Camplore

Don’t wear anything off the shoulder or a tank shirt or undershirt UNLESS YOU WEAR SUNSCREEN. You’re inviting a nasty sunburn, and a few days underarm hair growth is not anything you want to share.

Don’t wear sandals. Duh. Poison ivy, critters, mud, it all invites catastrophe if you’re tootsies aren’t enclosed.

Don’t go sockless. Yuck anyway. In fact. don’t go without two pair of socks. When your feet look like ground beef on the trail and are covered with blisters you’ll understand why I say this. For best results, use a thin synthetic liner sock with thick wool socks on the outside. Cotton is not your friend for a long hike. Socks should come up past your ankles to protect from most plants and varmints.

Don’t forget a hat. It doesn’t even matter what it looks like as long as it protects your face from the sun. Ideally, it should protect your ears and the back of your neck as well, because the sun shines there too.

Don’t wear pants that drag the ground. You only wear them to a fray and run the risk of the person behind you stepping on them and embarassing everyone.

Don’t wear obscene tshirts. By the time I read one, I realize I’m much closer to you than I’d like to be.

Don’t wear military gear. If you want to wear military clothing, join the military.

Don’t be mistaken for a pirate. This encompasses the missing socks, a rag wrapped around your head, missing teeth and saying “Yar, Matey!”

A lesson in using the right stuff for the job came into full focus today for my teenage son.

He’d spent the latter part of the afternoon edging the yard, and was getting ready for a casual dinner out. Next time I saw him, he was cringing, grabbing his crotch and weaving around the yard saying, “It’s so cold, it’s freezing, man this hurts…”, etc. I laughed at him because I thought he was joking, then started to wonder because he was really frantic. I asked him what was wrong, and he managed to gasp that he had used his foot powder instead of cornstarch baby powder to “freshen up”.

Yikes. It was pretty amusing from afar, but I don’t think he thought so. It took a bit of a soak in the tub to get him settled down, and he said he still noticed the lingering effect a couple of hours later. Lesson the next: don’t use anything with menthol, eucalyptus oil or peppermint oil in an area you don’t want to have a really chilling effect.

Well, that’s something you wouldn’t want to try on the Philmont trek, now, isn’t it?

As a high school student, a couple of friends and I took a long drive down a desolate road late at night in a far corner of west Texas. It was time to find the Marfa lights, and we were not disappointed.
(more…)