My Apocalyptic Camping Trip…or The Day the World Didn’t End - Part II

The Adventure Begins

Work slowed down so I ended up taking the 20^th off too. The plan was to leave straight after work so I could get to my spot well before the apocalypse—you know, just in case the Mayans were on Easter Standard Time. But now I could leave even earlier in case they were originally from Australia. Then I thought that was silly since all of my detailed research of the Mayans—on the internet—did not once mention their affinity of Vegemite. 

Come on Mayans, be specific!

So I thought it would be alright to stick around a little while longer to make sure I had everything and take care of some last minute items—like cashing in my checking and savings accounts and buying up some gold.  I still made it out around mid-day because I figured daylight savings always throws me off since we don’t have it in Arizona, so it had to wreak havoc on the Mayans. 

Did your apocalypse remember to fall back?!

My dogs were all settled in the back seat of my Jetta because it will be lonely when I am the last person alive and they would be a lot better than a volley ball. Kvasir still gets kind of nervous with car rides, but he will thank me when it is all said and done.

No Wilson, we're still good.

I made it to my spot in good time. A friend turned me on to the spot a couple years back and I thought it would be the perfect place to make my last stand. It is an amazing spot with huge oak trees and not a soul for miles.  I guess I ran the risk that I would have stumbled upon that friend camping there when I arrived but there were several other locations I noted on the same road that I think I would have enjoyed checking out too.

Fortunately it did not come down to that and my spot was vacant. There were still patches of snow in places from the last storm! It was going to be a great trip. I opened my 12-pack of soda and placed them in the snow.

Nature's cooler!

Then I set up my chair, tent, sleeping bag and a few other necessities and went to collect some firewood for the night. The previous tenant left some wood when they left so I didn’t have to work too hard at it.  I thought about paying the favor forward, but I would be the last camper at that site. So I fixed up the fire pit and piled on the kindling and such so that all I had to do was light it. Then I snapped a photo:

Home, sweet apocalyptic home!

It was a clear, cool and quiet night. I got the fire going real nice and added a bit of rum to my soda and life was perfect. After feeding the pups I heated up some Dinty Moore in the can and settled in for a nice night of star gazing.

I thought it would be appropriate to stay up until midnight. I mean, was the end of the world going to start right at midnight? I didn’t want to miss out on any of the fire and brimstone show!

I don’t think I made it to 9pm.

I headed off to the tent to go to bed and called the pups. It was supposed to get to freezing in Tucson, so that meant low 20’s there, so I was going to let them sleep in the tent too. I opened the door and Kvasir went right in.  Then I looked inside and found that Gehenna was already inside. I assumed that he snuck in through the partially opened zipper and went to bed.

Well sometime in the middle of the night Gehenna decided that it was much warmer in front of my face. I’m not sure how much of that I endured before I woke up but I decided that was a good enough reason to get up and use the little boy’s room. The pups went out too—I remember thinking to myself how positively stunning the stars were at that moment—Well I finished checking on that man about a horse and darted back to the tent to get back in my warm sleeping bag.

This is a true fact.

I guess my eyes had properly adjusted to the night sky because it was at that time that I saw how Gehenna got in. Apparently he gnawed at the mospuito netting until he got a hole big enough to stick his nose through and forced the rest of his body through said hole . . . both dogs spent the rest of the night outside.

If I had thought, it would have been a perfect dog shaming

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion to my tale! Did the end of the world happen? Was it on Eastern Standard Time? Did my dogs join Team Mayans after the snub? All these questions and more will be answered tomorrow!

Until next we meet

My Apocalyptic Camping Trip…or The Day the World Didn’t End

Part I – The Preface

12/21/12 – The end of the Mayan Long Count Calender. The last day before it starts all over again . . . or if you would rather, the end of the world!  Was it really going to be the end of the world?  I didn’t think so, but I also knew there would be a fair number of people out that would be a lot less rational.  I’m not going to lie, I was a bit nervous about what some of those people might do on that day.

At least the Facebook posts got a little more entertaining

.Explains a lot. I would have done the same

Then there are all the people that say, ‘Woo hoo! It is the end of the world, let’s party like there is no tomorrow!’  That was fun in 1999 when I had just turned 21.  But that was 13 years ago and the idea is less than appealing to the older, more sensible me.  The best outcome that scenario would give me was a miserable hangover on the 22^nd and I could think of much worse outcomes; especially if I happened to bump into a person that exhibited both previously mentioned qualities.

Been there. Done that.  I'll pass this go round.

So I decided to go camping to avoid the issue altogether.  I haven’t had the opportunity to go camping much this year and I have not had many opportunities to be alone with my thoughts either.  The idea of doing both was more than appealing.  But it was more than a camp trip.  I was going to be prepared to stay out there longer than my intended trip if I had to do so.  You know, in case individuals in that first group I mentioned decided to do something crazy.

See when I was a kid my dad had a backpack that had everything we would need to survive in the mountains ready at all times so that if things got real, so to speak, he could grab it and be gone in a moment’s notice. I am not sure of the exact reason why this was necessary but it probably had at least a little to do with the fact that he grew up in the aftermath of the height of the cold war when the threat of nuclear weapons was very real and the cities were where those devices were targeted.  So if you had any notification it was not going to be much, and the city was the last place you wanted to be.

Whatever the reasons, does not take away from the fact that it is always a good idea to have a contingency plan in case you can’t rely on the modern conveniences that our advances have afforded us.  There are a lot of things out there that can knock out the power grid for a couple days.  Do you have everything you would need to ride that out?

I understand that the power running out for a couple days might not warrant running out into the mountains and living like Bear Grylls, but what if it lasted for several weeks or months?  If you answered ‘no’ to my last question, imagine everyone else that did the same.  What if aid to all those people was unable to happen for one unfortunate reason or another? It might make since to get out of an urban setting and away from the potential mob mentality at that point.

It's all fake anyway.

When my dad had that backpack, I wanted to do everything that he did so I wanted one too.  My dad threw together a hatchet, a collapsible fishing pole, a backpacking stove and a first aid kit and put it into a little school backpack with a few other things for me. Realistically I probably would not have been able to last a day with it on my own, but I was happy.  I ended up taking it out with me a few times in high school where it affectionately became known as my ‘end of the world kit’.

But as I finished college and got into the professional world, I had always intended to make a more functional pack.  And that grew into a desire to have extra food, water, and other supplies around the house as a means of just being a little more prepared for the unexpected; especially after I started volunteering for the Red Cross. I was slowly working toward that goal but still wasn’t where I had hoped to be.  So I looked at this camp trip as an opportunity set a deadline to get to the point of basic preparedness that I had always intended.

And it was exciting. Not because I was preparing for the end of the world, but because I was achieving a goal I seemed to have always had. That excitement bled over into thoughts of actually having the opportunity to use it all.  I found myself thinking, ‘well if the apocalypse does happen I could use such and such to do this’ or ‘if the end of the world does happen I would have enough supplies to last so long.’  I found myself planning out how I would survive the apocalypse for as long as the earth let me not because I thought it would happen, but because I was finally prepared for an unexpected emergency; at least as much as I could foresee happening.

I mean who could have predicted that there would be no more Twinkies?!

 Because of this excitement, I found myself doing and saying things in a tongue-in-cheek manner as if I were waiting for the Mayans to come and end it all.  I decided to write about my camping experience in the same manner because it was funny—at least to me it was.

So tune in tomorrow to see if I even made it out the door or if the Mayans were waiting at my house for a surprise sneak attack!

Until next we meet.