I Am 99

Carl here. No, I'm not 99 years old (don't look at my picture, bad lighting.) And no, I'm not Agent 99 from "Get Smart," but I am part of the 99% who makes under a trillion dollars a day. Give or take a billion or two. So, what does this have to do with camping you say? Well...........

What it comes down to is this, the wall street protesters are basically campers in disguise. They found a way to camp in the middle of a big city and get away with it. How sweet is that. They have their tents, they have their grills, hopefully they have sleeping bags that go down to -20 degrees, because winter is coming fast. Those wall street guys wouldn't want them to freeze to death, would they?  Although.... it would be quite entertaining for them, watching from their high perch, with champagne and binoculars in hand.  Na......well maybe.

There are some similarities between the way I camp and the way the protesters camp. I deal with nasty skunks, spraying foul smelling gland excretions; they deal with eye burning, lung clogging, tear gas canisters being hurled at them. I deal with attacks from rabid animals and an occasional wife. They get attacked by big men, with helmets, shields and rubber bullets. No one said city camping was easy!

Which brings me to my last point. Are these protesters really part of the 99%. They don't seem to work anywhere. They spend all their time protesting. I think they are part of the 9.1%..... the unemployed!


Camping fun with Carl, signing off.

Rest Somewhere Else!

Carl here!  It’s time to get down and dirty.  I’m talking about the restrooms and showers at campsites. If you’re like me, using a public restroom or shower is a last ditch, emergency only situation.  It’s bad enough when a family member uses the toilet before you, but a stranger.  Yuck!  At least if it’s a family member you have some kind of genetic tie, some kind of connection there. A few jumping bugs aren’t going to kill you. But if it’s a stranger, all bets are off.  No telling what those mutated Deliverance bugs will do. You might start having the urge to play the banjo.

                                                                                                                                                                        

I always try to plan our camping excursions based on my bathroom needs. Not to last more than two days or three days max, and only if we’re within 30 minutes from our house.  I figure I could hold it for a couple of days without too much discomfort. Worst case scenario if it gets really bad, I could say I’m going berry picking, sneak into the car, go home, due my duty and be back before anyone is the wiser. As far as those showers are concerned, I have no problem with smelling worse than the animals. There’s no way I’m going to use those showers. Did you ever look at the drain?  Double yuck!  No telling what went down that hole. No telling what's going to come out of that hole, grab your ankles and pull you in.  Does Freddy Kruger come to mind?       

             I don't care what they say, there’s no such thing as a sanitary restroom.  Is Mr. Clean standing by, waiting for the person ahead of you to finish.  NO!  He’s even afraid.  Restrooms by nature are biological breeding grounds not fit for humans.  I learned this by having two sons.  They can throw a baseball fifty feet into a catcher’s mitt but can’t hit the toilet from two feet away.  Did you know that when a toilet is flushed, anything that was swimming around in there can be thrown twenty feet in the air. You better bring your catcher’s mitt, and a toothbrush.  So if you’re really planning on using the restrooms, bring plenty of Lysol (industrial strength) and a strong stomach.

Camping fun with Carl signing off.

Quoits anybody?

Carl here!  You have to have some sort of fun while camping, so why not bring along a set of horseshoes to play with.  I'm talking about manly steel horseshoes here, not those girly rubber horseshoes, in all their bright colors.  Although, I am partial to the nice yellow and blue ones.

But trying to toss a metal horseshoe 40 feet onto a stake isn't that easy. It’s hard to throw the horseshoes so they open up just at the right time.  If we played quoits instead of horseshoes, I wouldn’t have to worry about it.  A quoit is a metal disc with a hole in the center.  You toss the disc and try to land it on a hob.  It sounds easy enough, but it’s not quoit that simple.  I just couldn’t resist that one.  The hob is pretty small, only about 5 inches.  There’s nothing worse than a small hob, right.......…. not that I have that problem!

             I’m assuming back in the old medieval days, men had the same problem I had (no, not the small hob thing). I'm talking about medieval men trying to get the horseshoe to open up at the stake.  Oh, I’m sorry, that was very sexist of me, implying that only men played quoits back in medieval times.  OK, men and wenches had the same problem I had.  Instead of working on their throwing technique, they decided to bend the ends of the horseshoe together into a ring shape. Why didn’t I think of that......  maybe, because I’m not as strong as “The Mighty Atom,” and I can’t bend horseshoes into circles with my bare hands.  Oh well!  Quoits was the game of choice back then, but  today it's horseshoes.  So, if you want to have fun at your next camping outing, bring along a set of horseshoes......... with the horse unattached, of course.

Would you believe they still play Quoits to this day.  Check it out on the Internet, its quoit interesting.  Sorry!  And also check out the Mighty Atom, he’s quoit interesting also.  Sorry again!

Camping fun with Carl, signing out.