Bagles And PBR: Breakfast For Four
Why Do They Call You The Asbestos Kid?
Proving Darwin Correct One Man At A Time
We made it to camp in the late afternoon. We all naturally deferred to Diamond Jim to lead the unpacking and camp setup. On top of him being our boss, his organizational skills were so profound that we were in a rather silent awe and were cowed into doing his bidding. We had it unloaded and landed properly within short time.
The wind was starting to pick up. It seemed to come up from nowhere. The clouds were getting dark and rain was imminent. We got the tents up. The Asbestos Kid and Diamond Jim each had their own tent. Dane-O was snuggling with me. I noticed for the first time that my tent wasn't really a "low profile" tent like the other two were putting up. And it wasn't round. As a matter of fact, it was very...squarish. Tall. With a foyer in the front.
While putting up the tarp over the camp we ripped out six grommets from the wind that was now turning into a gale force wind. The Asbestos Kid almost got smacked in the head with an errant oar and no one saw anything so nothing can be proven. After abandoning this obviously fruitless labor we just decided to dress to the weather and accept the fact it was going to be stormy, rainy and blustery. Dane-O was cooking some excellent sausage on the grill and I have to say the sand glaze that covered them added a deliscious crunch to the skin. The rain finally came and was the desert equivilent of a drizzle, meaning it rained lightly enough to never really get anything wet.
We sat around the glowing coals of the BBQ pit in the pitch black when we started noticing a light starting to come off of the hills around us. It was ethereal, casting long, moving shadows against the tall canyon walls. The sound of the train coming up the tracks started to come over the sound of the river next to us. With the rain casting it's colloidal dispersion into a glowing visage of the canyon around us, we sat in pure silence, watching and amazed. The train sped by us no more than 50 yards away. Throughout the night, trains rolled in from both directions. One woke Dane-O from a dead start in the middle of the night. He was freaking out in the tent. Nothing a little snuggling couldn't take care of. As Dane-O said later on the river, "And I only lost my virginity on this trip" in response to The Asbestos Kid losing his Oakleys in the river.
Early the next morning, Dane-O and I disentangled ourselves (I blame the slope of the tent but Dane-O has his own vocal opinion) and got up out of the tent. We were joined by the others pretty quickly after we set the chairs on the side of the river directly into the sun. The air was crisp, clear and no hint of wind. It was only warm in the light. Go towards the light, my children. Dane-O gave me the stink eye all morning for some "excessive spooning" with him all night. I thought it was very bonding.
We lazied around, drinking PBR and toasting bagles in a pan over the cooker. Fresh fruit, cream cheese and orange juice, swiss mocha and beer. P.B.R. Dane threw his beer back, crumpled it up and threw it on the ground at Morgan and my feet. It was like someone peed in the holy water. Morgan and I both stared at the beer can, like it was a fart on a first date, in complete and utter astonishment, horror and disbelief. What kind of a human being would litter my camp...with beer cans...that contained really crappy, cheap beer. Only a dung beetle who had lost all interest in his career and had really let himself go could be this low.
We both looked over at Dane-O to see him giving us his famous eat-shit you know I don't friggin' care look. I told him to pick it up. It was spoken, but it was throwing the glove down. Dane-O told us to fornicate ourselves and walked off. We honestly never knew what he did with it other than when The Asbestos Kid and I weren't looking. Of course, the bastard told us he filled it with water and sunk it in the river. It was like Oprah forcing a jury to sing Kumbaya to cover her mudd butt sessions in the rest room; rude.
