Date: 2006-07-24
To: Prep #36-More Mental Games
Miles today: 0.0

I mentioned in my previous post that we had gone on a 5-day camping trip. Now, this was not "roughing" it by any stretch of the imagination....at least not to my standards. We have this very roomy tent w/an aerobed inflatable mattress, Rachael (who is a chef) cooked gourmet meals over the campfire, and we had very nice shower facilities on the other side of the lake. With that said though, it was pretty hot/humid, the mosquitoes were horrible, and two severe thunderstorms blew through in the 5 day period.While we sat out in the blazing heat during the day, I felt sweaty, gross, and coated w/yuck, and I started thinking about how it would feel on the AT to feel like this for days at a time w/no option to shower--a side note, ever since I went through Marine bootcamp where I never really took a decent shower in 3 months, I've been a little OCD w/my showering habits, but like most things...this is a mental battle as well--My favorite part of the day when camping is dusk, it's cooling off, you can smell campfires, but that also means the mosquitoes are coming out for dinner. For the most part, our bugspray worked great (unless we missed a spot), but I started imagining what people on the trail this past week must have felt like, because everyone who I've been keeping up with had at least 2 posts dedicated to how bad the mosquitoes were on the trail....it even brought one person to tears! So, as I sat there on the dam w/my fishing pole in hand, sun setting, and a million and one mosquitoes were buzzing around me, I tried to start practicing that saying I see so much, "you can't change mother nature, so you've got to change you." Yes, I was totally annoyed by the bugs, but there are also worse things in this world to deal with...allow me to list a few:1. Eating your steak dinner while fishing and realizing that the worm you dropped (in the dark) ended up crawling onto your plate (that was sitting on the ground next to you), and now only half of the worm is left, along w/half your steak (didn't happen to me, but happened to this young lady we were fishing with one night!)2. Dropping the last Oreo cookie in the dirt (but I do realize that if I did this on the AT, I'd probably just pick it up and eat it anyways...I was not, however, that desperate on this trip)3. Having to put 4 new tires on your truck (sort of unexpectedly) the day before you leave for your camping trip....costing you $580.00 (all I have to say about this is...what a bitch)4. Sitting through a severe thunderstorm w/60 mph winds and remembering that you did not take the time to properly tie down the rainfly of your tent on one side....resulting in a nice wading pool effect in one side of your tent--I almost got out my rubber ducky and soap to take a quick bath in it, but Rachael (who was the hero of the day) was standing there sopping wet from going outside and fixing it (which was my fault), and I figured I'd best just grab a towel and start mopping it all up....whoopsI guess you could say I'm trying to turn every single outdoor experience into a reality check for myself. Am I really ok w/not showering everyday, am I really ok w/living in the bugs' domain, am I really ok w/weathering storms in my little Hubba tent? So far, the answer as best as I can calculate is yes, but like most things, you won't really know until you get out there and just do it. Something that I can't wait to try.