. Of course, after I was done tent gazing and reached for the first zipper it didn't budge. "Just a minor obstacle," I thought to myself as I pulled on it with all my might.

After working on the front zipper for 20 minutes, to no avail, I moved on to the next three _ the three that really opened the tent (the first one was just for the front cover). Of course, the main zippers were caked shut as well and no amount of pulling was going to open them, though I did manage to break one off.

Hell, with the near monsoon, a broken tent, and a nauseous girlfriend with a migraine, any normal human being would have taken the hint that it was time to pack up and head home. But, I'd be damned if we didn't sleep in the woods in my godforsaken tent. So off we went to the General Store 25 miles down the road, where we purchased a trusty bottle of WD-40 to spray on the zippers.

We arrived back at the campsite 45 minutes later at about 7 p.m., well after the sky had turned dark, and sprayed the zippers. While we waited for the WD-40 to work its magic, I figured it would be a good time to look for wood to make a fire. Despite Haley's weakened condition and the fact that we had one tiny flashlight (oh yeah, and it was still raining) the two of us searched around our campsite for logs and kindling.

Looking for dry firewood in the dark and rain, is probably a fruitless activity, but I was certain that it would all work out. We found a few twigs and a couple of small branches, but there were no big, dry logs to really get the fire going. The big dry, precut logs were locked up near the front gate and since the campgrounds had officially closed at 5 p.m. We were out of luck.

At this point, Haley was practically dead and told me that she had to take a "20 minute" nap and that she would be fine after that. I agreed that a nap was a probably a good idea for her, and I promised that by the time she woke up would have a blazing fire ready for her and our food cooking on it.

When, she did finally wake up, all I had to show for my effort was four burnt copies of The Tufts Daily, which I had found in my car and tried to use for kindling. Haley was sick and hungry. I was mad and hungry. And, we had no way to cook our food since, as I learned the hard way, it's nearly impossible to start a fire with wet wood in the rain.

So 25 miles back down the road we headed to pick up some food to take back to our lean-to. We had long since given up on the tent and we were now planning to sleep in our sleeping bags in just the lean-to. As we proceeded down the road, Haley became sicker and sicker and by the time we got to the food shop, she could not eat and was about to throw up.

On the way back to the campsite, after I picked up my food (Haley was too sick to get any), Haley fell asleep. She woke up briefly to get herself into her sleeping bag once we got back to the campsite. Meanwhile, I ate my food in the cold, dark lean-to by myself.

In the morning Haley was nearly recovered, but it was still raining and despite my inclination to spend one more night outside, I realized that enough was enough. We spent Sunday doing indoor activities such as bowling and shopping and then we spent the night at the Jack Daniels Inn in Peterborough, NH. Mother Nature had beaten me.