When I arrived back at camp, I was warmly greeted by the remaining Swank Camp company of nine. An angelfood cake blazing with candles was quickly revealed, gloriously crowned with a natural arch of bacon - - a fitting tribute to both the National Park ethos and the festival of bacon we had saved for this last day of camp.
It seems everyone brought three things in common to camp. Firewood, Maker’s Mark ... and bacon. The LoT group has had a thing about bacon ever since a funny incident a few New Yearses ago. Since then, even the word "bacon" has become sort of synonymous with
swanky, and there’s never been an overnight gathering without some of its crispy deliciousness to enjoy in the morning. We’d amassed nearly 4 pounds of bacon for this camping trip, and were going to cook it all up this morning for a veritable bacon
feast. €uroMeinke was was already at work at the grill, and the early sizzling strips were already available.
So was cake, after a rousing chorus of "
Happy Birthday to You" that was greeted with hearty applause from other campsites in the vicinity. Teehee, It was shaping up to be a perfect day.
The sun was intruding on Mid-camp and Upstairs, so we each grabbed an item and ferried everything down to the shady goodness of Lounge Camp. There the baconfest began in earnest, along with the concoction creation of "garbage" eggs that threw everything left in the camp kitchen into the mix. Onions and zucchini and bratwurst and mushrooms and lord knows what else. It was delicious! And when someone sagely pointed out that wine was indeed a form of juice, the remaining bottles of Cabernet served as the perfect breakfast drink.
I ended up hanging around the bacon in classic bacon style, and eating my fill ... as did others. Not everyone was aware they had to come and take if they wanted to partake, but enough people eventually figured it out. We noted the law of physics that a pile of bacon has a finite height, after which it will only decrease, no matter how much more bacon is made.
There was something unusually perfect about this loungy morning of our last day in camp and my first day of a 48th year. We were in no hurry, but didn’t intend to tarry forever. Unlike other times in camp, I was neither antsy to get going nor exhausted from the day’s adventures. I was simply in the moment, as - it seemed - was everyone else. The wine was flowing, the food was yum, the company was marvelous, and the sweet sweet smell of bacon filled the air.
Beyond the fantastic feeling clearly felt by all, there were also little touches that whispered to me of being in the groove. I enjoyed that certain items which I thought I’d carted up to the woods for nothing were suddenly in demand at the last possible moment. A mixing bowl here, a carton of milk there ... even the Spike System™ Wine Table came into play during our last meal together. (Oh, and the random compliment on my bod when I was day-transforming the hot Posh Tent with my shirt off didn’t hurt my mood any.)
Eventually, though, the sun encroached even on Lounge Camp ... and we had to abandon it - and either get going on our scheduled mellow adventure of the day (a trip to the tourist part of the Park, the Giant Forest) ... or ... take drastic measures to follow the shade (colonize a small clearing in the trees behind our tents known, ahem, as Pee Camp).
Feh - all too soon, I was sitting with NirvanaMan and €uroMeinke in the place where we’d been urinating pretty much throughout the trip. We were shameless shade whores.
Not Afraid, on the other hand, wanted to get going to the Giant Forest before Disneyphile and Kara returned from Stonycreek, where they’d driven a few miles north to get gas and make an important phone call. For once, though, I was in no hurry to leave camp .... until I realized, d’oh - a few moments too late ... that we’d best leave camp before Kara returned with whatever bad news she’d undoubtedly have from the outside world.
And here I must resist digressing on one of the most interesting tangents of our trip to Sequoia. But the story of this single day is already very long. And if I tell the weird tale of Kara and Traci, I might as well do the whole trip in flashback ... the Ghost & Mrs. Muir Grove, the Crystal Cave, the Wild Campfire Party, the Krazy Kings Canyon Tour ... with my birthday as merely a framing device.
But I won’t. My double whammy nature adventures to Grand Canyon and Sequoia were big deals to me in 2007, and I’m gonna write about them on el jay (um, with a bit less detail than I’m delving into for this last day story).
Suffice it to say ... the oddball tale of Traci and Kara ... how they got to Sequoia and how they got back out again ... is a mindbending story in its own right, and I wished we’d made our getaway before Kara and Disneyphile returned from Stonycreek. We were actually in the car and about to pull away when the two of them returned. Unexplained story short .... the two of them, plus Traci the girlfriend, plus Palfry the dog, were off on a mad dash down the mountain to Fresno .... with Disneyphile then having to return to camp to pick up passengers and stuff ... and then back down the mountain .... all the way to Los Angeles.
Disneyphile seemed to take it in stride, with good spirits. I was perturbed, but intent on shrugging it off. It was one thing after another after another with Traci and Kara. I’ll go into it all in a later entry ... but it’s omg with a capital Oh and Em and Gee.
(continued again in next post)