Trial By Fire, Trial By Ice

I gotta say that I was pretty freakin' happy with our campfire building skills this weekend. With twigs, driftwood, rotted logs and a little bit of paper, we got a fire going in little time. No fuel people! Okay, we weren't going steel and flint old school, but it was still impressive.

I have to admit that I was a little concerned with letting the fire burn down enough before going to sleep. After setting a Ford Aerostar and a nice chunk of a Napa field ablaze, I'm a little fire shy. When we got into the tent that night, I looked out the little mesh window at the faint glow of the embers with what I can only assume was my brow-furrowed worried face.

This is when something strange happened. I was gazing out said window when a bright blue light seemed to charge across the clearing in front of our tents and move into the woods. It was like a steady, blue, electric spark about four feet over the ground. I put it down to a tired mind and tired eyes trying to form anything out of all of that pitch black darkness.

But on thinking about it later, I've been in a lot of dark places and have never had my eyes trick me like that before. I've seen those blue flashes in your eyes, say after you've rubbed them too hard, but never anything that solid. I was certain that this little light was out there. And granted I was a little drunk and tired, but...

But nothing, I went to sleep. And on getting out of the tent I was even more impressed with our morning fire lighting abilities as it had rained and there was a lot of wet around. We eventually got a little fire factory going where we moved the glowing coals over to half the pit to cook breakfast over, consistently replenishing new coals. Henry Ford would have been proud.

After breakfast, I decided it was time for me to get into that snow melt called a river back behind the campsite. It was a given that it was going to happen from the moment we realized that we were near a river bed. With thoughts of Buddhist monks greeting the day in icy streams, with thoughts of greeting in a New Year's Day with five other crazy fucks in an ice cold Eel River, with thoughts of a campfire and half full bottle of Makers up above, we trudged down to the water.

The three guys waited out a short rain shower. Which totally makes sense as we were going to submerge ourselves in water... I'm not going to lie to you people, this river was cold. It set your feet to stinging with icicle needles within seconds. Nikki 2 K's and I got in up to our shoulders and quickly scampered out. I don't think that I've ever felt my boys climb quite so high up in me. As I got out, I was already feeling that I would regret it later if I didn't go all the way in, head submerged. Before I could give it much more thought, Jason up and dove in all the way; like a champion I might add. Well, there was no question anymore, and so we climbed back into that frigid water, with an internal war cry of "no regrets" pushing me on.

I'm sure that it seems dumb, but for some primal, unexplainable reason it had to be done, and so done it was. But it did make that impressively built fire all the sweeter.


Song Stuck In My Head Right Now: Blue Spark by X.