Search and Rescue

I am so stoked up for this camping trip, you have no idea. I may have to refrain from any hiking or other types of adventure seeking. Knowing me, Ill probably fall off the mountain and die. Reasoning being:

Exhibit A: The California death hike. For further clarification please refer to the Cali blog entry entitled "The death walk."http://rachel-socaltripnov08.blogspot.com/

Exhibit B: My ankle is still not right from the time I rolled it tripping off the curb in front of the Austin Grille in Bethesda. For those of you who do not recall this incident, it occurred on the way to meet Pec when she was last in town. High heels are still a problem.

Exhibit C: My Earth Week biking mishap. For those who do not know about the biking please refer to "Dude, What Happened to Your Face." Anywho, I still cannot kneel on hard surfaces from that one. I' sure all you pervs get a kick out of this one but the knee remains tender. Read up.

Which brings me to Exhibit D: This is the main reason I will be refraining from the hiking activities camping weekend. My father was an Eagle Boy Scout so every summer we would go on an intense camping trip. The worst was the week long canoe trip in bear country Michigan. We still have those goddamn canoes in the backyard shed and I still have nightmares of bear attacks.

I must have been about 14 years old when my family went on our last camping trip to Rocky Gap State Park (same location we will be attending). I think we camped for 4 days...always one day too long. One morning, we packed up some bottled water and trail mix and set off on a hiking excursion. There was a total of 3 grown men and 6 children. We hiked up to the cabin where a hermit lived for an unreasonably long time with no contact with civilization. It was pretty tight, we all imagined what it would be like living on top of a moutain and off of the land. Time to head back. Only no one has any clue where we are. We are lost. We are lost for 5 hours. We are panicking. It is becoming dark and I think that my imagining the hermit lifestyle may quickly become a reality.

We were hoping our mothers would send out a search and rescue team. Finally, we find a break in the moutain. FYI-it was just as steep as the hike to the H-Wood sign. We slowly inch down it, pass a family of wild turkeys (I thought about having to butcher one of them for food) and eventually make it home. This was a terrifying terrible experience and to make it worse there was a lizard in the toilet. This all occurred at Rocky Gap.

So to answer your question of what I will be doing while everyone is on the hiking excursion...It will be me and my two BFF's hanging out at the site...Myself, a book, and good old Samuel Adams....maybe some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies! Hey I need a little adventure this weekend! Livin' on the edge.