Overpacking
Mom, Dad, and The Daugher are driving up to the cabin this overwarming winter today to spend an overnight, enjoy a walk in the perhaps muck-ity woods, a few good woodstove meals, and just Being There.
I notice when packing my stuff -- although I have advised what the gals should bring and not bring -- I keep stuffing my own rucksack with an extra this or that I imagine one or the other may leave behind, believing as they do that "warming" at that latitude means warm...instead of higher elevation, more openness to the north and other winds that blow across the perhaps (no doubt about it after the rains up there last night!) hemlock barrens and hardwoods.
Meanwhile, as we await the arrival of The Mom from a halfday at her work, I "sense" my daughter sees the plain ole "stuff" I have waiting to be packed in the pickup and is growling internally that she "...just wanted this to be simple!"
I fear "this" is as simple as it gets: three sleeping bags, food enough for dinner tonight and a good breakfast tomorrow with an evening snack tonight as we sit around the woodstove talking and reading together, and of course a libation of one's choice with cheddar (and let me not forget the carrot cake I have secreted away to surprise them after dinner tonight) ... and a cigar [for Dan, the landowner, if he shows up for a cup of coffee tonight] and me IF I happen to choose to light'er up in the night or while out for a walk tomorrow.
The Daughter is right: I have packed too much: more than she is aware of; but when the wet seeps into her pores while walking in the wind tomorrow and her light gloves prove far far too light, The Dad has a pair for her (and another for her mother) crammed away in the rucksack.
Enough said...except to add, Yes, I really should just let them yet again relearn the lessons of the out-of-doors they have learned many times before but somehow manage to forget, which always brings our Out adventures to a sooner close than any of us like for want of easily secured comfort...if they'd only remembered.
Postscript: Actually, I see this may make them seem softer about these matters than they actually are: perhaps, after all, it is The Dad who prefers so much to be warm instead of chilled through that he overdoes it in the form of Overpacking.
I think that is it.
I notice when packing my stuff -- although I have advised what the gals should bring and not bring -- I keep stuffing my own rucksack with an extra this or that I imagine one or the other may leave behind, believing as they do that "warming" at that latitude means warm...instead of higher elevation, more openness to the north and other winds that blow across the perhaps (no doubt about it after the rains up there last night!) hemlock barrens and hardwoods.
Meanwhile, as we await the arrival of The Mom from a halfday at her work, I "sense" my daughter sees the plain ole "stuff" I have waiting to be packed in the pickup and is growling internally that she "...just wanted this to be simple!"
I fear "this" is as simple as it gets: three sleeping bags, food enough for dinner tonight and a good breakfast tomorrow with an evening snack tonight as we sit around the woodstove talking and reading together, and of course a libation of one's choice with cheddar (and let me not forget the carrot cake I have secreted away to surprise them after dinner tonight) ... and a cigar [for Dan, the landowner, if he shows up for a cup of coffee tonight] and me IF I happen to choose to light'er up in the night or while out for a walk tomorrow.
The Daughter is right: I have packed too much: more than she is aware of; but when the wet seeps into her pores while walking in the wind tomorrow and her light gloves prove far far too light, The Dad has a pair for her (and another for her mother) crammed away in the rucksack.
Enough said...except to add, Yes, I really should just let them yet again relearn the lessons of the out-of-doors they have learned many times before but somehow manage to forget, which always brings our Out adventures to a sooner close than any of us like for want of easily secured comfort...if they'd only remembered.
Postscript: Actually, I see this may make them seem softer about these matters than they actually are: perhaps, after all, it is The Dad who prefers so much to be warm instead of chilled through that he overdoes it in the form of Overpacking.
I think that is it.
posted by Duct Tape at 11:39 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home