Camp Drunkalot 2010

What do you do when you go camping? Are you hiking or…?” people always ask.
“Drink, eat, swim, drink, play games, eat, drink, stare at the fire, drink. That’s why we call it Camp Drunkalot.”
So here, in chronological order, is the festival of self indulgiance and abuse that was 9 days in the woods.

After counting the days for a couple of weeks, every little stop along the way seemed to take forever. Not to mention I had my cat in the truck, yowling the entire way, because I didn’t want to leave him alone and bored that long and deal with finding a pet sitter or board him somewhere. Dammit, how long can it take to find flipflops? What do you mean an outdoor store doesn’t carry Dr. Bronner’s Soap?!?

Down the nearly-abandoned logging road to our once-secret spot, unload, set up, shuttle the rest of the gang down the road, mix a drink and we can finally do what we came to do – next to nothing.



We weren’t the only ones in camp. There are the usual spiders, flies, chiggers, ticks, scorpions, hornets, an occasional mosquito and even a possum or racoon now and then. Lots of bug repellant and smoky fire keeps most of the critters at bay.
A few hours in the water and a few drinks in the belly it’s time to fix dinner.

We always joke that Camp Drunkalot is a sausagefest, but we mean it in every (loving) sense of the word. Tonight it was Italian sausage, cooked over the fire, with collards and potato salad.

Then back to slack, hanging around the fire telling tall tales or just staring into the flames. “I can feel the stress just oozing away,” said one degenerate. Yep.

In the morning it’s more pork, in bacon form, with eggs, peppers, onions, cheese, and refried beans, along with a bourbon and lemonade.

Sit back and stare at the sky until the sun and blood alcohol level get high enough for the water to be tolerable, it’s back down to the river for a morning bath and several hour soak.

Someone broght some ground beef that needed to be eaten but didn’t bring enough for everyone. The solution? Mix in some sausage, of course! How about some peppers and onions while we’re at it?

Then it’s back to the water with a thermos full of rum drinks, beers, innertubes, maybe even a game or two – perfect.
Hours later, dinner again. Degenerate WW had been one of the first people to send me a link about Bacon Explosion so it was natural that this year he’d make one for camp. Bacon-wrapped sausage slathered in barbecue sauce.

Honestly, the sauce covers up the delicious taste of pork so we brainstormed ideas for improvements, which you’ll see shortly.
Smores!

And another evening of watching The Fire Channel, one of my favorite programs.

Which is pretty much how every day went – happily.

Maybe if we’d learn to pack lunch we wouldn’t have to return to camp so often…

The last of the Bacon Explosion was warmed up with collards and toast for sandwiches, a fine way to serve the dish – sort of a meatloaf sandwich. Then the cicadas summon the moon and we’re back to nature’s surround sound TV, the camp fire.

Degenerate WW taking the plunge. I’ve jumped off this rock hundreds, perhaps thousands of times and it’s still thrilling (and usually chilling.)

Thanks to my brother, JN, for this improvement on Bacon Explosion – bacon-wrapped pork loin stuffed with collards and onions. Bake it in aluminum foil over the fire at first, then when it’s done unwrap the foil and use it like a pan so that the bacon gets a little crisp. Porktacular!

A few days into it and we’ve already gone through a massive bottle of Bulleit Bourbon, several bottles of rum (Goslings, Ron del Barrilito, Don Q Gold, Mount Gay) and a ton of beer. (Personally, I’ve given up on beer at camp. It’s too much to pack in, then too much trash to pack out. Liquor gives me more effect for the mass. But some degenerates aren’t content with merely delicious rum drinks.)

Such mass consumption, combined with rising too early, leads to frequent nap attacks.

In between jumping in the river, eating more pork, drinking, and reading books, we managed to create The Camp Drunkalot Board Game, which we then played at Camp Drunkalot. The mirror will eat itself.

It includes such squares as “Build a Fire” and “Old Man Dick.” The final challenge is to die on the rocks and be eaten by vultures. The alpha version was enjoyed by passers-by. The beta version is almost finished. It should be available for purchace in a week or three.
Some degenerates had to return to their lives outside camp (well, what passes for life back in civilization) leaving degenerate DN and I to entertain ourselves. We managed.


Back to camp for the evening. Note the several-day stubble and beginnings of sunburn.

Skip the eggs – just the sausage, peppers and onions this morning!

Another day of lounging in the water, drinking reading, maybe a hotdog in there somewhere, napping, back to the water, then it’s time for dinner. Not entirely by accident, about the only thing on the menu this year was pork and collards. Since we had run out of plates it’s sandwich time again – grilled pork loin and collards on toast.


Even George the Camping Cat had settled in by the fire, giving up his fruitless pursuit of moths.

Another morning, another delicious breakfast, another bourbon buzz. How about a little hike? There are plenty of sights to see.


Some foreshadowing.

Reinforcements arrive and, each a bad influence on the next, the afternoon degenerates into a Hunter S. Thompson littany of intoxicants. I tweeted the series as the day went on, just so I’d remember. It started at 10AM and went something like this: bourbon, then pork, then rum, then…

then pork, then rum, then swimming, then shrooms, then pork, then weed, then beer, then…

then rum, then…

then beer, then peanuts, then… well, I think then we finally called it a night. (No, we couldn’t find any ether and the only grapefruit we had was in juice form – but thanks for asking, degenerate AM!)
After such a day, the next afternoon called for (another) soak in the stream.

But the peace was not to last as more reinforcements arrive in the form of the Atlanta contingent, most of whom I neglected to get pictures of on their first day.

Did we swim? I can’t recall. The days blurred together, as did the nights.

This just about says it all.


Breakfast time again!

Day-trippers arrive and we all trek down to the temple and Baptize ourselves in the holy waters.




Then it’s time for the last batch of bacon-wrapped pork, this time with peppers and onions. No, I did not get tired of it. Besides, the Atlantans hadn’t tried it yet.





In the morning it was time to pack out, with one last dip in the pool to wash off the sweat from the countless loads to the truck. I could’ve used one more day with the Atlanta crew but life (again, such as it is outside of camp) was calling. George the former Camping Cat meowed at me a couple of hours after we’d been home, seeming to say, “So, we’re living indoors now? What the hell?!?”