Done for the Year
October 27, 2026
Art's family has a few acres in the woods about 100 miles north of the Twin Cities. It's just three tiny cabins, a fire pit, and a rustic bathroom. Once in a while, we go up for a little getaway.
We did that last weekend, just for one night. I admit it is a lot of work to set up a tent for a single night (the cabins were occupied), but I also admit that one night up there is enough for me.
I like camping, but I've noticed it usually goes like this: the first night sucks. Then every night after that is progressively better as I relearn how to sleep outside. That rang true this time, except for the fact that there were no subsequent nights.
Nope, it was just one night of misery. The low that night was 37, which should have been fine given our mountain of blankets. But our air mattress slowly deflated throughout the night. At one point, Art returned from the bathroom and nearly launched me out of the bed, cartoon-style, when he lay back down. The slope of the ground also put us in perpetual danger of sliding backwards out of bed.
Around 6 a.m., we'd finally had enough and decided to leave. In trying to get up from the now halfway deflated air mattress, we both slowly rolled off of it, desperately clinging to the "warmth" of our bed like drowners on the Titanic.
Other than the "sleeping" situation, it was a nice time. A couple of kids were there, so everyone tried to make it festive. We all won dubious prizes in a pumpkin-carving contest judged by someone's family member in Seattle. (Art hilariously won "Most Adorable Pumpkin." My prize was "Coolest Pumpkin" for some reason.)
The main event was a little movie night in the woods. We brought our projector and a bunch of Halloween movies. It was a triple feature: It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, Ernest Scared Stupid, and The Ring.
The only reason we played The Ring was because we forgot the remote to the DVD player. That was the only "scary" movie that we could get it to play after the six-year-old went to bed. I had never seen that movie and still haven't, because I also went to bed. Little did I know, bed held far more terror than any cursed videotape ever could.
In between my minutes of sleep, I could hear coyotes howling far in the distance. As dawn approached, an owl hooted in a nearby tree. Cool to hear that. At home, we have a surprising amount of wildlife come through our yard, but the main animal noises are birdsong and the chattering screams of pizza squirrels.
When we finally emerged from the tent, the moon was giant in the sky. We stopped for a cinnamon roll on the way home, and rolled on south as the sun rose. I'm all done camping this year.