Guys, It's a Family Campround!
Andy. After two hours of driving, we [remarkably] stepped out of my truck onto New Hampshire soil. After quickly stretching our cramped muscles, and coming to the realization that we actually made it to New Hampshire without any significant setbacks or deaths, we proceeded to the camp store to 'reserve' a campsite for the next three nights. Standing behind the counter of the store, adorned in his finest New Hampshire Parks and Recreation gear, and wearing a forest green name tag with white letters, was Andy. Now you're probably wondering what is so special about some random New Hampshire parks and rec. dude, right? Andy is no ordinary parks and rec worker--he's Andy. Our first interaction with Andy occurred when he gave us the "oh no. A group of crazy, drunk teens" look. Continuing looking at us in that way, he asked us what we wanted. Infuriated at his foolish stereotyping, we replied that we wanted a campsite. With that, Andy sent us on our way to select a site.
After a little browsing, we selected campsite four. While the paper work was being filled out, and the camping permit issued, Andy instructed us on proper behavior at his beloved family campground. We're only eighteen years old, so we were obviously there to drink and play loud, obnoxious music, right? Throughout the course of his lecture, Andy repeatedly informed us "It's a family campground." That it is, Andy! Obscene language is not allowed at family campgrounds, nor is loud music; Andy does not approve of large fires, nor does he approve of cutting down live trees. (not that I do that anyway.) When we told Andy that we wanted a campsite for three nights, he attempted to convince us to pay by the night in case we were kicked out. (non refundable.) In short, Andy was a complete jerk. And so began the 'Andy Jokes'. Remember: This is a FAMILY BLOG!
Nothing exciting for the remainder of that day. We set up camp, burned dutch oven pizza, scared small children (scaring small children is not allowed at family campgrounds. Andy would NOT approve.) Burning the pizza caused large amounts of cursing. Andy would not approve of cursing. Sometime before, after, or during the scaring of small children, we fell asleep. Sleep was good. Andy approves of sleep. Before the sleep and the small children, we went to town and hit the shops. The only place we hit was Walmart, but Jaffery is a small town... Andy would not approve of hitting things. After sleeping, we woke up. (I bet you couldn't have guessed.) Oatmeal for breakfast. (remember that! It will come in handy later.) We boiled water on my stove, and used it for oatmeal and coffee. After breakfast, we prepared turkey sandwiches and planned our route up Mount Monadnock. I took my full pack with me as if I were backpacking. In it was my gear, excluding my tent (5 lbs), for a total of 35 pounds. We took white dot->cascade link->spellman->Pumpelly on the way up. Spellman trail is designated as a footpath, which means it isn't as well maintained as, and is more challenging than main trails. Looking at the map, Spellman seems to have the closest contour lines. It was incredibly steep, and quite grueling with a full pack on.
The climb was well worth it. Upon reaching the summit, we claimed a 'nook' to spend our lunch break in. We ate our turkey, boiled coffee and napped. As the only napping people on the summit, and the only crew with someone insane enough to bring a sleeping bag and pad, we claimed lordship over the summit. Those who dared to oppose us no longer walk this earth.* Those who dared disturb our slumber lived to regret doing so, but not much longer.*
"Nothing gold can stay"1: as all good things do, our nap, and consequently our lordship over the summit came to a end. After about forty-five minutes of napping, the children (busload thereof) who started at about the same time as us (and took a much shorter/easier route) showed up and disturbed our nap. We ate some of them for dessert* then raced the survivors down the mountain. (this is a lie because there were no survivors.) We won, as usual. Going down a mountain is always a slightly painful process, so we went really really fast, as to make the pain worse. (It's not painful, but if you've ever done it, you understand where I'm coming from.) What would Andy say? "Guys, this is a family mountain. No running. And remember, ninety-five percent of mountain accidents happen during descent." Of course, I'm one to ask himself "what would Aragorn do?" Therein lies the answer!
By this time, our cooler was running low on ice. And so came another Andy episode. It went something like this: We asked Andy (store guy.) if he had any ice. Andy informed us that he does not sell ice, but would like to sometime in the future. The conversation should have ended right there, but it didn't: it took a turn for the worse when Andy asked us why we needed ice. We smartly replied that we needed it to put in our cooler. That wasn't enough for Andy. Andy had to know what was in the cooler. Cheese. We had cheese in the cooler. [Family] cheese and bodies*. Nothing wrong with that, right? We couldn't just leave those bodies out to rot, could we? It's a family campground; they don't allow rotting, stinky bodies. Having been thoroughly pissed off and disappointed by Andy, we went to Walmart and bought our ice. Candy bars at the Walmart in Jaffery are only $.48, or $.88 for king size. We totally stocked up. Hamburgers for dinner. Eight hamburgers for three people. 3x != 8 for any integral x. This led to a problem. Being a fat person myself, I was took the "Rich and I are fat. We need the extra food." stance. Joe, however, did not agree. He wanted the hamburger all for himself. In the end, Dick decided he didn't want the extra food. I would have eaten both of the hamburgers myself just to keep them away from Joe. Oh well. Fire, scare litle children, sleep, eat babies (Andy would not approve), sleep some more.
Wake up. Oatmeal for breakfast. Same as the day before. Originally, we didn't have any plans for Thursday. We decided to hike Monadnock again. Make sandwiches, fill water bottle, and pack. We went to see Andy to buy granola bars and consult him about routes. Of course, we also went there just to see Andy, as we rather enjoyed the confrontations, though we ended up hating him even more each time. Something remarkable happened when we asked Andy about the routes up the west side of the mountain: he dropped the "boozed up teens" stereotype and decided we were cool. We were shocked, to put it lightly. In a way, Andy's epiphany was depressing: it put an end to all of the Andy jokes, which had previously been our only form of entertainment. We tried hard to keep the jokes going, but with this new light shed on Andy, we couldn't bear to make fun of him.
We took the stupid route up the mountain: Parker->Lost Farm->Cliff Walk->Thoreau->Do Drop->Cliff Walk->Smith Connecting->White Cross. At the start of Thoreau trail, we took a rest at a landmark called "Thoreau's Seat". (Henry David Thoreau was a 19th century American poet.) Great view. ttly, d00d. We lost 200 feet of elevation on Thoreau trail, but we did it for the lulz. Actually, we did it for the English teachers. I'm sure Drouin would be proud that I hiked down a trail named after a dead, white male while on my way up the mountain. I normally prefer not to lose elevation during ascent. When we reached the white cross trail, we encountered some FREAKS, but we called them 'skirts' to be nice. They were some freak, all-girl, catholic religious group, and they hiked the mountain in skirts. They were also loud sixteen-year-old girls. Many of them also spoke spanish.
We napped and made coffee on the summit again. The skirts looked at me like I was crazy for whipping out a sleeping bag and brewing some joe on the top of a mountain. Plllleeease. At least I didn't hike in a skirt and sing hymns. Two of the skirts almost stepped on Joe and me. We were in our sleeping bags, which apparently made us inhuman. (I guess we were large, shiny, goose-feather-filled rocks.) Go figure. They left the summit half an hour before us and they were amazed when we passed them on the way down. N00bs. Total n00bs. We REALLY ran down the mountain this time. REALLY. We encountered some children on the way down, and threatened to crush their bones (this really did happen). We also talked about harvesting their buns for our hot dogs. (we neglected to buy buns.) We followed them the rest of the way down. They did that whole "I'm going to walk away quickly before you kill me." thing, but we passed them. They probably weren't comforted by the 11.5-inch combat knife sticking out of my pocket. When we passed the skirts, they were like "OMG! NOT FAIR!". They just didn't like being pwned. We visited Andy again and bought more candy, then made dinner. Hot Dogs. We went communist this time: the hot dogs were distributed evenly, although Rich and I deserved them more. I think I forgot to make a new paragraph somewhere. Bear with me. Dinner, snack, small children, fire, firewood, sleep.
Wake up. Eat oatmeal. (I hope you're seeing a pattern here.) Pack camp. Check out. Something remarkable happened again. When we were checking out, Andy told us that we were 'Totally cool' and 'welcome back anytime.' That uberkilled the already dead Andy jokes. We stopped at Walmart on the ride home. We realllllly stocked up on candy this time. I spent a whole $4. We became lost in Uxbridge and Douglas on the way home. Ooops. At least we made it through all of New Hampshire, and most of Massachusetts before getting lost. THE END.
I would be remiss if I did not include a few other tidbits of information in this post. Our campsite was across the way from a creepy old guy. He was creepy. He had a bike, a canoe, and a pop-up camper thingy. He was also a n00b and a baby-eater. On Thursday night, I started a war with a piece of hardwood. (actually the wood started it.) It was a very knotty piece of wood, and I was very determined to split it. A few moderately hard blows caused the maul to stick in the wood. I raised the maul, with the wood stuck in it, over my head. The wood swung down and pinched my right index finger. After dressing my battle wound, I gave that a log an uber-hard blow with the maul. Pwned. ttly pwned. We saw some weird guy who apparently hikes the mountain five times every day. It's a family mountain. Robert Frost pwns Henry David Thoreau. I threw my hatchet at a few trees. New hatchet... it throws better than the one MIA hatchet. Forgot the spare saw blade... dumb mistake. Andy does not approve of forest fires, but we burned down the whole state park anyway. It was a family campground, but now it's a burned campground.
* This probably isn't true, but it sounds good, right? 1 Nothing Gold Can Stay, Robert Frost.
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