Failure

I don't get to do much backcountry camping. It's one of those romantic notions I love fulfilling from time to time. You put everything you need on your back, and march off into the woods to conquer nature. You spend the evening in a very quiet, very secluded spot with no light noise obstructing the stars and tell ghost stories - or whatever other stories float your boat. So, around Tuesday last week, I began planning and preparing for a weekend of just such fun. Went to REI and bought new sleeping mats, a pillow, an insulated lunch sack, and a tiny little portable speaker unit for the ipod. Then I froze some chicken sausages, squeezed mustard into a baggie, packed some crackers, cheese, corn on the cob, salt, pepper and froze some butter. I was prepared! We started packing Wednesday night and were completely ready to go Thursday evening. I woke up early Saturday, eager and excited for a weekend away from the crowds and out in the woods.
It took us some driving around to find the campsite. I thought it was a wonderful omen, when, in driving around we found a yarn shop I'd never been to before: Hunt Country Yarns in The Plains, VA. It's out there a bit, but it's a really nice yarn shop, with a nice variety, including Hannah Falkenberg, Jane Slicer-Smith and Vivian Hoxbro. I bought the Net Scarf kit by Vivian Hoxbro and some Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend. A great start to what promised to be a great weekend!
Finally, after a few false starts, we found our parking lot, threw our packs on our backs and hit the trail.
For 0.5 miles. Then, little Miss Graceful (that would be me), stepped on a loose rock and went down like a sack of potatoes. I scraped up my leg a bit, but the true damage was done before I ever hit the ground. Here's the SigO marking the scene of the crime.

My hamstring stretched out like a pair of old stockings that have lost all elasticity. I didn't walk anymore - I wobbled. After rolling around on the ground in agony for a while, I ditched the pack and limped around for several minutes, practically falling over a few times as my hamstring kept giving out. SigO was all prepared to hump both packs out as well as help me limp out, but there's a time to call it a day, and there's a time to cowgirl up - and this was the latter. So, after a few more minutes of "walking it off" and some first aid, we slung our packs on again, and began the hike again.

Unfortunately, now I was really wobbly, and hesitant about every step I took. I felt I needed my poles, which I had left in the car thinking I wouldn't be needing them. Foolish. Had I had them, I doubt I'd ever have fallen in the first place. Call that lesson learned #1. We were now one mile from the car, and my ever gallant SigO unslung his pack, and left me to watch it as he literally ran (or walked fast whenever there were too many rocks on the trail) to the car and back to retrieve my poles.

I'll pause here for all you guys to sigh in jealousy. He's a sweetie. And he's hot - as mentioned in previous posts, but I digress.

According to the guide I was using to plan this little outing, we would pass 4 deep creek beds on our trail. The guide listed them as unreliable water sources - meaning if it hadn't been raining lately, they'd be dried up. Well, we've gotten loads of rain lately, so no worries, right? Wrong. Every single one of them was dry as a bone. Here's poor little toad no doubt wishing for a sip of water with no luck.

Lesson learned #2 - no less than one gallon of water per person for each 10 miles, and if there are no water sources within 10 miles - skip that hike. In this case, I think I would have needed more than 1 gallon of water though. I suppose it was from the injury, but I felt I couldn't get enough to drink all day long. So, after 3 miles, and the full realization that we weren't going to find any water, we bagged it and turned around. The bitter taste of defeat on top of dehydration - not tasty, let me tell you.

Two highlights:

The mushroomsthis is just one sample - my favorite - there were actually a lot more.
And SigO found an authentic fossil!

Don't believe me?

Check it out!I know, you're not supposed to take things home from the trail, but I think you'll agree, this is an exception.

So, we came home and I drugged myself adequately and stuck a ton of ice on the injury, and we took the rest of the weekend easy. Sad ending, huh?
Some days you get the bear, some days, the bear gets you. Maybe next time.

First Annual Festivus Insolidus

A little while back, the SigO came up with a good idea to celebrate a Festival of the Weird, or, extremely loosely translated: Festivus Insolidus. We've decided to kidnap H-Boo each 4th of July weekend and celebrate our goofy-ness.
This being our first year, we don't have many traditions established yet, so all we did was go smash crabs and drink beer (well - rootbeer in H-Boo's case).

Also made the SigO try fried pickles

- I mean, if you're celebrating weird, you gotta try at least one new weird thing, right? H-Boo tried Hush Puppies for the first time. You may not think that's weird, but think about it - frying corn bread? Doesn't seem like you could make corn bread any yummier than it already is, but then you fry it, and voila - twice the yum. Weird.
And of course, the SigO did some puppet shows for us. That's always weird. And fun.

The heat was oppresive, the music was weak, and the crowds were crazy, but we still enjoyed ourselves and look forward to expanding our experience in the future. We're open for suggestions for new "traditions".

Otherwise a slow weekend. I finally cast on - again - for the Enid Cardigan.

I attempted this once and lost a lot of yarn. First, I am trying to do the entire thing picking instead of throwing, and my picking is much looser than my throwing, so the guage was ever so slightly off. Unless you're knitting for Hagrid, and then, it was dead on. So, this time, I'm using needles two sizes smaller than what is called for. I'll take a measurement tonight to see if I'm on track.

Also, last time I tried this pattern, I twisted the stitches when joining in the round. I didn't realize this until I'd knit a fair amount, and since the pattern calls for steeking anyway, I figured I'd steek to untwist. Boy did that not work out so well, and hence - a lot of lost yarn. Keep your fingers crossed for me that I still have enough - I'm counting on the loose knitting to help out. Or, I may just order more and alternate to disguise the different dye lot.

So, a quiet fourth. But we have a whole year to think of wacky ideas for the Second Annual Festivus Insolidus.