Camping in a Hurricane

What do you during a hurricane? You go camping of course! Foolsfitness enjoyed camping at a Pow-wow over labor day weekend. There was some cool stuff going on. I hadn’t camped for a little over a year and being 50 pounds lighter made a major difference. One simple thing I noticed was just zipping up the sleeping bag. With the exception of the zipper sticking a bit that bag actually fit. I also noticed setting up and breaking down now that I think about it I neither got winded, nor needed major breaks.

It was odd shopping for food. I was actually looking for dense caloric values this time as I wasn’t sure how much energy I’d be spending. The camp site is primitive (no power or water) and I’d be active moving about a lot… although I never danced in the circle.

The weather was an adventure. The first night it was near high 80’s, then the next night the hurricane Earl’s edge neared the area. It was just a bit of wind and a few hours of hard rain. Then the next night the weather system totally shifted and I could see my breath at night.

I tried to come reasonably prepared. There is a tarp over my tent secured to trees and staked in three locations with heavy stakes. I came early to set up before the rain. The tent itself had the small pin stakes and there was a ground tarp underneath, to help keep me dry.

The people next to me had a fire pit going late at night and one suddenly screamed “What is that coming out of the hole!” I’m not sure if the heat of the fire pit helped the little turtles hatch underground but my campsite was under siege by a raiding party of turtles determined to get to the pond below me.
It was strange to hear the little guys scuffing along the edges of the tent looking for a way around to get to the water. At one point the guy at the campsite next to me started collecting them in a bucket so they wouldn’t get stepped on and after showing them to other campers in the morning brought them safely to the water’s edge. He had over 20 of them!

I’ll write more specifically about the pow-wow part in the next post but this experience really got me thinking about how important preparation is in a task. Someone in another site had to borrow a camp hammer from me at one point and I even shared some wood. I prepared for the weather and what I’d need. It took thinking and work but it was important and paid off. Isn’t it like that in working to get fit?

Also I was very moved by those little turtles. They were singularly focused to get to the pond. Even in the bucket they were constantly moving and climbing over each other trying to reach their goal with every ounce of energy they had.

Perhaps that’s a lesson for us in this journey too. One is preparation and knowing the goal. I didn’t forget my camp hammer and had camp fire could be lit with a single match. I just bought a calorie counter book the other day and maybe a food scale is around the corner. The second is the perseverance of a turtle. Just keep on going. Being prepared and knowing your goal without the effort of single minded movement of trying to get to those goals won’t get you to the sweet water’s edge!

Next post some more specific pow-wow stuff from foolsfitness.- Alan