The Unhappy Camper.

Or how Mother-F'n Nature kicked my ass and sent me home in defeat.  

I arrived home last night at 9:17 p.m. and was never so happy to see my dirty, messy house that contains all the chores and projects that I don't want to do.  I took my bruised and bloodied self and the weed-infested (hope that's all) doggies into the house and was fast asleep in my favorite plaid PJs in my own bed by 10:15 p.m.  Ahhhh.

The Polyethylene Palace, B.W. D. (Before Wind Damage)

Things started out really well -- I was obnoxiously excited to spend a RELAXING spa-like holiday weekend camping in the polyethylene palace [see photo] in the wilderness (okay, a state park with water and electric at my camp site and clean restrooms and hot showers) with just the doggies, a full-size air mattress, an induction cooktop, organic, sulfite-free red, chilled champagne, and a projector with Rodney Ye, 4 seasons of the Tudors and all 5 Resident Evils.  Sounds good, yes?

And it was good for the first night.  I went a day early, because I didn't have lots of work to do, and why sit around my comfortable, air-conditioned, satellite-equipped home, when I could be out in the dirt, right?  So, off I went.  I arrived late afternoon and had very little trouble setting up the polyethylene palace even in  some wind.  I had a lovely evening and all was good.

Doggies trying to avoid EARLY am heat.

The trouble began the next morning.  Really EARLY the next morning.  Who knew the sun comes up at like 5:30 a.m.?  And the Connor dog's auto bark comes on at 5:29.9 a.m.  I had spent the previous night watching the Tudors until about midnight, thinking I'd lay around all morning.  Not so much.  And if the barking dog and the blinding white light shining through the white walls of the polyethylene palace were not annoying enough, right about the time my nose and toes started to warm up (it was cold enough that I was in fetal position by morning), the tent started to get really warm.  Huh.  How is a girl to crawl back into bed for an extended snooze when it is hitting 90ish about 7 am?  Not good.  I tried opening all the windows in the tent and the screen room, but it was no use -- the palace was a spacious Easy Bake oven.

Not to despair.  I passed a Wal-Mart in Cottonwood, a mere 2.7 miles from my camp site.  So I detached the Element from the Easy-Bake palace and took the doggies to a shady spot in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  I got everything I thought I would need to salvage the trip:  9x9 easy-up gazebo for shading the palace, cheap red box fan from China for tent, new ice chest with two bags of ice, tarp and picnic blankies for the doggies to avoid the burrs and foxtails, more batteries for the bug repeller, etc.

Armed with cheap Chinese-manufactured Box Store paraphernalia, I struggle mightily erecting the gazebo, and I think I have solved my problem -- the temperature in the tent goes down about 20 F right away.  Ah -- at last, I'm ready to relax.  Turns out I got an asymmetrical sunburn for nothing.  Because 1.5 hours into the joys of the gazebo shade, and just as I'm wondering if it will hold in the wind (which apparently kicks up in the afternoon -- every afternoon), the ENTIRE GAZEBO goes flying overhead, ripping up its cheap Chinese stakes, and lands like an enormous broken dead bug on the other side of the palace.  [Photo here -- I took this in case Wal-Mart gave me any crap about the return.]

The soft silver underbelly of the cheap box store gazebo.

Argh.  All that work and $50 for nothing.  And NOW I have to try to put it back into the little bag and return it to Wal-Mart.  Because it is clearly not fixable -- broken and bent limbs are so numerous there is no point in examining it.  My kindly RV neighbor (who helped me with the  rain fly when it was too windy for me to throw it over the top of the palace) came over and helped me to take apart the ridiculous giant white dead bug and then hauled it to the trash for me.  Argh.

So I'm back to hot, sweaty, and pissed.  And if I'm hot without fur, imagine the collie and the poodle.  Not good.  And, now I have to force-brush Connor, who is covered in foxtails and burrs, because he tried to get out of the car when I was setting up the gazebo, fell onto a concrete parking block on his head, and then landed in a pile of chopped weeds.  So after all the sheet with the flying Gazebo, I have to try to get a million stickers out of long, thick, collie fur.  This was NOT a good afternoon, and I was NOT happy.  But I must have reached a breaking point (like the POWs?), because I just gave up and decided to "enjoy" the misery.  So I took Kathy's advice and made Connor a Ziploc ice pillow.  (Look how cute he looks!)

Connor enjoys ice bag pillow.  Lola just happy to be alive.

And since Lola wanted to sit on my lap every time I sat down, I made another ice bag for my lap.  And just started drinking.  There is not much so bad that it can't be made less painful by buckets of champagne.  By the time it was less hot and windy, it was dark and I was shitfaced.  Shitfaced with a wet crotch, because the Ziploc I made for Lola and my lap leaked.  Of course.

The good news (explained later) is that I was so pissed after the gazebo blew over, that I started packing up everything on Friday afternoon, less than 24-hours into my camping gig.  But I was reluctant to just quit, particularly the day before I was supposed to meet friends in Jerome for shopping, dining, and relaxing.  So I stick it out.  And when I arise at 5:30 the next morning, I am prepared for the Easy Bake, and I make adjustments (no point in letting ANY sun into the tent) and take the doggies outside in the shade of the Element, and we have a tolerable morning.  I even start reading a book on my Kindle, which, unfortunately, keeps rebooting about every fifth page.  Why am I not surprised.

So all is good again and I take a nice shower and the doggies and I motor into Jerome, a pleasant 18-minute drive away.  And here is the best part of the trip -- not camping, but shopping and dining and drinking in Jerome.  We had an excellent lunch, shopped, drank at a local winery, and hit a vegan cafe in Sedona, which is only 40 minutes from Jerome.  All good.

But then I go back to my tent in the windiest frickin' Hell-hole of a desert imaginable.  (Did I mention I selected this site for its advertised "shade?"  Yes, it had a pine tree that I couldn't get close to, because they decided to park the one-ton picnic table there.)  My plan: if the tent is still standing, I'll stay another night (oh, I am supposed to stay two more nights).  I have to approach in a large circle to get to the Easy-Bake palace.  And I'm looking at it as I approach, and something is not right.   

The palace walls have been breached.  Destroyed, really, by the insane winds blowing across ONLY my camping site, because all the other tents around are doing just fine.  The screen room is busted up bad and is on the ground.  It is not salvageable -- cannot even be reassembled with the broken pole and connector.  (I'm sorry there's no photo.  It's hard to think about fighting off a crazy poodle to get to the camera phone when you're looking at disassembling and packing up a dirty, destroyed, Easy Bake Palace.)  And here's where it's good that I packed up most of the stuff out there the day before -- fewer things got buried under the screen-room rubble and covered in dirt.  NO problem, I'll just zip off the screen room and I can still use the tent.

But even at 6:00 p.m. the STINKING wind is still blowing, so that my home is more of a leaning tower than a palace, and I have to brace it up with my whole body to keep it from falling over completely.  The palace walls are just too high and were not going to make it.  And neither was I.  I could have stayed home and poked myself in the eye, well both eyes, with a really sharp stick and had more fun and relaxation.  That was it.  I'm not sure when I decided - whether it was when I discovered all the screen room parts were broken, or maybe when I tripped over the doorway in a gust of FRICKIN wind and landed hard on the rocks with both knees and one hand, or maybe it was when I had to put my back into the tent to keep it upright, but my decision to fold my tent and go home was not difficult at that point.

I spent an additional 1.5 expletive-filled hours (sorry family campers) packing up the palace and accessories (VERY tempting to just drive away and leave the wreckage), feeding and walking the Doggies Who Are Not Good at Camping, and then I was GONE.  And there you have it.  Lesson learned.  

What lesson?  Well, I guess (1) bigger is NOT always better (2) Jerome is a pleasant day trip from Phoenix, where my house doesn't usually blow away when I go out, and (3) maybe I'm not a natural born camper.

What was I thinking?

P.S.  At least I got to watch the Top Gear marathon in bed in my PJs when I came home.  And am considering a new teepee-shaped tent to avoid future wind/sun problems.

Tune in next week for teepee adventures.

It must be the gear.  (Hey!  Have just had brilliant idea for an American version of Top Gear, only instead of cars, we test camping gear!  That could be excellent!  Just think of the many possibilities for testing, say, bear repellant!  I'm in.  And, remember, I thought of it first -- I call copyright!)

Vegan + meat = 108.4

For two days now, I've been parked firmly at 108.4.  Not a fluke.  The veggies and no-dairy, no-eggy diet (I like to call it vegan with meat) with limited wheat is working.  And I've done yoga three times in the last 5 days.  So we're making progress here!  It's just a shame that the price was not being able to eat every-frickin-thing-that-I-love (mac 'n cheese).  I'd really love to have a doughnut every once in a while.  And I might kill someone for a Micky D's cheeseburger and fries.  But I can have a regular hamburger and fries if I want, and in 3 months, I can even have a cheeseburger maybe once a week.  (Having watched Food Inc., however, I might have to make my own burgers in future.)

Oh, and I tried quinoa (pronounced keen-wah for all the Safeway employees who had no idea what I was talking about last weekend).  And it is good!  I like it even better than rice and will be making it lots in future.  Made some with my own apricots (yeah -- the trees are finally paying off!) and almonds.  I've got to develop some favorite recipes, but so far, so good.

Surprises so far:

Tofu is tasty.  Yes, I said it.  I was always terrified of this strange and crazy health food called tofu and figured it would be awful.  Growing up in Kansas, if it wasn't beef with my beloved taters, I didn't know it and I didn't want to know it.  (Don't get me started on seafood, most of which I still won't touch.  And you can forget sushi -- why would I want to eat it raw, if I won't eat it cooked?)  But I've been making a Greek salad with firm tofu that is delicious.  You just marinate the tofu in some oil, vinegar and spices and, voila, tasty chunks of tofu that might as well be feta cheese or egg or whatever.  I think I'll try a tofu omelet in the near future.  I'm missing my eggs.

Earth Balance faux butter.  Works and tastes just like butter, but without the dairy/saturated animal fat.  I just didn't know.  This has been VERY educational.

Toffutti cream cheese.  Yep.  looks and tastes like regular cream cheese.  (Don't get the Tofutti sour cream unless you're cool with some transfat, but the cream cheese doesn't have any transfats.)  If I could eat wheat more, I'd have bagels with this cream cheese on them every day.

There are a few restaurants in town where I can eat out and have options.  Friend Steve recommended Pita Jungle the other day for dining pre-Chelsea Handler tour.  And it was excellent.  Hardly any cheese or dairy, beyond some yogurt in sauces, so it was healthy and I could actually eat a lot of it.  And I'm going to try a popular vegetarian, dairy-free restaurant in Sedona over Memorial Day weekend -- the Chocolate Tree Cafe.  It's supposed to be good -- will let you know how it goes.

Post Script having nothing to do with above:

Holy swimming-pool-features-I-didn't-know-I-had, Batman!  I just had the pool guys out to look at the Red Clay Sea next to the deep end of my pool.  Now this pool was here LONG before I moved in 21 years ago, and I thought I knew all there was to know about it -- it has expensive in-pool filters that need to be replaced about once every ten weeks,  a separate ugly sand filter, a diving board, and a light at the deep end.  That's it, right?  Wrong.  While planting a queen palm poolside last weekend, I encountered serious red slime that used to be desert clay next to the pool.  So I called my pool guys, who just left.  Turns out that the pipe that was leaking into my soil and using up all my pool water was once part of a solar water hearing system.  WTF?  I didn't know I ever had that.  But wait there's more.  On the other side of the pool, we have another tube that was, at one distant and unknown time in the past, used as a self-leveler.  NOW, how much would you pay?  But my very favorite part?  I HAVE A FOUNTAIN SPRAYER FEATURE!  Holy cool sprayer feature!  And it's a quick, easy fix (because the valve that hasn't been used for 21 years is frozen -- shocker)!!!  I'ma be sprayin' up a decorative and refreshing storm at my pool this summer.  I frickin' can't believe it -- I have a fountain built into my pool and didn't even know it.  I could've been spraying for the last 21 years.

Well, the 12th of Never may have arrived.

Dare I say it?  Dare I fly the proud MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner and don my fake military flight suit?  At the risk of being mocked for all eternity (and I'd say it's a safe bet that that's happening anyway), I'ma suggest that maybe I have lost my 10 pounds of mid-life squidge for good.  Or at least for now.  How about that?  I've lost it for now.  

109.2  The not-so-new-now digital scale says that I'm 109.2.  And that's AFTER I got dressed and had a spaghetti with marinara and spinach breakfast.  So it's not just a morning lightness of being.  That's a long way from the 120-122 where I started in October 2009.  I look and feel lots thinner.  My only issue now is that I've got more flab on the bones than muscle.  So the quest for motivation to actually work out continues.  And now that I'm feeling more like my old pre-eczema self, I might get back to working out again soon.  

It's funny, when I started this gig 1.5 years ago, I was firmly in the You Can Eat Anything You Want As Long as You Don't Eat Too Much of It camp.  I really didn't think it mattered WHAT you ate, so long as you burned more calories than you took in.  And there is still some truth to that basic caloric model.  But it turns out that I definitely CANNOT eat whatever I want, because my allergies to dairy, egg and wheat were making me sick, swollen, and fat.  And the more I read about food, especially sugar, dairy and meat, and our food industry and what is actually in even "healthy" food in the average grocery store, the more amazed and dismayed I have become.  I can't believe more people aren't sick -- oh wait a minute, they are!!!  Obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, asthma, rhinitis, eczema, arthritis, (bunions!)....  Anyway, I don't have time to lecture here, but suffice it to say that this little detour into my health issues has been quite the eye opener, and I will forever be a convert to vegetables -- organic vegetables (now that I know how many of our non-organic veggies are filled with pesticides).  I had Brussels sprouts and home-made salsa yesterday.  And they were both good.  Who knew?  Frickin' fruit and vegetables really are the answer to everything.  Dammit.