Fiends

Thursday evening, after yard work, I went out to my dad's. Had some whisky and visited with him and Larry. Larry showed us his photos from our trip to Scotland. Other than that, I didn't do much this weekend, except for yard work. I mowed the lawn, and spent several hours pulling weeds in the wildflower garden.

But Saturday morning... I'd fallen asleep around 1 am. Then I woke up at three. Laid there until almost four. Went back to bed an hour later, but it was soon clear that I was not a bit tired so I got up fifteen minutes later, and went to the lake. I took my camera.

When I left the house, I could see east down the road that the sky over the lake was pink and orange, which was great. But soon I got a view of the sun to the northwest - it was red. Like, red red. I was really excited, but by the time I got to the park and walked to the lake it was merely orange. And it was high enough that it was no longer lighting up the low clouds, so there was no photo left for me. Not of the sun, anyway. But the rest of the sky and lake were still amazing.





I was back to my car before 6:00, when the park (and the gates) opened. I finally got tired, and went to bed at 8:20, and slept for over 2-1/2 hours.

Today was chilly and wet (never hit 70°), so I didn't go outside. I worked all day on CoPA stuff, sending out emails for our book project.

Our basement is full. We need to clean it out and eliminate a lot of crap we don't need. So yesterday Cindy said "let's go work in the basement." It might have been me who suggested attacking the shelves that hold our camping gear. I used to go camping all the time, being in Boy Scouts. And then I started going camping for fun, and accumulated more/better gear. I had a lot of gear for different activities, like my big frame pack for backpacking. And cast iron for cooking. And tent pegs, ropes and poles. Stoves, lanterns, fuel.

To make any headway on the stuff, the question needed to be asked. "Will we ever go camping again?" We haven't gone in a good fifteen years, despite my thinking about it every year. So the answer was no.

So that was depressing.

And then, of course, going through the stuff and convincing myself that we needed to get rid of it was also difficult.

But how do we get rid of it? We did nearly fill up the trash can in the garage. But there's a lot of good stuff. Selling it is not worth it, so I guess giving it to Goodwill or whatever is the best route. Listing it for free on Craigslist seems like too much work, but at least someone might take it away. I need to check if anything is worth money. I have some vintage Coleman gear, but I doubt if it's old enough, or in good shape. The cast iron might be worth money, unless everyone else is trying to unload theirs too. I guess I should start by asking friends on Fb if they want anything.

And I need to make time to sort through the remainder of the stuff, checking for anything useful.