Camping

[mnaz]

The dammed up Colorado is a winsome trench of minor hell cut through the high desert's intensity. It snakes around down there in mindless heat until it wells up behind some massive lump of concrete, where you can camp or rent boats and catch third degree burns. I used to cross the dam into Arizona, but now they stop everyone for a bomb sniff and a scowl. Stay in Nevada.

Dave came to visit me in the desert one time, down from the land of gray trees, and he wanted to camp by the water. He'd jammed his girlfriend's pickup to the roof with every conceivable camping and cooking implement, enough food for days, and half of Bob Marley's catalog, so we drove down to Lake Mead. Not the first campground-- too close to Vegas wickedness. No, we drove an extra forty miles to the next one for good measure.

Camping is an odd thing. Out on some nameless trail it's simple: a sleeping bag, lantern, cooler, and release. But it's harder to cut the cord at a numbered campsite. People transport most of their city abode. The campground was nearly empty-- only five, six crews in one small area-- but Dave insisted on camping right beside them. He spent five hours setting up his wilderness apartment while I reconnoitered a nearby wash. Beyond the gas grills and generators I found a suffocating, tightening silence, and each step became more leaden. It was a terrible peace so I climbed out. Atop the rim, faint auburn expanse kept punishing silence at bay.

Back at camp, Dave prepared a four-course supper in his newly-assembled chef's kitchen, and four young men across the road chilled to soothing strains of rage rock on steroids. It's similar to music, only many times more pissed off. Line after line of monster truck hip hop and vein-popping vendettas filled the tranquil desert dusk. I gazed past the din into arid light, the wistful light. The sun bled and died, and moon sneaked up again. Wistful light went silky. We communed with the raging earth and ate gourmet food. Ah, the numbered campsite experience. Spiritual, isn't it?

[saw]

great description of "rage rock"... and the contrast of mother nature's
rock's rage .....her stark craggy beauty lost in another element
of "roughing it".....enjoyed this trip with you...i've done a fair amount of camping and this brought back some great memories....and yes
just like fingerprints and snowflakes, everyone approaches the
campfire from a unique direction........enjoyed immensely....

[mnaz]

Hey thanks, Steve. I live in the great NW now, but the only camping I've done was in my long desert wanderings, and I'm just amazed at how much stuff people are convinced they need to bring with them to get away from it all. At Lake Mead, everyone had elaborate, painstaking setups except me. Same thing at the old mining camp I watched over for awhile--people in large mega-trucks bringing the city with them to go boonie camping. And of course the campground thing. That can get dicey... My best camping has been middle-of-nowhere style out on BLM desert land-- simple, "guerilla camping"-- mattress and bag in the back of the truck, a battery-powered lantern, some jerky and booze, maybe a cooler... yeah, those were the more peaceful, psychelic passages...

[mtmynd]

you painted the scene clearly... i found myself in the shadows, witness to all the happenings, including cringing at the neighbor's rage rock (similar to music... great comment!), breaking the silence of the area most go to to get away from the crushing noise in city life.

well done, mark!

[bennie2]

i really enjoyed reading this. it has a... um... bop-prosody? feel to it...

literal ongoing truth journey.

i was very impressed actually. i feel like i'd like to hear more. more description. the sky perhaps? the air? what did the air smell of? tell me about the smell of the tent in the arid air....

very well written piece of prose, mark. i enjoyed, and more importantly, trusted, reading you.

trust is a massively important, and greatly, i think, underestimated, tool for a writer. i will switch off if i don't trust my journey-man. i trusted you when i read this and you walked me through it.

suggestion:
i'd like more details though. give me the minutia, stretch this journey ...

[mnaz]

Thanks Cecilio. "Vein-popping vendettas" ain't bad either. It was the all-screaming,-all-the-time local Vegas metal-rap station... so we also got a lot of manic, fast-talking car commercials. We thought about moving, but Dave's elaborate camp station would be too tough to pack up and rebuild...

Bennie... thanks, glad the journey intrigued. I banged this one out pretty quickly, to get the idea down, the platform. I agree that more details would help, especially in my strange walk into the wash. I might add this one to my desert memoir (if my editor will let me), and of course the memoir has more of the descriptions you refer to already embedded, mostly of the spatial and psychological ilk, so this story might fit alright in context, but... point noted, for sure.

[SmileGRL]

mNaz... you must be a very calm man. i would have freaked out if someone was so rude to pierce the silence so brutally of what was supposed to be tranquility, and with music that obviously isn't everyone's taste. now, bob marley, on the other hand could have been just the right touch for a night of camping on a numbered sight with gourmet food.