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Gail, your piece made me think of this story I wrote a few years back about a trip from hell. We laugh about it now. I hope you all will find it amusing, or at least cautionary! karen
It was Labor Day weekend, and we were determined to go camping. We had three whole days, and were desperate to use them. Ignoring everything we knew about summer camping the
Midwest, we headed two hours North to
Indian
Cave
Park in
Nebraska. As we set up our tent in the oppressive atmosphere, we saw other intrepid souls gathered around campfires. The fires, we later realized, were to combat the hordes of mosquitoes infesting the hollow. We didn’t notice the vacant, dazed expressions–the absolute torpor of our fellow campers. We did notice that many of them were drinking rather heavily. The only sounds were the repetitive, industrial song of locusts and calls for more beer. Excited to get on the trail, we loaded up and consulted our map. Sketchy and primitive, it primarily showcases the cave for which the park is named. Trails are indicated rather loosely, and locating the trailhead took several hours. We eventually found ourselves on a trail much like a maintenance road, a trough cut into the landscape with some sort of earthmover. It was not particularly scenic, and was built recently enough that the cut sides of the trough, up to four or five feet tall in some sections of the trail, were moist and steaming, the perfect breeding ground for every type of insect and larvae. Most of the trail was a steep incline, with very little descent, and I was panting heavily in the heat. We were later to discover that the temperature that afternoon was 102 degrees, the heat index near 110. There was no breeze, and therefore little evaporation. I started to feel a slight headache at the base of my skull. After several hours of silent climbing, grimly endured except for breaks for water and application of insect repellent, we emerged from the trees. The best thing about
Indian
Cave
State Park on such a day is surely the bathhouse. We gratefully stood under the shower, cooling down a bit, and then attempted to towel ourselves dry, an exercise in futility in the 86% humidity. We reapplied insect repellent immediately, to preserve some small amount of our blood which was being siphoned off in mass quantities. Slick with sweat and Deep Woods OFF, it was tacitly understood that there would be no romance in the tent that evening.I was still feeling somewhat sick in the head, so I took a couple of Excedrin. We settled down around our campfire, which was hot and miserable, but slightly decreased the insects. Occasionally a breeze would pass through the campground, and we heard a collective “aah!” as people stretched their bodies up to meet it. For a while we enjoyed ourselves in spite of the heat, stretching out to read on the ground, and cracking open a bottle of wine we brought from home. My headache started to return, this time with a pounding intensity. I took a prescription painkiller, hoping to salvage the evening. By dusk, the breeze had disappeared completely, leaving us to swelter, dry, in the sauna-like environment of the park. Lethargy overcame us. Other campers sat listlessly slapping away bugs, occasionally talking quietly. Newcomers arrived in a flurry of activity, set up camp, and then quickly succumbed to the heat. They sat, like the rest of us, in stupefying silence. We were comforted by the fact that we were not the only idiots out in this heat. I felt worse by the minute, and was sitting in a camp chair, face between my knees, hands dangling down by my ankles, with an ice bag on my head. “Are you all right?” My husband asked anxiously.“Fine,” I responded faintly. “I just need to lie down for a while.”I went to the oven-like tent and enjoyed a respite from all but three mosquitoes that whined around my ears, keeping me awake. I roasted there for a while, and when I could take no more, I went back out to the campfire. By this time, I was in a haze of alcohol and drugs, a danger one would think I had enough sense to avoid. I stared dully into the flames, and tried to ignore my headache.Finally I went back to bed. I lay on top of my sleeping bag, sticking to the flannel lining, sweating out alcohol and DEET, which had probably reached neurotoxic levels by this point. I called my husband. “I think I need to go to the hospital.” It was quite late by this time, and a few people had started to become more active, i.e, loud and drunken. A whippoorwill had been crazily screeching its refrain, over and over, just outside our tent. Obviously we were both still awake.I dressed and got in the car, turning the air conditioner on my face full force. The temperature change was too much; my stomach started to roll. My husband ran into the ranger station and frantically searched for a ranger to provide directions to the closest emergency room. Meanwhile, I threw up in the bushes. Several people stared in concerned fascination. I was unable to speak, and crawled back to the car.Mark drove as fast as he could on the bumpy back roads, my stomach heaving with every impact. He patted me nervously while I writhed and muttered, holding my head. We pulled over for me to be sick, and I leaned out the door. We were in front of a farmhouse, and a pack of snarling dogs came running toward me in the dark. I screamed, barely managing to pull my head back in the car and slam the door.By the time we got to the hospital, I could neither speak nor walk, and Mark was convinced I was having a stroke. I was wheeled into the ER, puking and mumbling incoherently. The doctor on call eventually gave me a shot for migraine headache, and in twenty minutes, this miracle of modern science completely obliterated the pain. I sat up in wonderment. I was drained, but felt great otherwise. After a severe migraine, the absence of pain is like a gift. All is right with the world. The temperature was still well in the upper eighties. I was dehydrated and weak. The hospital wouldn’t keep me after my miracle cure. We were sent back out into the heat of the night. I couldn’t face the campsite again. I suddenly recalled that my parents lived about an hour away, and I called them from a parking lot. It was 2 a.m. Mom, who thought that her job as late night chauffeur had ended fifteen years ago, was less than thrilled. I think she was having a flashback to my teen years. “Are you at a bar?” she asked, over and over. Eventually, she agreed to come pick me up, and so we waited in the car. A police officer stopped to question us. We convinced him that our motives were pure, and he waited with us. My mom arrived and took me home. I washed off the sweat and insect repellent and slept blissfully the rest of the night in clean sheets, dry and comfortable. Mark went back to the campground to get our things, and spent the night there. He is a much hardier specimen than I, and tolerated the evening with only a minor panic attack. He was kept awake by some beer-drinking rednecks, but otherwise passed the night in relative comfort. He picked me up Sunday morning and we headed home.You would think that after this trip we would have given up on camping. In fact, just the opposite. We continue to camp, learning a bit more on each trip, accumulating better gear, and surviving many disasters. This particular trip helped us formulate a cardinal rule— thou shalt not camp in the midwest in the summertime. The heat, humidity, and insects will offset any possible enjoyment. I also learned a hard lesson about mixing alcohol and painkillers. Admittedly, most people learn this by watching “Behind the Music,” but in my defense, the heat was a major factor, and my judgement was clouded by DEET intoxication. Over the years, many lessons have been learned. Some concern the real cost of a cheap tent, discovered only during what New Mexicans like to call “a gully-washer;” the wisdom of canoeing on the high water that follows a major tornadic storm; what constitutes “adequate” food and water, the difference between water-resistant and water-proof—you get the picture. Through these slightly tortuous lessons, we have grown. We are now more skilled and sensible campers. We own a closet full of top-notch gear, a bookshelf full of well-thumbed outdoor guides. Most importantly—and, might I add most critical—to our success, we locate the ER before we set up camp.
Astral Dance
Silver cords weaving
astral souls dance together
a soul is rising.
Karen
One of many side trips……
The Taverna di Muse is lovely tonight, warm and redolent with the spicy smells of delicious and exotic foods…the music plays, transporting me to other places, other times, and I rise to my feet. I begin to dance, inhabited by the spirit of flamenco. The crooner sees me, and begins to sing a song, a flamenco-poem, in Spanish. I move through the taverna as moonlight moves on water, swaying and flowing with grace. I end the piece with head bowed, one hand high in the air, as the crowd of artists, writers, and musicians applaud and whistle.
ROMANCE DE LA LUNA, LUNA
A Conchita García Lorca
La luna vino a la fragua
con su polisón de nardos.
El niño la mira, mira.
El niño la está mirando.
En el aire conmovido
mueve la luna sus brazos
y enseña, lúbrica y pura,
sus senos de duro estaño.
Huye luna, luna, luna.
Si vinieran los gitanos,
harían con tu corazón
collares y anillos blancos.
Niño, déjame que baile.
Cuando vengan los gitanos,
te encontrarán sobre el yunque
con los ojillos cerrados.
Huye luna, luna, luna,
que ya siento sus caballos.
Niño, déjame, no pises
mi blancor almidonado.
El jinete se acercaba
tocando el tambor
del llano.
Dentro de la fragua el niño,
tiene los ojos cerrados.
Por el olivar venían,
bronce y sueño, los gitanos.
Las cabezas levantadas
y los ojos entornados.
Cómo canta la zumaya,
¡ay, cómo canta en el árbol!
Por el cielo va la luna
con un niño de la mano.
Dentro de la fragua lloran,
dando gritos, los gitanos.
El aire la vela, vela.
El aire la está velando.
***
Song of the Moon, Moon
to Conchita García Lorca
The moon came to the forge
with her bustle of nards.
The boy watches the sight.
The boy is watching her.
In the trembling air
the moon moves her arm
and lewd and pure shows
her breasts of hard tin.
“Run Moon, Moon, Moon.
If the gypsies came
they would twist your heart
into chains and rings of white.”
“Boy, let me dance.
When the gypsies come,
they’ll find you on the anvil,
fast asleep.”
“Run Moon, Moon, Moon,
because I hear their horses now.”
“Boy, leave my whiteness
unmarred.”
The rider approached
tapping his tamborine.
Inside the forge was the boy,
with his eyes closed.
Through the olive grove they came,
all bronze and dreams, the gypsies.
Their heads lifted up,
their eyes half-shut.
“How the owl sings, Ay!
how the tawny owl sings in the tree!”
Through the sky the moon takes
the boy by the hand.
Inside the forge, the gypsies
cry and give shouts.
The wind guards, it guards.
The wind is guarding it.
Federico Garcia Lorca
presented by Karen Roberts
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