Jul 15 2017
Car Camping
I drove up the winding Kelly Stand Road slowly, on my way to a favorite camping spot in the Green Mountain National Forest. I was tired after a long day of book hunting, and not crazy about setting up my tent in the dark, but really wanted a taste of the wild. In a few days I’d be slipping into deep woods for a week. The wild was all I could think about.
The drive was a lonely one. Didn’t pass another car or see another person. But a smile broke across my face when the familiar campsite finally came into view. I backed my car into the site then set up my tent. Twenty minutes later, I was comfy in my sleeping bag, making a journal entry by headlamp, and glad I hadn’t given in to the urge to stay in a motel. Two hours earlier I had been contemplating that while passing through a rainstorm.
The leaves rustling overhead lulled me to sleep. At first the ground felt hard, but my body eventually melted into it. I slept well, awakening eight hours later to grey light filtering through the screen door and the sound of robins singing. My eyes drank in the surrounding forest as I crawled from the tent.
I cleaned up a bit, drank some juice then broke camp. Day two on the road. The next book sale was two hours away and I had three. That meant time enough for a leisurely drive out of the mountains and breakfast in some diner along the way. It was going to be a good day.
I picked up a handful of birch bark that I found laying on the ground and squirreled it away in a plastic bag. I’d need it during next week’s backpacking trip into the Adirondacks. Really looking forward to that. But first things first: I had a couple more boxes to fill with books.
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