Submitted by an anonymous camper

Spontaneous naturalism, a complete revision of the concepts of Darwin. Darwin states that one must spontaneously mutate in order to adapt to their surroundings, however, regardless of spontaneous mutations, natural instinct or shall I say, primal instincts will always offer a strong competition to mutation. Point in fact is man’s relentless urge to return to the wild. Every Friday more than 30% of the nation goes to the woods for the weekend. This gives them a chance to unwind from the tireless week of inner-city living. An urge that must be overcome by any means possible, this is the concept of the following story. Completely truthful, nothing has been exaggerated in any way shape or form.

It was the time when I was almost 21. I had always had an unrivaled knack for the ability to find and replace jobs with these. My good friend, however, lacked this skill. He had been friends for over two years by this time, and on the week in question, paychecks were being issued. Unfortunately for my friend, this was to be his last paycheck on the job. When he came to me and stated that he had been fired and he was going camping for a week, I only had to think about it for five seconds.

Knowing that it would be impossible for me to take a week’s vacation seeing as I had only started the job a month earlier, I took it upon myself to grab my last paycheck and quit. The two of us set out for what was to be one of the most adventurous weeks in our young adult lives.

We decided to take two separate vehicles as we always do, me and my 1978 Jeep Grand Cherokee, and of course my friend in his 1977 John Deer Green Ford F-350. The first stop, we were to make was to get the staples necessary to last us through the week. This consisted of a stop in at a local grocery store and picking up an entire flat of beans, hot dogs and beer.

It only took about an hour for us to get our usual camping spot, but it sure was fun seeing these two old pickup trucks racing down the interstate on a Friday afternoon during rush hour.

Before reaching our final destination, however, we had to stop off at one more spot. One of our good friends was the manager at a Burger King. For us, it is just not camping without the addition of chicken nuggets and a quad whopper.

After explaining to our friend following week’s exploits, he ensured us that he too would stop by to see how we were doing.

Now, up until this point, I had realized that I forgot to mention the fact that it was in the middle of the winter. The temperature outside was roughly 16°, and we had about 3 feet of snow on the ground. This made things interesting, but to seasoned campers like us, this would not be an issue.

Upon arriving at the campsite, the first thing we decided to was to get a fire started. Now the average camper remembers reading important things like saws, hatchets and axes. But we didn’t need any of this stuff.

We enjoyed the challenge of the team effort, as both a bar pickup trucks were attached to a tree by a logger’s chain. A couple of minutes later, and a gallon of gas gone for both of our trucks (some was used to start the camp fire), we had the tree down, and a nice the campfire going.

As I’ve stated before, and not the normal camper. Although I have changed a lot since my younger, crazier days, I still enjoy a bit of excitement in the great outdoors. My friend and I did not own any tents, of what we lacked in shelter, we made up for in cargo space.

It was about eight o’clock in the evening when our Burger King friend arrived. Luckily he had brought in additional case of beer as we have already finished off the first one. Although we already have two quad Whoppers each, a couple of cans of beans and if you hotdogs, you are more than willing to accept his offerings of chicken nuggets.

I guess you could say that other than the fact that our campfire was an entire tree sitting on top of the icy river, and that our shelters or pickup trucks, our first night of camping was pretty normal. But by the time the sun had risen normalcy had completely disappeared.

By morning, the mixture of beer, chicken nuggets, Whoppers, hotdogs and beans was interested in moving on. A word of advice for anyone who is new to camping, dig your own holes and do not use pre-existing holes that look like they would suffice. This is an important lesson, as the hole that I had chosen was filled with mud wasps. These little insects were not very happy with their rude awakening and had decided to get revenge.

Now, although my friend and I had forgotten all the normal essentials for camping, one thing that was not forgotten was a paintball gun. As I was running through the woods with my pants around my ankles, my friend was taking potshots at me with a paintball gun. Revenge would come around shortly.

Out of sheer boredom, and due to the fact that the river flowed so slowly, that it had already developed over a foot of ice on the surface, we decided to drag race our pickup trucks across the river. Now as you know, because a river does flow, just because the edges have a foot of ice that does not mean the center does. Luckily for me my truck is a lot faster than my friend’s. As I reached the other side of the river, I looked back to find my friend’s pickup truck with the back axel in the frozen river.

There is nothing like a little excitement for the early afternoon on our second day camping. Thanks to the fact that it was now Saturday, it only took a couple of phone calls to get the necessary assistance to pull my friend’s truck out of the river. I on the other hand, had to drive a ways around to the nearest bridge to get back to the other side.

A stuck truck is always a great way to start a party. Considering we already had 15 of our closest friends arrived to help pull the truck out of the river, and a camp fire (I mean tree) was still burning, it was time to do a beer run.

It’s amazing how quickly word spreads, turning a small party into a large shindig. By the time I return to the campsite, there is already an additional 50 plus people who arrived to help enjoy the winter festivities.

For some reason, although my friend was not good at finding nor keeping jobs, he was very good at getting a party started. I kid you not, when I tell you that by the end of the evening, we had over 250 guests. Of course this was a BYOB party, since both my friend and I had recently lost our jobs, we would not be able to afford to pay for all that beer.

And as a normal attraction for any of my friend’s parties, people tend to stay the entire weekend. So therefore, we not lonely one bit until about four o’clock in the afternoon on Sunday when they all had to go home to go to work the next morning.

I would love to tell you all the exciting events that happened in this today. But to be honest, I cannot remember much after my Saturday afternoon beer run.

Come Monday morning, he had begun to get overwhelmed by boredom. Luckily it was winter time, and the Cider Mills were in full operation. We decided to go get a nice warm cheap breakfast and all the apple cider we can drink (for those who live in Europe, our Cider is non-alcoholic).

I can honestly say that although we were camping, our daytime for the remainder of the week was spent elsewhere, other than at the campsite. But of course at the end of each night, we eventually ended up back at the campsite for another evening of freezing cold sleep.

The next week and however, was a major turn in events. After hearing from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend, we were invited to a Mud Bog. This Mud Bog was a big one as well. This was the annual winter Mud Bog in our area, so we decided to go and have some fun.

Now, my friends pickup truck, was painted John Deere Green. This truck was born to be ready for the mud. My truck, however, was painted maple leaf camouflage and although it was not born for the mud, I sure did make every attempt possible to ensure that it could handle what I wanted it to go through.

Of course the biggest issue is that anything that can go wrong will go wrong. By the end of the weekend, I had blown out one of my hubs as well as the entire rear axle of my pickup truck. I was lucky, however, as my friend blew out not only his rear axel, but his front axel as well.

We spent the entire Monday, to any possible repair we could to get our trucks back on the road so that we could get back to the city. This effort was made harder, of course, by the fact that the snow in the area, had been tilled up into a lovely slurry of icy mud.

Now if I think back hard enough, I am sure that I can come up with a total damage and destruction that we had caused during this when weeklong camping trip. This destruction includes one dead tree, a swarm of angry mud wasps, three broken axles, one shattered hub and a lot more.

Luckily we were able to recuperate some of the losses by collecting all the beer cans from both the campsite, as well as the Mud Bog. This total, if I remember correctly, came out to be about $500. Of course, like any responsible camper, we did clean up the entire campsite when we were finished and insured that many more people were able to enjoy the same scenery that we had along the river.

For most people, the weekend camping trips are a time to unwind and revert to their most primal instincts.  When the weekend is over, you must always mutate back into your normal city living self. This includes ensuring that your campfire is out and that your entire campsite is clean from any of the possible waste that you have left during your weekend.

Camping may be fun and full of adventure, but always remember that when the time is up, to become responsible for any damage or distraction that you may have caused to the natural environment that you have been utilizing.