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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
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These pages contain my thoughts, from meandering ideas and persuasions to deep cerebrations and serious mentations. Why, for what purpose? To release my mind and set creativity free. Somewhere inside the constraints of my mind dwells a writer, a poet, an artist who paints with words. In here I release those constraints and set the artist free. Perhaps, lost somewhere in the depths of thought, is a story or a poem, waiting to be written. 
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| Having a mobile tent is working out great for us. We love camping, and we love using a tent, but with age, it's been getting more difficult. Sleeping on the ground was replaced with air mattresses, then we upgraded to a portable frame so we could get off the bed more easily, and our small tent gave way to bigger tents and more equipment. It was time to get a camper. Because we enjoy tenting, we eventually purchased a used, in pretty good shape, pop-up camper (a mobile tent). We can keep most of our camping equipment in the camper, we have a small fridge, a sink, a stove, and ten gallons of water complete with a water heater. It has a pull-out dining area, a couch, and two pull-out queen-size (closer to king-sized) beds as well as a furnace. But, since we purchased it and fixed it up, we have only used it a handful of times. We took it out twice last year and twice so far this year. And, we have only been able to get a campsite with an electric hook-up once. That was in June of this year and we really didn't use electricity much at all. Even though we enjoy roughing it, we would also like to enjoy the accessories we have with our mobile tent. We will finally get the opportunity to do just that, over the weekend of October sixth through the ninth. Yes, we are going camping in October, in northern Minnesota! We will be camping at La Salle State Park north of Itasca State Park for four glorious days. The forecast calls for some rain throughout the weekend, with daily highs of about sixty degrees, and lows dropping near freezing. Of course, the weather forecast around here is about as accurate as asking the Magic Eight-Ball, so we will see what comes. We may get some rain, and it's possible, but kind of unlikely, to even get a bit of snow. So, with the forecast, you would likely think we are a bit bummed. But, it's actually really exciting to think about camping in October, having some rain, the possibility of snow, and being able to weather it out in a mobile tent. We have a furnace, and the campsite has electric hook-ups, water hook-ups, and even sewage hook-ups. We don't have a bathroom or shower in the mobile tent, but we do have the means of running our gray water into the sewer. They also have very nice bathrooms and showers at the campground, as well as a washer and dryer (coin-operated) and firewood. This may be the last campout of the year, but it's looking like it may be the best one since we purchased a mobile tent. Snuggled in a hoodie, sitting around a fire, or sitting in shirt sleeves in a warm and toasty mobile tent, what ever the weather brings, we'll enjoy our October Campout, |
It's been way too long since I've added an entry! But, I have been adding some poetry to my other book, "Pages of Pint-Sized Poetry"  so there's that.I've been wanting to write a bit about our second camping trip this season and now seems like a good time. Our first campout was in South Dakota and worked out well, but our last one was just a short distance from home, in a State Park, but with no modern amenities. What? You know, like Gilligan's Island! Maybe not that bad, but we had no electricity, no water hook-up, no showers, and only a vault toilet. Not that we mind camping like this. We only recently stopped using a tent and have upgraded to a mobile tent (pop-up camper). We can carry ten gallons of fresh water, we have a three-way refrigerator that's kind of small, but it does the trick, and it has a gas water heater. It also has a gas furnace that we can run off of the battery, but it does draw the battery down rather quickly. Let's say between the furnace and the fridge we would likely drain the battery in about a day, but with the fridge on gas, the furnace will work about two days. Thankfully, it was pleasant weather, but it did get cold at night and we did run the furnace a bit. I also packed along another deep-cycle battery and we purchased a small, quiet, and very portable generator for this type of camping, so everything was fine; we ran the generator for about a half-hour the first night only because we needed AC current to inflate the air mattresses. For remote camping, it was a bit crowded. We had reserved two spots just because we like to have quiet and room when we camp. But shortly after we arrived a group moved into the remaining campsites to our south. A group of young women, teenagers, to be precise, out camping with their grandmother. They were tenting, and luckily we had a hammer along because the ground was hard and they were having a rough time driving stakes down. All in all, they were pretty quiet, didn't bother us, and kept to their sites. Except at night, being in a mobile tent, it doesn't block sound and they laughed and giggled through the night. Late Saturday afternoon, we had started a nice campfire in the second site and were just getting ready to start our dinner cooking over it when a car pulled up and a young guy and lady got out. He said we were at his campsite and pulled out his phone to show us. We informed him that we had reserved it and my wife went to get her phone to show him. To keep it short, it turned out that we indeed had reserved that site, he had messed up, or the online reservation was messed up. It turned out he had reserved the site the prior weekend. They apologized for bothering us and proceeded to walk back toward their car. I stopped them just as my wife returned with her phone, explained everything to her, and asked them where they were from. They had driven four hours to go camping! We knew that the park was full and it wouldn't be very likely they would find another spot, so I asked my wife if she was okay to let them use the second site. She agreed, and they looked like they were going to go into shock. ""Really! You'd let us camp here anyway?" I nodded, and then added, "We even started a fire for you, all you need to do is enjoy it." They offered us thirty dollars, but since they had already paid double that for the previous weekend, I told them it wasn't necessary. He insisted, especially since we had a nice fire burning. In the end, we took twenty dollars, loaned them the hammer so they could get their tent set up, and threw in a bundle of firewood so they could keep it burning. Everyone around us seemed to enjoy the weekend camping, and we had a good time as well, but the best night was Sunday after everyone around us packed up and left and we had the entire area to ourselves. |
This entry was inspired by an entry in Robert Waltz   book, "Complex Numbers" , titled: "The Man, The Myth, The Reality" Living in Minnesota, Paul Bunyan is pretty well known, except I think things may have gotten a bit mixed up with time and the tales of other lumberjacks. I have no way to prove any of this, but in my version, it wasn't Paul, but Pauline who swung that mighty axe and felled an entire forest in one winter. Pauline Fournier stood a massive 6'10" and weighed an impressive 264 lbs and this giantess of a woman was all muscle and attitude. Pauline was a lumber camp cook who during an extremely cold, long, and brutal Minnesota winter, had a fling with a lumberjack named Bon Jean which resulted in the birth of a son she named Fabian. Later, the two lovebirds were wed, and Fabian took his stepfather's name, so Fabian became, Fabian Bon Jean. Having a terrible lisp and stutter, however, it sounded to others like he was trying to say his name was Thaybean Bonyene, which everyone understood him to say, Thabene Bunyan, so they just called him Bunyan. Since this was easier for him, he just went with it. One terrible winter, Bunyan slipped on some ice, injured his leg, and wasn't able to chop wood. Needing the income, his mother stepped in and exchanged her apron for his axe and while Bunyan cooked up flap-jacks and beans, she went out and chopped massive amounts of wood. So much, in fact, that when she hooked up her ox, Babe, to drag the logs out the poor critter turned blue under the load. Well, to make a long story shorter, she did this every day until Bunyan was able to chop again. Once he was back on his feet, Pauline and Bon Jean left the north woods and opened up a pancake house in Minneapolis. Later that spring, the straw boss showed up at camp and was impressed with the massive amount of wood chopped that winter. He wanted to know who this Pauline was who had cut so much. He told the other lumberjacks he wanted to offer her a big raise. He also told them he was going to lay off all the slackers! Knowing most of them would be replaced by this female lumberjack if the truth was told, they said it was Bunyan, who because of his terrible lisp and stuttering, had sounded like his name was Pauline, but was in fact, just Paul; Paul Bunyan. They all stuck to their story and of course, now called him Paul Bunyan so the straw boss wouldn't catch their lie. Paul Bunyan became famous, they kept their jobs, and Pauline and Bon Jean ran a very successful pancake house in Minneapolis. In fact, in time their pancakes were talked about around the world! As a result, they changed the name from Pauline's House of Pancakes to International House of Pancakes, which as you know, is shortened to IHOP. Hey, this is my version, and unless you can prove otherwise, this is the honest-to-blue-ox truth! A proud member of "WdC SuperPower Reviewers Group" "Reading soothes the soul, writing sets it free." T.J. |
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