Sunday, October 03, 2010

Manageable cold

There was a pile of clothes in my dining room. I was feeling lazy when I got home and just unpacked everything into a pile instead of going straight downstairs to do laundry. Apparently this made the cat happy as he decided to plant his butt on the clothes and get some sleep.

I finally gathered the energy to pick up the clothes and get them washed. As I did, the campfire smoke came out of them. A nice smell that told me that the weekend was better than I had expected.

It wasn't a camping weekend. It was more of a needed a place to stay out there and figured that camping would be a nice idea. Until I saw the weather.

A cold front was coming through Wisconsin on Friday evening. Temps were in the 70s but would be in the 30s at night on Friday and Saturday. Great! You don't want to be out on a campsite with temps below 50 degrees. It can be extremely miserable.

Thankfully it wasn't. The point of going out there was for some volunteer work. Me and a friend were going to help the fine people at Tyranena Brewing Company with their bike ride. Our job was to take tickets and make sure people ate the food they signed up for. The choice was BBQ pork or vegetable lasagna. I had the lasagna line and never felt so lonely. I understand why vegetable lasagna was a punchline in an episode of Seinfeld.

It was the time at Tyranena on Saturday that it was the coldest. The wind was blowing and it felt about 10 degrees colder than it was. All I had was a flannel shirt over a t-shirt. I was not liking it. We did our time putting in the 3 hours, had our beers and went back, hoping we could get some good wood to keep us warm at night.

On Friday, the wood we bought from the guy serving the campgrounds was pretty crappy. It seemed damp. It was sizzling as it burned. That is when it burned. It took a while to get it going and keep it going. On Saturday we bought some wood from a local farmer which worked out much better. It started and burned very well. It made for a comfortable night as the wind seemed non-existant. There was a chill in the air but it was very tolerable. Same thing for Sunday morning. The air was crisp but with no wind, you were comfortable with the warmth of the sun.

So it looks like camping is officially done for the year. No more fires, beers, and good company in the trees. I think the only fire and beers I will see over the next couple months will be in the backyard of a friend in front of his fire pit.

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