Camping

I was feeling rather tired of everything last week. An old friend invited me for a chat and camping in the woods for the weekend. In addition to being tired, I had a dream of a student paying a visit to finalize their research, which made me a bit hesitant at first.

Decided to go. Eventually learned that the camping event would also involve spending a night in the woods. I don't have a tent for winter weather, nor did I have a sleeping bag suitable for such an occasion. Luckily there was still enough time to visit a hiking store to buy a sleeping bag for winter. Also had some time to stock up on lightweight food, get home, pack my bags. The friend called me just when I had finished packing. Booted, and by the time I got downstairs, I saw him pull over. Unrealistically perfect timing with everything.

Somehow I had managed to pack enough food for maybe a week, whereas we only stayed there for about 1.5 days. It made me happier that considering the lack of time for planning and the quick packing, I had managed to pack everything necessary.

Quite a bit of physical exercise which I had been missing for more than a year. Got to saw, haul wooden logs, drag branches and chop them. This livened me up considerably. At some point dragging branches over all the fallen trees in the dark became somewhat tiring. The branches became stuck again and I tried to wiggle them out, then stopped to catch my breath for a moment. Felt like someone helped (thought it was one of the other guys at the camp) and the branches suddenly became unstuck. Looked behind me but I couldn't see anyone who could've helped.

The evening was rather humid, and it froze over. Encountered a thought "you'll get pneumonia again if you don't wake up". Woke up and it was about 3:30 AM. Hauled some more wood, took a couple of quick naps at the bonfire, went back and slept until 9 AM. Felt really good, left the sleeping bag, took a hand saw, tackled some challenging logs and hauled these.

Joked about taking down a thick and tall tree which had dried out but was still standing. The other guys were not really amused. Took the tiny axe and started pecking at the tree. At least it looked like a tree from afar but in reality its base was so rotten that there was barely anything holding it upright. It was a wonder it was still standing after all the storms which had wreaked havoc all around it. A few axe hits later, the tree tipped in roughly the direction I had aimed it for. Apparently the base of the tree was rotten, whereas most of the tree was still solid. There was another half-rotten tree which we cut and used up for the bonfire. Both caught my attention and seemed to have nagged me as if they had been waiting for me there.

We left quite exhausted but I think it only hit me today how awesome it actually was. While a bit tired, I've been feeling amazing today.