Compared to members of my family, I am Crocodile Dundee or Bear Grylls.
Compared to people I know in the outdoor industry and just around the Wenatchee Valley, I am about as outdoorsy as Beyoncé or the nerd used to anthropomorphize PCs in the Apple commercials.
It’s a textbook example of relativity.
Not THAT relativity. But in the “it’s all relative” relativity.
My social media description sums it up in nine words. Avid indoorsman known for intractable inertia disguised as leisure.
I backdoored my way into the outdoors. It was all serendipitous. Before I went to Prescott College in Prescott, Arizona, straight out of the milquetoast environs of a north Dallas bedroom community, the closest I ever came to communing with nature were the car camping trips I took with my parents.
They owned one of those pop-up trailers which was nothing more than a glorified tent you could drag around behind your vehicle and it came with a tiny bit of kitchen counter space, a stove top and a mini-refrigerator cleverly tucked in somewhere. It was my parent’s pride and joy most likely because it was the least expensive means of taking the family on vacation.
Needless to say, I would earn no merit badges for car camping in the Starcraft trailer.
Before the nifty camper-in-a-box, my family loved utilizing the freshly founded Kampgrounds of America, also known as KOAs, that started springing up around the country during my tween and teen years. This franchise organization might have been one of the first commercial manglers of English. I always thought folks newly arrived to our shores probably struggled with all of the slang and colloquialisms and words that are spelled similarly but pronounced completely differently - like ‘slough’ and ‘tough’ - and then we go and start purposely misspelling simple words like “camp”.
Unlike state parks, national parks and county parks, KOAs came with amenities like swimming pools and foosball tables. Electrical hook ups and running water. Flush toilets and vending machines. Again, I wasn’t going to earn any outdoor merit badges staying at a KOA.
I’ve told this story a million times but when I first arrived in Washington state in the fall of some year in the ‘70s, I decided I needed to get out and really experience the Pacific Northwest. A friend and I excitedly planned a weekend backpacking trip. She was a Washingtonian, so I wonder why she didn’t dampen my enthusiasm for this cockamamie idea but, now that I think about it, she was an EASTERN Washingtonian. That may have made all of the difference. She didn’t know any more than me what we were getting ourselves into.
Eastern Washington is arid. Western Washington is humid while always verging on damp.
It drizzled the whole time we were packing the car. It rained as we drove to the trailhead. It continued raining as we shouldered our plastic garbage bag covered backpacks. Rain cascaded down as we hiked. It rained as we set up camp. It didn’t let up that night. The rain was still with us in the morning. The wet chased us down the trail and all the way back to Bellingham. We gave up on the hike after one wet, miserable night.
To this day, whenever backpacking in the Pacific Northwest is brought up, I have flashbacks.
Allow me to list my extensive outdoor “fails”.
It should come as no surprise being from the flatlands of Texas that I am no mountaineer. I tried climbing Mount Rainier once. It’s on every Washingtonians bucket list, but I only got as far as the dingy climber’s hut at Camp Muir and, even though the weather was lovely with nary a cloud in the sky, I told my climbing partner that I had seen enough. Maybe if I had grown up seeing Rainier every day on the skyline from my home’s bay window I would have been more determined. I think for Washingtonians climbing Mount Rainier is something they must do because it holds such a mythic place in their hearts and minds. For me, it was just another ice and snow capped mound of rock and dirt.
Being from Texas does not necessarily guarantee I would be a less than stellar downhill skier or an unenthusiastic downhill skier, because Texans flock to the ski slopes of Colorado and New Mexico. They are like pigeons to New Yorkers. Brash, egotistical pigeons. But downhill skiing never appealed to me. Too much sitting, too much sitting in the cold and damp, too much verticality, too much standing in lines and too much money out of the pocketbook. If I had not had a partner that ski patrolled for a living and who could get me on the slopes for free, I might have ended my ski career the day I tried skiing at Taos when the slopes were like vertical ice rinks.
I tried mountain biking. It was fun. But too much uphill climbing and not enough downhill and nowadays you have to worry about hungry and/or misguided mountain lions.
I’ve done some rock climbing. I liked rock climbing but I’m afraid I was spoiled. Ninety nine per cent of my rock climbing experience happened at Joshua Tree National Monument in California where the rock is so grippy you could practically climb in your street shoes or flip flops. At the time, Joshua Tree was a ‘holy place’ for rock climbers.
My attempt at windsurfing was laughable. My attempts at ocean surfing were even more hysterical. I could never even get the hang of body-surfing.
And then there was whitewater kayaking.
You’d think because I have an understanding of whitewater that kayaking could easily become second nature. Not so.
I didn’t like being two feet off the surface of the water. I didn’t like being encased in plastic. I didn’t like being in a convoluted lotus position with my toes being scrunched for more than a couple of minutes. I couldn’t open my eyes when I toppled over because I wore contact lenses. I didn’t like being repeatedly doused in cold water.
And I yearned for the company of others. And that’s what paddle rafts were all about.
I do enjoy the outdoors, more so, I imagine, than your common man-in-the-street. I’m drawn to nature and I’m drawn to the significance of wild places. I am one of those people who believe wilderness should exist even if I never get to set foot in it, or even if I choose to never set foot in it, because I fear bears and Texas-sized mosquitoes, and I savor my amenities.
And, even though I spend an inordinate amount of time in the great outdoors, I’d never describe myself as an outdoorsman.
I have some passing knowledge of the outdoors but, if you are looking for a partner on Naked and Afraid, I’d suggest you look for someone who actually earned some merit badges as an Eagle Scout.
However, I’m your man for vintage era Trivial Pursuit.
Since I was on the subject of car camping, I’m going to suggest Nomadland with Frances McDormand in the starring role. As she says in the movie, “I’m not homeless, I’m houseless.”
It’s garnering all sorts of awards and attention and I enjoyed it. It’s a quiet, subtle movie about ‘nomads’ who travel the western parts of the US living out of their vans and campers and forming ephemeral communities as they go along. My brother and I think we saw a few of these makeshift communities who had circled up their vehicles out in the middle of nowhere on a road trip to and from the Nevada, Arizona, California border.
AAR Nancy Enz Lill recommends Kodachrome a partially true story about the final days of Kodachrome starring Ed Harris and Jason Sudeikis (who some of us recognize as Ted Lasso of the Apple TV show). It’s good. I was put off initially by Jason Sudeikis NOT being the character he was in Ted Lasso. But, as the movie went on, I warmed up to him.
Want something to write to your Congresscritters about? How about suggesting that the United States Postal Service go “all electric”. Sooner, rather than later.
Thanks for reading and sharing and continuing to send along ideas, thoughts and good vibes! - JLM