Camping on the Parkway - Part 2

14 July 2010

300

R. Linda:

I be taking a deep breath and continuing on I be. SIGH. 

After trying me best to linger over lunch and masticating 28 times (read it again, it didn't say what you think it did) each morsel of food, and with everyone looking impatiently at me, I finally gulped down my sanny and faced the awful fact I wasn't getting out of this camping thing. I dragged me feet to the car and we all got ready to set off. Dragon and hubby in the lead, brother and wife next, then us. Yup. Tonya had moved my butt out of the driver's seat because she knew if I was following I'd go very slow and eventually lose them all and well, no camping for us! 

Off to the Pine Barrens we went though, Tonya at the wheel, not a very long trip from Cape May, well nothing would be would it, after eight hours from New England! Yes, I noticed we were not far from another Parkway exit, the land was sandy and had scrub pine trees galore. And I don't mean those pretty pine trees, no these are those white pines, or scrub pines that aren't like Christmas trees. They are ugly, and the ones I had at the end of me used-to-be driveway back in the beautiful state of New Hampshire, I cut down. 

O'Hare was all about who's at the Pine Barrens. I told him, his grandmother's father, the Jersey Devil, and probably a host of dead mafia guys and probably Jimmy Hoffa, and what fun -- we could get shovels and go look for them! He was "OH YEAH," and I got a good punch in the arm from me lovely wife for that.

So we arrived at the campsite, and talk about remote and primitive, the campgrounds were on the Oswego River. The Oswego River by the by and all the little streams in that area are BROWN. Made me nervous and here was my guffawing brother-in-law calling it Jersey Tea. It is also pet-friendly, and guess what? It had to be, we had a dragon with us! No one had raked leaves there in a very long time. There were dead, dried leaves everywhere and later I found out that is normal for a wooded area. But not when you are camping on top of it because all the bugs and larvae come up when you step on them and it isn't fun. Well, it was for O'Hare who is the bug master.

Can I say something here about outdoor toilets? There might as well be none. They are the smelliest most unwholesome places and why women get mad when men do their business outdoors, well can I say just go inside one of those things and just stand there in the darkness, inhaling the cesspool, and tell me you really want to stay in there and do whatever it is you need to do. Oh, and before I forget, and you'll think this is either impressive or gross, but the toilet paper must be English because it is that hard stuff like cardboard and it's grey like in the UK. So the park service must import its rolls. 

Okay, ever onward to cooking and starting a fire. Yes indeedy, I was sent with O'Hare, the youngest opting to stay close to his mam (smart kid), to collect twigs for firewood. I don't know how many times I stepped in mud up to me ankles and had a devil of a time getting the suction to let my foot up so I could slip-slide another step. No wonder so many people disappear in the Pine Barrens. You can get glued to the swampy land and never get out. I had to lift the Airport up by his wrists to un-suction him from the muddy forest floor too many times to count. My back was aching by the time we got back with a meagre and sad lot of brush and sticks. 

Me father-in-law thought it would be fun if I started the fire using a magnesium bar and a knife. While he crouched down and positioned the brush and sticks, I was to strike the knife blade down the shaft of the bar and cause a spark. Yeah well, I did it on the first strike, so there. He fed the fire while the women bickered over who was doing what. Meanwhile, me brother-in-law was putting wiggling worms on fishing hooks for him and the boys and setting off to catch dinner from the brown river. Ugh, skinning and gutting fish from that water terrified me! The thought of it made me lose my appetite.  

Me father-in-law and I unpacked the cars and started to get the tents up with help from Tonya. I was no help so I was told to let them do the tents. I went and got the bug repellent and was spraying meself good for the bugs had found me. The sister-in-law and the Dragon were busy boiling water while I was spraying and they had decided to cook raviolis they had brought with them because they would go bad if not eaten that night. They also had a jar of store sauce and that they were heating as well. Somehow an Italian dinner when camping in the Pine Barrens didn't seem right, where were the hamburgers and hot dogs? Worse it tasted strange, everyone thought so and I realised guiltily afterwards it had a bug spray taste, and I had stood there spraying away as they were preparing the Italian delight.

You and I would agree on camping, I could just hear you, "No, not my idea of the high life Gabe, no showers, no cable, no running water, and cooking over burning sticks. NO!" It pains me when me electricity goes out at home during a storm, to me that's roughing it. This was voluntarily torturing oneself needlessly.

I itched all over. It was awful trying to sleep that night. It was so quiet at first because I was trying to be quiet. Tonya had threatened me that if I snored I would be outside the tent and that was the pits trying not to fall into a deep sleep because I knew she'd make good on her threat. But then I noticed something, a sound in the not too far distance, It was the Garden State Parkway. I could hear the blaring of horns and the whizzing of speeding traffic. So much for the quiet camping in the woods. I hid me head in me pillow to blot out the sound, I thought I'd be listening to locusts or crickets, but no I was roughing it listening to CARS whiz by in the night and an occasional squeal of brakes and the shout, "Yer mama!" I felt like was in the middle of the parkway!

The next morning after a not-so-fitful sleep I woke up to tick city. I was covered. Lyme Disease here I come!

I'm sorry I know you're laughing your arse off at me Linda, and just the writing this travesty has got me the itches. I have to stop again and go shower and slather on some bug cream. Be right back.

Gabe

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