Just for the sake of taking a little breather from all the heavy topics on this board lately, I thought I would share a camping story from about 8 years ago. Even LIG should be kinda fun sometimes....
My best friend (Erick), his brother (Derrick), my fiancee' (wife now.. AKA Ren), and myself had planned a camping trip into a couple of the high mountain lakes here in Eastern Oregon. We had been looking forward to it for some time, so when the early August day came, we were pumped and ready to go.
We met Erick and Derrick at his parent's house, piled into Erick's old Jeep Cherokee and were off like a herd of turtles up the mountain road toward the trail. The 4-wheel drive was going out on the Jeep, so every time we started up a hill, the Jeep would make a loud "popping" noise. The noise continued to get worse, the farther we went, so eventually we decided to hoof it or we may not make it back down the mountain in the Jeep.
We parked, strapped on our packs, and headed up the rocky trail to the lake. We arrived at the lake near dark with just enough time to set up camp and start cooking supper. It wasn't long before I knew that I was making the right decision marrying Ren, because she fit right in with us guys with the off color jokes, passing gass through every orifice (well, not her), and having a bit too much of a nip from the bottle somebody brought.
Soon after things got quiet there was a rustling and scraping sound in the brush near camp. Of course, the first thing everyone thinks is, 'Oh BLEEP, a bear!'. Ren finally is able to calm me down, and I stop crying enough that she can tell me it's just a porcupine.
After she chases it away from camp, we men start thumping our chests and spout some tough guy slogans, "good thing for that sucker he didn't come close to me, I'da squashed him with my bare hands!" "Yeah, lucky little dude, heh, heh..."
Morning comes quickly, and the little brookies in the lake offer themselves eagerly for our breakfast. An excellent breakfast and we are on our way higher up the mountain to another lake.
Cresting the ridge of the Elkhorns, we look down into a small basin with a couple of ponds surrounded by a herd of elk, including two nice bulls. We continue along the ridge trail and soon we see the turquoise blue of our destination. Within an hour we arrive, and are setting up camp.
We caught some beutiful Brookie/Mackinaw cross trout for supper, and just relaxed. Moutain goats on the cliffs all around the lake, fish jumping, and the sun just starting to go down was incredible.
Erick decided to pull out the little 2 man raft he had packed in (yes, he is insane) and try for some more fish out on the lake. So what if the raft had a couple of small leaks? It's not a problem to blow up the raft manually on occasion while out on the lake. An hour or so after Erick launches the leaky S.S. Minnow, Derrick, Ren, and I are standing around the fire when we hear screaming coming from the middle of the lake. It is almost dark, so I grab my flashlight and run down to the edge of the lake expecting to see my best friend going down with the ship. Instead he is only a few yards from shore and his rod is doubled over!! A couple of minutes later he hauls a big ol Mackinaw to the raft and pulls it in. Having not had the time to re-inflate the raft for a while, he barely makes it to shore and is soaked, but grinning with that huge fish in his hands. :grin:
We are standing around the fire congratulating Erick (who is straddling the fire to dry off) when the fire gets a bit too high and sets his pants on fire!! :shocked: Ericks pants were smoldering in the most sensitive of regions, so he was in a big hurry to put it out. I am convinved that no matter how hard you want to stop laughing sometimes, it is truly impossible. That is the closest I've come to wetting myself since I was six.
The next morning, Ren and I awoke to a very strange noise outside our tent. I poked Ren, hoping she would get out of her sleeping bag and go investigate, but all I got was a dirty look and I think a bit of a growl
. I roll out of my bag and unzip the tent flap only to see Erick with a tube of Super Glue in one hand, the raft in the other, and looking a bit perplexed. He saw me, and said (?) with a panicked look,"MMMMM... MMMUURRFF... MMMMRRR!" :shocked:
Apparently, Erick had the bright idea [img]graemlins/idea.gif[/img] of trying to fix the leaky raft with super glue. When the cap on the glue was a bit too tight, he decided that using his teeth on the cap would be a good plan. With the pressure on the tube when the cap finally popped off, a large volume of glue had squirted into his mouth and when he closed his lips, they stayed that way. He relayed this whole story after we got his lips apart and finally were able to stand.
We stayed a couple more days without major incident and finally hiked back out to the Jeep, then poped our way back down the hill and home.
Still makes me laugh whenever we get together.
Lets take a little break....
Snapset
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