Corbin Mickey D’s Friday Round-Up

Wherever you are, McDonald’s has free Wi-Fi. However, it doesn’t always work if you have a snobby laptop that thinks that free Wi-Fi threatens the future of the western world. Fortunately, McDonald’s are usually in areas sufficiently urban that my phone gets a signal good enough to be a hot spot. So, here I sit with a giant McD’s coffee looking out over I-75 writing the blog post I tried to do last night in the middle of Cumberland Falls State Park. No could do.

Last night we camped in Clifty campground, perched on a quite high rock cliff. That and the twenty-five bear warning signs we saw in the park and later the park ranger coming by to do his ‘bear lecture’ added a bit of anxiety to the evening. We considered having the dogs sleep in the truck so as not to attract bears but the ranger said they’d scare the bears off so keep them in the tent with us. We didn’t tell them the dogs never bark – Punchy’s very reserved and Swirl can’t be bothered. But maybe they’d bark if doing so would save us.

I always try to make sure that in hotels or tents, my husband sleeps closest to the door so whatever is going to kill us has to kill him first. So I slept against the tent wall and he slept on the outside nearest the door but then it occurred to me that the bear probably wouldn’t use the front door of the door anyway. While I was reflecting on all this, actually while I was sound asleep and dreaming about bears, this happened. It’s impossible to explain the degree of difficulty involved in getting oneself upright, lying on a slippery sleeping bed and the bed itself packed against two tent walls.

What people do for amusement in campgrounds is watch other people break camp. Our process is usually such a production that there are rows of spectators but today they were disappointed. It was a systematic, error-free, graceful process culminating with getting our six-person pop-up tent collapsed, rolled up and back in the bag. Motherfucker! I said and then we high-fived and slid the bag into the truck on top of the already bundled up, collapsible bed. Sweet.

Camping makes you feel like you’re a kid and like you’re 500 years old. If you are tent camping with all the gear, there is a lot of physicality to it. Lifting stuff, packing, unpacking, walking to and from the bathroom, hiking, minding the dogs – who have been amazing and wonderful – all of it requires a physical presence that requires your whole focus. And it is hard. Age is not just a number. It is weakness, slowness, and the constant reminder of things you used to do with your body – like having a bag of groceries in one arm and stooping down to pick up a crying child with the other and then unlocking the back door with the notoriously stuck lock that requires two hands – well, you kind of can’t do that anymore. But, then again, you don’t have to. So, there’s that to be glad about. And the coffee. Absolutely the best on earth.