Camping at Black Bone Bend
Posted in Family, Nature, Travel, Van Ventures on Jul 2nd, 2008 1 Comment »
Just now getting the engine of routine humming to life again. We returned late Sunday night from the far-flung dimension of camping at *Black Bone Bend; stumbled around for two days in a fatigued, arthritic, disoriented daze; and only today found ourselves with the wherewithal to begin household reconstruction. Calls and emails have gone unanswered, the list of errands compounds, and the week slips away down the drain of urgency and prioritization.
Responsibility eclipses the sweet little luxuries that normally provide the much-needed catharsis to keep my shoulder to the grind; no time for study, training, drawing, writing, or research. But I can’t complain. A few days submersed in the silence and…well…nature of nature are an expensive, yet highly effective treatment for boiling blood-pressure. A natural sedative. It’s worth it.
—
The bane of last month’s camping trip was untimely digestive ailments. This time, the challenge was external and entirely beyond our control. Three days of showers and thunderstorms.
We knew the forecast well ahead of time. We took note of the time frames, and we decided to brave it anyway. An hour or two of rain just wasn’t enough to cancel the trip.
So, we all piled into the van and the truck–Miner, me, the girls, and the dog along with food and supplies for six people for three days. Little did we know that “thunderstorms” meant just that–a thundering STORM.
—
Day 1: Rained Out
The front muscled its way in from behind the trees, barreled in over the creek and right away took to pounding the tent, the mess shelter, the outhouse. Tarps and hanging clothes whipped this way and that on their cords. Everything not weighted down rolled away like litter tumbleweeds. And the cold wind blew through our skin right to our bones.
Pitiful. The rain dumped down by the bucketful, and we huddled together under the 10′-by-10′ shelter (no walls) shivering, chattering teeth, lips and fingernails withered and blue. When we couldn’t stand it anymore, Miner grabbed some sopping branches from the immediate area, and the girls and I tried to take our minds off the cold by breaking long sticks into small sticks for kindling.
An hour later, Miner had conjured a tiny fire in our dripping, makeshift kitchen. We pulled our chairs around as closely as we could and stuck our wrinkled feet all but right in the embers. Once warm, we were able to tolerate the next slow, heavy hour it took for the storm to pass.
In the aftermath, we complained for ten minutes about the felled outhouse, then laughed for the rest of the day as we made solid plans for how we might better deal with the expected storm the next day.
—
Day 2: Rained In
Wiser than the day before, we made sure all the supplies were well water-proofed and stored. Plenty of kindling and firewood, though we wouldn’t need it during the rain.
The family plan called for immediate “in-vacuation”–that is, everyone to the tent the second the first raindrop falls from the sky. That’s exactly what we did. Zipped ourselves up in our 10-person tent, cuddled up on our air mattresses, snacks and drinks handy for munching (because we remembered to bring the food bag with us).
I don’t know how long we “hunkered down,” but it didn’t seem like all that long. The girls entertained themselves with their camping journals, and Miner and I either chatted or slept, or maybe both intermittently.
We passed the rest of the day searching for petrified wood, which we found in great abundance, and samples were more than twice as large as the ones we found at “Arrowhead Shoals” many months ago.
Explored a good quarter-mile downstream and found a beautiful white-sand “swimming hole” (in the classic sense of the word); spent at least an hour thrashing around there, and sizzling our backsides under the Louisiana sun (burns, blisters…won’t ever neglect ourselves like that again).
Then, ended the night with a steaming cup of campfire coffee, making jokes about fictitious constellations, and speculating about the ulterior motives of fireflies. Never slept better.
—
Day 3: Day of “Departure”
“Just a little bit longer….”
That was me, begging for a little more time to dig around in the creek bed for the next larger shard of petrified wood. Miner graciously relented, and “a little bit longer” turned into two hours past the established departure time. Oh, the family paid dearly for it.
The third storm put the first to shame–like the third Billy Goat Gruff, only with the troll’s temper.
The minute the clouds began swirling, we rushed the kids up to the van so at least they would stay warm and dry.
At first, the drizzling wasn’t so bad. We were able to get most of the supplies packed and loaded into the vehicles. Really, the only things left to take care of were the tent and the outhouse. If we worked fast enough, we reasoned, we could get it all folded and bagged by the time the bottom dropped out.
Not so.
Drizzles and drips…ha. God turned on the faucet. It was a “gully-washer.” Ever tried breaking down a tent in the rain? folding it up? stuffing it in the bag? It can’t be done. If the wind is catching at the corners, if water and sand simply collect and slosh around in the creases and crevasses, if the rain in your eyes and up your nose prevents you from seeing what you’re doing. No such thing as “folding” anything in the rain.
We ended up wadding the whole thing up (tarp included) into a big, sloshy ball; dragging it up to the truck; and tossing it into the back. Same with the outhouse. It was all we could do. “We’ll clean it off and dry it out at home.”
So, with all our belongings ready to go, kids anxious to get on the road home, and all starving for a hot meal (and a fresh cup of coffee for me), we cranked up the engines, put them in gear, and…
…didn’t move. The wheels spun a little. Then a little more. Then a lot. The next thing we knew, the van was a foot deep in what we call “gumbo” down here.
That’s right. STUCK.
Miner and I fought with the tires for over an hour. We tried quite a few creative ideas: shoveling, laying down rotted wood and leaves over the mud to (theoretically) give the tires some kind of traction, paving the rut with landscaping bricks we happened to have in the trunk from the last trip to Lowe’s.
None of that worked. We gave up at 5:30 PM, reasoning we really couldn’t do much with the few hours of daylight left. Besides, the kids were miserable, and family headquarters were less than half an hour away.
The executive decision was to drive to Mother Refiner’s for the night to regroup. At least then the kids could get a hot bath, a hot meal, and a good night’s sleep. Then, Miner and I would hit it again the next morning, bright and early, with a renewed sense of creativity and optimism.
—
Day 4: Triumph
From Lowe’s:
- three heavy duty towing chains (2,000+ ton workload)
- two D-links
- two shackles
- one come-along
The girls stayed back at Mother Refiner’s while Miner and I set out back into the woods. We took our time getting going, stopped for a hot breakfast and two giant cups of coffee. We had all day and knew the job wouldn’t be quick and easy.
The strategy was to tow the van out with the truck, which might’ve been possible, except the entrance road was a series of sharp S-curves, mounds, and several obstacle saplings. A straight tow just wasn’t feasible.
What we ended up doing was tying off to at least a dozen trees and ratcheting that thing out, one angle at a time, inch by painful inch. Every now and then, the vehicles were positioned just right that the truck could tow the van for a few feet. But inevitably, the clearance was too tight again. Repeat: tie off, ratchet, ratchet, ratchet, ratchet.
At one point, the truck got stuck, too. That’s some indication how thick the “gumbo” was. It sucked down all four wheels of Miner’s 4×4. His engine might’ve melted through the hood for how hot it got, revving and revving and doing absolutely no good.
So his truck saw some ratchet action, too. Even though progress was excruciating, I don’t think either one of us thought for one moment we wouldn’t get out of there. Plenty of trees to tie off to, and really, no danger of the chains breaking. No rain, no shortage of humor, frequent breaks, and quite a few fervent prayers from the kids back at Mother Refiner’s.
It felt like hours upon hours, but in reality, we rolled both vehicles out of the muck only two hours later. The van and truck were coated in mud from stem to stern. My slippers felt more like platform shoes for the several layers of clay stuck to the soles. No telling how many mosquito bites we have between the two of us.
—
Next Trip…
Miner, me, the kids, the dog, and both vehicles are in one piece and good working order. For all the rain and strain, we still had a blast, and we have another gallon or two of petrified wood to show for our efforts. It really was a fantastic trip, and we didn’t hesitate to start making plans for the next time we’ll trek out into the wilderness.
We thought an August trip to a state park might be a nice change of pace. We might stay in a cabin for just one night, spend a day fishing and a day hiking before heading home. Won’t happen, though. D.C. vacation is just two months away, and all our resources have got to go to that.
However, we do plan to visit the new Insectarium in New Orleans later in the month. Just as many bugs there as we encounter in the woods, except there’s no danger of being bit.
—
* Black Bone Bend - Our “spot” on Bull Creek, so named for the (disgusting) black bone I pulled from the water in my search for petrified wood. Miner assures us the bone wasn’t human. I don’t know what kind of bone it was, but I threw it away from me faster than I could get the horrified shriek out of my throat.
