Fluorescent Tobermory
This summer, Kyle and I went camping twice in the beautiful Tobermory's. The painted landscape above is Cyprus Lake the crystal clear blue water was gently hitting against step-like shale beach.
I cannot say I love camping, so I haven't been for a long time. Perhaps I was jaded: my parents dragged us to camping all the time growing up (camping across Rocky Mountains? COLD!); I was in KOYA (Korean knock-off version of scouts) for a while; and I roughed geology field schools. The worst was geology field schools (wasn't really camping, actually. Just crappy cottages). Trying to write about rocks on a waterproof exercise book with frozen fingers in rain while knee deep in freezing swamp mud turned me cold to outdoors.
But... as any travel tales in life, only good memories linger. Bears ate all our food once, but it's so cute to think about (my friends said they were probably racoons, but bears sound more badass). If you are like me, who doesn't truly appreciate the outdoors but wants to go anyway?
Here are some pointers:
Enjoy the exercise. I never did cardio like when we were chased by horde of black flies. Emotionally scarred? Yes. But I'm sure my heart thanked me for a little bit.
Bring a floaty toy to float with. Nothing's more terrifying than the DEEP, DARK, UNKNOWN LAKE WATER.
Wear sports utility clothes which dry fast and keep you warm. Wet and cold suck.
Buy a pair of hiking shoes. If you break your ankle, your friends (at least my friends) will abandon you, and bears & wolves will eat you.
Dude, head lamps? Dude, awesome.
Chocolate cheesecake that came out of packaged camping food makes the exhausting hiking day all worth it.
Learn about at least one edible wild plant. Survivalist fantasy makes anyone excited.
Get a super sharp knife and take up whittling. Any dried up dead tree is a fun tree.
Read a camping book. I re-read my brittle 25 year-old book on camping called "Illustrated Guide to Adventure." I remember being super excited about camping as a kid, reading this book.
Let's all go camping together next year.
