Friday, July 25, 2014

Roughing it... Gangnam-style, and other observations

My son Jacob and I went "camping" last night.  We set up the tent in the backyard, piled in a bunch of blankets and pillows, lit a fire, roasted some marshmallows, looked at the stars, then went to bed.  We weren't roughing it by any stretch of the imagination, of course... he brought a laptop for a "scary movie" and I brought my phone and my Kindle.  The battery crapped out in our camp light, so we "plugged in" a lamp from the house with the extension cord for the pool.  It was a good time... a few hiccups but nothing big enough to get in our way.

Now, sitting here having coffee as the sun burns off the morning fog and the fire is just getting stirred back to life, I'm compelled to write about just how freaking cold it got last night!!!!

It is July 25th!  We are in the middle of summer, literally... yet the temperature dropped to 47 degrees last night!  Even now... at 7:20am, it is only 50!  I'm no longer the "jackpine savage" that I was in my youth, but I have enough experience with camping to know that you should expect the dew to fall and collect on the tent walls if your fly isn't all the way to the ground.  I know that fog can make things damp and sticky... but that wasn't the problem, either.  It was the cold.

I'm sorry, people... I don't recall 50 degree is July, even from my youth on the shores of Lake Superior!  It is beautifully clear and bright, now that the fog is burned off... and with breakfast under our belts (bacon, muffins, eggs, and pancakes) it is still only 55!

Perhaps the Holocene really is ending?  Are the ice sheets going to march across continents?

I'd have sworn to it last night!

No comments: