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By the time Gretchen and I had settled down for the night, our small tent was littered with jackets, hats, extra blankets, books, bags and the fluffy heap of our sleeping bags. We had come to our camp near Lodi prepared for freezing temperatures, but the weather had turned mild so we were comfortable as we read by headlamps before going to sleep. We use our backpacking tent in colder weather because it retains more warmth and sheds the wind.
We had come to close up the camp later than usual — not much of a job, really, just taking down and stowing the screen tent that we leave up all summer and emptying our water storage tank. We like to come late in fall to enjoy the colorful sugar maples that we planted so long ago.
But this year we were too late for the leaf show in our woods. Instead, we were treated to the murmur and rustle of dried oak leaves being thrown about by a strong south wind.
Our Lodi friends, Tom and Betty, stopped by for a glass of wine just as the western sky over the Lodi Marsh was streaked with crimson and rose. Tom had hiked out from town on the Ice Age Trail and Betty arrived by car from Madison.
They stayed and we talked around a campfire until a little after dark. Then Gretchen and I had the rest of the evening to slurp a one-pot noodle dish cooked on our little wood stove and sit for several hours reading by the campfire, stopping now and then to turn off the headlamp to gaze at the stars.
Cassiopeia, the distinctive W-shaped constellation, was directly overhead. And then as we were turning in, the moon came up at the end of our lane, half full and milky behind a wisp of thin clouds that streamed in late in the evening from the north.
I woke early the next morning, wriggled into my clothes and then searched unsuccessfully for my stocking cap before crawling out of the tent and heading for the cook shack to make the morning pot of coffee. I found a baseball cap stuffed in my pack, but still wondered where among all my things in the tent my stocking cap had hidden.
Later, as the first rays of the sun spread across the meadow, we heard the first gunshots from the adjacent hunting grounds. So we donned the blaze orange vests that we bring along in fall.
Gretchen announced breakfast was ready. I sat down at the picnic table with a steaming mug of oatmeal, brown sugar and raisins. And as I took my first spoonful, I had a most uncomfortable feeling that I had grown a tumor on my backside. Then, after thinking about it for a moment, I said to Gretchen, “Either I have a tumor or … I have found my stocking cap.”
Gretchen laughed as I stood up and pulled my wool watch cap out of my pants.
Sometimes these little indignities make me wonder why we enjoy camping so much — the fire building, wood splitting, eyes watering in shifting smoke, cold-fingered moments.
Then I think of the night music — the whinney of a barred owl, the chorus of coyotes, the wind soughing in the trees, songs around the campfire — and I look forward to next spring even as we say goodbye to the land for another season.
Maybe I can talk Gretchen into a winter camp this year. Probably not.
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