Tents, Thunderstorms, Making Fire, Hunting for Ticks, & Peeing in the Woods - Summer 2008

Carlton after a Spring river float
 
I try to go on a camping trip with my kids every summer to let all of us enjoy some clean water, fresh air, mountains, laughter, sleep in a tent, and learn a few things about the broad, complicated world. I also try to throw in as much geology, history, and woodcraft as they will allow before there is the inevitable fit for gummy bears, plumbing, and The Cartoon Network. My daughter is now thirteen and as ladies her age sometimes do, has declined my invitation to pee in the woods for the last couple of years. Although greatly missed, her absence gives me more latitude to do strictly “man things” with my son, Carlton, and teach him the basic skills, tricks, and lore that I think a responsible mountaineer and woodsman should have: to shoot a bow, how to make fire with a magnifying glass, go to sleep reading books about adventure, shoot slingshots, hike, climb mountains, eat great food, swim in clear cool creeks and pools, dive off of rocks, drink tequila, and waste a mound of $1 bills at the girly bars… Had you going there for a minute – Carlton doesn’t drink tequila; he is more of a single malt scotch man.

Summer time in the South has been somewhat unpredictable the last few years. It just gets hotter and hotter and a longer hurricane season means that storms welling up from the gulf, pushing foul weather up as far as the Great Plains are now always a possibility al the way into October. This year I had what I thought were contingency plans that would allow for good times regardless of what Mother Nature threw at us. Best laid plans of mice and men…

After an uneventful series of flights I arrived in Little Rock from our home in northern Germany (the land of wurst, great beer, rain, and terrible music) and immediately went shopping for a new car. For the past couple of years every time I come in to see the kids I spend between one and two thousand dollars on the rental car alone. As we were planning to move back to the States in early 2009 and we would need a car then, Laurel and I sat down and decided not to waste money on a rental car since the money would be better spent on something that was ours instead of increasing the monthly sales of an airport car rental outlet. Also, buying a vehicle in the summer would make it so there would be one less detail to deal with during the move. Shipping all our property one third around the world, starting new jobs, and finding a new home are quite enough for our first month back in the US.

I have been lusting over various Subaru models for years. They are just amazing cars as far as handling, reliability, and safety. I was a breath away from buying an Outback before I was transferred to Germany and have been lovin’ them from a distance ever since my first extended roadtrip in a friend’s. While in Germany I had various online relationships with assorted models: There was the 2006 pearl white WRX STI 4-door Impreza that showed me all her secrets on the Car&Driver website. A jet-black turbo Outback wagon was the next piece of eye candy that turned my head. I found her on the main Subaru site and Googled candid pictures of her interior and was taken right away with her in-dash GPS and sexy charcoal heated seats. I planned for us to spend some serious alone time together at the beach and in the mountains. Our relationship ended before it really started when one day while minding my own business, I happened on a picture of a 5-door Rally-Blue Impreza – The Sport Wagon. I researched her measurements, specifications, and found that her current lovers on the Rally Race Circuit spoke only kind and generous words about her. Oh! she was fast: 285 horses under the hood and her handling was made superb with anti-sway bars, strut stabilizer, 4-wheel disc brakes, and full-time all wheel drive. Just to push me into the abyss of lust and admiration, she had a 5-Star crash safety rating. It was like finding a devoted bride that was equal parts Gabriella Reese, Betty Page, Martha Stewart, Briana Banks, Carrie Otis, and Marie Curie. I had to have her, possess her, and make her mine.

Before leaving Deutschland for vacation I had e-mailed various car dealers in Arkansas trying to find my all wheel drive mistress. Most of them just wanted to sell me what they had in stock or they didn’t return my e-mails at all. I showed up in Little Rock without a guaranteed deal and spent a couple of days stalking my soon to be Rally-Blue lover. I found her waiting for me at Adventure Subaru in the small college town of Fayetteville. It was love for both of us from the very first moment my hands caressed her soft leather-trimmed steering wheel, while I applied firm yet gentle pressure to her short-throw shifter. And then we were alone, just my Japanese lovely and me for the long drive back to Little Rock…
   

This was taken on our first day together...
   

As my new lady wouldn’t be able to sit in my lap for the flight home, a great friend of mine agreed to keep the car under lock and key for me until we move back - taking her out once a month or so to charge the battery, keep everything lubed up, wipe her gently with a soft white cotton diaper, and whisper sweet nothings her delicately formed the side mirrors in my absence.

After a few days of man/car quality bonding time, I headed south with all the camping gear that I brought with me from Home to pick up Carlton and start our trip. As I drove toward the southwest, we talked and talked about school, Indians, pirates, camping, climbing mountains, different languages, church, postcards, people in his home town, books, soccer, a girl at school, bull riding, and at some point one of my favorite topics, bicycles, came up in conversation (OK, you caught me, I brought it up...). Well, my son is always saying things that are equally insightful and hysterical in the same breath and as I rambled on about a bike I had built that spring, he interrupted me and said, "Daddy, I like bikes because they don't do pollution." I got a big kick out of it the way he just laid it out there and stopped to jot down a note so I could quote him later. He noticed this and when I resumed driving he said something else that he thought was as equally weighty on the subject of bikes and then paused to give me time to soak in the gravity of his words. After a good bit of silence he said, "Daddy, aren't you going to stop and write that down too?" I laughed for miles!

Our first stop was my Mother’s house in East Texas. We stayed for three days, celebrated my sister’s birthday with her, and took care of some things for Carlton’s Nana: She is now retired and was looking to both downsize and simplify her life, so my sister and I went with her to a retirement community to help her find an apartment there. It is a gated community with a pool, activities, high speed Internet, lots of folks her age, an activities director, and a clubhouse. The community is also close to shopping, doctors, and to my sister. As I gallivant all over the world, it falls to my sister to be there for Mother if something comes up unexpectantly, so having her closer will be a benefit to both of them in that regard. Mother was really excited about the new place and the potential for growth and community found there.

   

On our through Texas to Oklahoma, we stopped by a German market that my mother suggested. They had all the good kinds of beer and meat, but when I asked for a certain kind of cheese by the German name, they looked at me funny. No one there spoke German…

The Market was found in the town of Muenster, which is a historic German settlement in Texas. They have gone all out, painting little German shop scenes everywhere.
   
After leaving Mother's we drove to the Wichita Mountains in South-Western Oklahoma, trying to stay ahead of a line of bad weather that spun off a tropical storm coming up from the Gulf of Mexico. The rapidly changing weather laid waste to the well researched and carefully laid plans that I had made for our vacation. We found an open campground in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge (WMWR) that was secluded, clean, near a toilet & shower facility, and full of ticks. The Wichitas are a wild place with herds of buffalo, coyotes, reptiles, wild turkeys, foxes, free range longhorn cattle, countless prairie dogs, and a medium sized herd re-introduced elk. The terrain, prairie grass, scrub oaks, and wildlife as much now like they were three hundred years ago.
 
Our first night in Oklahoma was spent in the tent reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George while the sky danced with far away lightning and our tent fly hummed with the pattering of the rain. It was still raining the next morning, so instead of staring at each other all day in the tent, I figured that we would take advantage of the poor weather to learn about the area and its history. Besides, there were three ticks glaring down at me from the netting above my head when I opened my eyes and I didn’t want to give them too much time to figure out how to get into the tent for a warm meal. After a stop at the Ft. Sill museum and Geronimo’s grave, we stopped by The Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton for what I thought might be an interesting hour or so. That area of Oklahoma is littered with museums and places of historical significance so there was a good chance the place might have something to hold a little boy’s interest for a minute or two. After browsing the by familiar Indian, soldier, and cowboy Vignettes (all the museums in that part of the US have them), and the really good recreation of a frontier 1900’s dry-goods store, we headed for the gift shop, planning to buy a couple of post cards before leaving. On our way out the door Carlton saw a train outside so we had to go check it out – he and his Grandfather go to train museums a lot. Once outside, he spied a wooden fort and we had to make a detour for the sake of exploration. It was only OK, but it did have a fully stocked recreation of an 1840’s trading post store that looked sort of interesting. We went in to initially check out all the fur pelts displayed in the windows, but stayed for the history lesson.
   

Carlton at our campsite that was crawling with ticks

Carlton at the Ft. Sill Museum
   
Carlton learned about how to make a proper campfire and a Dakota fire-hole last year, so this year I had decided was the time to teach my son about tinder, kindling, and lighting a fire with a magnifying glass. Well, I got one-upped: A historic interpreter at the trading post store spent an hour with Carlton, showing him tools, knives, guns, and tomahawks, that would have been traded for pelts at the time. I was very proud of him for getting seven of the eight furs right when the guy asked. The interpreter then pulled out a flint and steel and in a blink threw sparks from the steel. He asked Carlton if he wanted to make fire and my son answered with a “YES, SIR!,” a big nod of his white-blond head, and with a look of wide-eyed wonderment. We all went out back of the post store and the man demonstrated the technique for getting a proper spark, before handing the flint and steel striker over to Carlton. After a few tries and some coaching my boy was throwing sparks and with an added helping hand or two he got a little flame coaxed from some dry grass brought up for the demonstrations. The man then pulled out a tinderbox with a magnifying lens in the top and helped Carlton start a little fire with that too. Carlton listened to everything that man said for the next thirty minutes like he was at any second going to reveal were Blackbeard’s treasure was buried. When we left the museum we were on a mission to gather all the necessary pieces for a right, proper tinderbox kit. (It took me a few more days to make and find all the necessary parts and to Carlton’s credit, he waited patiently as all the pieces came together.)
   

A buffalo robe at the trading post store - he want to see if we could buy it and take it home :-)

Carlton and the really great historic interpreter that stole a little of my thunder ;-), but opened Carlton up to something even better. A super-nice guy.
   
The weather cleared around 2:00 and after spending the morning at museums, we hiked up to the top of Elk Mountain (2270 ft / 692m) in the Refuge, getting back to the car just before dusk. It was my second mountain with my son as my partner and it makes me beam with pride and love every time we share a rocky trail. This particular trek made me nervous, both going up and on the way back because of the high probability of a snake encounter. As I have noted MANY times before, I hate snakes and a warm sunny afternoon after a storm is prime time for a snake to come out and sun itself on a nice warm rock. The snakes in that area include great big ol’ rattlesnakes. Normally, I give hiking and climbing partners a heads-up that if I see a snake or hear a rattle, I may run over/hit/step on them getting away from one of the slithering beasties. As I was hiking with one of my children, this was not an option. I was scared for myself and there was parental fear of my child getting hurt that was much heavier and more primal than my own fear. My stomach was in knots the whole time we were on the trail. We did actually see one snake – a small black grass snake slithering as fast as he could away from the trail as we two semi-hairless apes bounded noisily toward him/her/it. My buddies would have been proud of me – I didn’t scream like a little girl and do the tiptoe dance of fright/shame (slyly put a big rubber spider on your wife/girlfriend’s shoulder from behind to see what this particular style of modern interpretative dance looks like in person. Make sure to wear a helmet, a mouth-guard and a cup…)
   

Carlton on the summit of Elk Mountain, OK
   

A heard of deer walked into our camp at dusk one night and got within 3 feet of us. The buck was in the velvet and loved the apples Carlton gave him. No one hunts them on the Refuge so, they have no real fear of people.
   

The temperature during our entire stay in the Wichitas hovered just under 90 Degrees Fahrenheit because of the short bursts of showers during the day and at night. While that sounds hot, it was a welcome break from normal summer temperatures in that area, which often exceed 105. After two nights a thunderstorm with lots of lightning was forecast, so we went to a hotel for the night as I do not fancy my 7 year old getting zapped while sleeping. It was a wise decision as the storm was serious with lashing wind, thunder, lightning, and rain that lasted the entire night. The power went out in the hotel around 11:00 and I was very thankful not to be out in the open in an aluminium and nylon tent.

It was still raining the next morning, though not as severely as the night before. The forecast for the area was grim, so we tried to run north to get above the storm front. Our success was minimal and we ended up in Branson, Missouri; figuring that we might as well make the best of it and find something to do that was out of the weather. Carlton loved Branson and wore me down until on our second day there I agreed to take him to Silver Dollar City. He liked the craft shops (blacksmith, knife, guitar, carpenter, woodcarver, etc...) SO MUCH more than the rides and tourist crap! It made me proud. As a note, Branson is one version of my own private Hell: with all the ways that they have thought of to part you and your money and with all the crowds of fat sun-burnt red whinny families invading every corner of town. Carlton did well though and didn’t succumb to the temptations of cotton candy, giant Dr. Peppers, and garish souvenirs.

As the weather made a change for the good, we headed south into Arkansas for a planned canoe trip. Carlton wasn’t all that keen on canoeing last year. It was one of those things that sounded cool to do and was for the first 20 minutes or so. Then he got bored and it wasn’t all that fun for him; it was more like work.

We arrived at our campsite near Mammoth Springs just after dark at one of the most scenic campgrounds that I have been to in years: It was situated on a high bank just thirty-feet from the Spring River, soft green grass covered the tent sights, a new picnic table sat in each site, a large fire ring, in the middle of camp with log benches, firewood that came free with the daily site rental, a shower and toilet facility with hot water, lush trees that offered shade during the day, cheap fees, no misquotes, and amazingly there was only one other camper there. I was awe-struck at our fine luck to have stumbled upon such a gem! Just after I paid our nightly fee and Carlton had finished helping me set the tent up a line of log and gravel trucks loudly rolled over a nearby, but unseen overpass. I figured that it was annoying, but that the noise would fade into the background or go away completely as we settled into our tent. That delusion was shattered when, as the trucks kept rolling one after another, a freight train some miles away started blowing its whistle. I looked up in with a mixture of surprise and confusion and saw for the first time that there were train tracks not a hundred feet from our tent. The train blew its whistle all the way there and kept it up for long after it rumbled by the campground. The sound it made was ear-splitting. I again deluded myself into thinking that it was a one time a night sort of thing. Wrong… The trucks continued ALL night and a fucking train came through camp every forty minutes. I got no sleep that night. When dawn broke and the noise finally stopped I napped for an hour and a half before my gentle son started shaking me to get up, start breakfast, and get us on the river. He had slept through the entire night – a gift of childhood, sleeping happily and dreaming about candy, Star Wars, his puppy, the high adventure coming his way – I asked as I had missed out on any dreams of my own. I saw the campground owner pulling up in his truck as I wearily made my way to the shower after breakfast and asked about the trucks and trains. His answer was delivered with a slow exaggerated and bashful ‘Awe, shucks, you caught me’ tone. He explained that the big trucks can’t run the roads during the day and it is safer for the train at night because of all the road crossings without lights in the area. He said it was like this every night except Sunday and completely understood when I told him that we had decided to move on.
   

A seemingly perfect camp...

...until you turn around to find the trucks and train...
   
Once we were in our rental canoe and on the River, Carlton did much better than the year before. We spent a day floating 8.5 miles of the Spring River and he was juiced to be on the water, ready to get into some rapids and praying for the boat go under some waves. The Spring is a constant fifty-degrees Fahrenheit, so I didn’t really want to tip the canoe. Getting wet is one of those things that sounds funnier than it really is… Fond memories are not made in rushing water so cold that one’s man-parts turn turtle and have to be sweet-talked and coaxed back into the light. No sir, I was more than happy not take a dunking.
   

A paddling machine!

During a lunch stop

   
During our float, Carlton learned about handling a paddle, how to turn and guide the boat, and how to tell by the surface waves where the underwater rocks and snags were. He paddled up front for most of the trip and pointed out turtles that sat sunning themselves on logs and was my spotter for the “rapids.” He would hear rushing water and get all excited. Just before we would scoot through a fast channel or head over a little drop off, he would lift his paddle out of the water, place it across his lap – using it as a brace, and hunker down in place – waiting for the rush of speed and hoping in his little heart of hearts that we would come around a bend and be faced with a boat tearing Class V of raging spray and foam. He had the look of a hungry man watching a porterhouse steak sizzling on the grill. As luck would have it we did bump through a couple of class two holes and a tricky sharp S-turn without any problem at all. Carlton was a little disappointed to end the day still dry, but when I pointed out to him that we had paddled by people who had tipped, filled their canoe with cold rushing water and were having a hard time of it getting their boats floating again, I began to see a flicker of an idea that it might be a good thing not to tip a boat. I also pointed out how they would be chasing lost ice chests, hats, and bags down river for a long while; he quickly came around to the notion that ending the day dry was better. I promised him that when he was a little bigger we would get on a big river with waves and holes the size of cars. I could see the gears turning in his head.
   

More turtles
   
Like most little boys, Carlton feels that he may be destined to become a great hunter (as well as a fireman, soldier, plains Indian, and a scientist) so, a good deal of our conversations while camping involved talk of hunting. While we were floating along a narrow calm stretch of the Spring, overhung with trees heavy with leaves, I told Carlton about hunting from a canoe. Years ago a friend, Sean McKenzie, and I would float along the Bayou Bartholomew and shoot squirrels from the boat. They were not used to predators coming from the water and would run out to the ends of tree limbs to look at us or bark at us (trust me, squirrels bark). It was the final act. It was a lazy way to hunt, but we always shot our limit, so if one is hunting for meat and not for sport (I have developed a moral opposition to sport hunting), it is a fine tactic. Carlton was intrigued by this and started looking up into the trees. When I told him that I had once paddled up to a medium-sized buck and took him while he was staring at me, wondering what I could possibly be, Carlton was sold on the idea of canoe hunting.

This talk of hunting and Carlton’s new bow and arrow set brought up the conversation of why I don’t hunt anymore. I told Carlton that I believed that there was nothing wrong with hunting and the taking of game as long as it was to feed you or your family. Not to take the biggest and prettiest animal with food as an afterthought or as a mere detail of the hunt, but that if one chose to hunt, the meat on the table should be the primary concern. I told him that I felt that it was wrong to take the life of another creature, just to prove you could do it, that I had plenty of food where I lived, that came from the butcher, and we had enough money to buy our meat. If there were a point that there wasn’t money for groceries or there wasn’t beef, chicken, etc… available, then I would have no problem with hunting for our sustenance.

Every year, sensible grown men take high-powered rifles capable of half-mile shots into the woods, sit in a heated pee-scented square plywood box, and shoot at game thirty yards away – coming home beaming with pride at their “skills.” One has to tip-toe very lightly in the woods come fall were we are from. The hills are full of middle-aged fat men, hungover from a wild beer-soaked night at the deer camp, who will shoot at anything that moves: Hikers, climbers, cyclists, trail runners, horses, cars, cows, old rusty barrels… The less time spent in the woods the better when the Huntus-Idiotus species makes it annual migration to green spaces to drink, complain about wives and jobs, eat chili, drink, shoot stuff, drink, tell lies about the big one that got away, drink, and shoot some more. One should have more respect for both themselves and their chosen quarry. He seemed to understand, but we will have this talk again, I am sure.

After chasing blue skies for a week, Carlton and I settled into a campsite at Blanchard Springs Cavern State Park. The shaded campground is right next to a great little swimming hole that we found last year and Carlton loves the place. There had been two floods that spring and the course of the creek had changed some and the depth of the gravel filled bed had also changed. Last year there was a limestone prow that hanging over a deep hole that made a perfect little diving platform. Carlton was too small to work on his Olympic-qualifying cannon-ball form. With the change in the creek, it was out this year as well – the depth of the water under the rock outcrop was a mere five feet. While somewhat disappointed, he took it in stride and swam until his hands and feet resembled soft white wrinkled prunes. Hours were spent swimming, splashing, laughing, diving for rocks, skipping flat stones, building dams in the shallows, and soaking up the warm sun.
   

The swimming hole at Blanchard Springs. Carlton is about to jump in.

We rebuilt this 'hot tube' in the shallows. The reflective white sand in the shallow bottom heats the water up some and makes the little pool hotter than the water around it.

   
One morning before a swim in a warm, spring-fed swimming hole, I sat him down at our campsite, went through all the steps to make fire with his flint and steel again with him, let him see me do it a couple of times, and then handed the kit over to my seven year old son. He was an excellent student – he had a spark and flame in about a minute. Carlton did it a few more times, then did every step of the entire process himself without help from me, each time he got a little flame going in a nest of unravelled Manila rope. I was much impressed. I didn’t learn the same skill until I was ten and it took me weeks to get the hang of it all.

After spending the rest of that day of swimming, laughing, wrestling, bow shooting, and writing (we read parts of a book each night and he wrote a few sentences each day to get ready for the rigors of Second Grade book reports…), it was time to make the campfire for the night. After gathering dry sticks and limbs from the other side of the spring and collecting a few pine needles, Carlton sat down by the fire ring, opened his tinderbox, and started striking flint to steel. It took him a little bit, but he stayed at it and turned a small spark into a little flame. He placed it in the fire ring and stacked pine needles, twigs and gradually larger sticks into a fire tepee while softly blowing on the expanding new flame. We had a campfire going in no time at all and I was so proud of him that I shed of tears of joy! I gave him a big ol’ hug, told him how proud I was and how happy he had made his father. He smiled and smiled and hugged right back. It was a moment that I will always treasure! My boy can now make a fire with flint and steel and is now a blond version of Daniel Boone - going from spark to twig fire in about a minute (I photo documented each step and put together a how-to manual using Carlton as my demonstrator… for the “Outdoor Tips” page). We made S'mores on a campfire that night that he made all by himself. Pride is not a big enough concept to describe how I felt as I roasted his marshmallow to a golden brown.

Carlton does know that his new skill and kit is not for playing with and we keep his new tools put up in a safe place except when we are camping so as not to have the temptation laying about.
   

Getting a spark...

Carlton's had a flame going in a matter of minutes.
   
That night I chased a racoon out of camp during dinner then nailed it in the hind-quarters with Carlton’s new slingshot when it came back just before we fell asleep. From the noise he made and the speed at which that racoon left our general vicinity, I was willing to bet that he would never visit that particular campsite again and maybe contemplate a move to another state were the other furry animals wouldn’t make fun of him for screaming like a little bitch as he ran away into the night. The next morning I opened my eyes in the tent to find Carlton gathering up his wrist-rocket (for the uninitiated: This is a slingshot usually constructed of metal, with a forearm brace, and strong rubber tubing. Some have the power of a 22cal. Pistol when steel ball bearings are used as shot. They are useful for taking small game, for shooting cans, and for getting into huge trouble when windows/light bulbs/potted plants or the family dog/cat are "accidentally" shot…), some small round rocks, my headlamp (it was already light outside), and a multi-tool that he had brought. Carlton looked up from the items gathered about him with a look of seriousness beyond his years and said, “Daddy, I think that ‘coon needs another lesson.” It is difficult not to pee in your sleeping bag that early in then morning when you are laughing that hard!

After swimming and playing in the woods for a few days, we headed to Little Rock, bought his school clothes, and caught the premier of the new animated Star Wars film - he really wanted to see it! Our vacation wasn’t all woods and history lessons. I had planned other activities for us all when Madison was still planning on joining us and saw no reason to remove them from the itinerary when she changed her mind. We managed to squeeze in three movies, lots of video games, a water park, go carts, live music, and what turned out to be Carlton’s first taste of Indian food.

On our last night together I let him stay up late, eat chocolate, and play Guitar Hero on my buddy Ross’s Xbox 360. I took him home the next morning so that he would have a day or two to acclimate back into the civilized world before the start of the new school year. I went go back down to Carlton’s home town a couple of days later and it was my honor to have lunch with him at his school on his first day of second grade.