bugging out

in the middle of my thanksgiving camping extravaganza i needed to come in at least once to check the mail, go to the library, and run a half dozen little errands, and what the heck- maybe have a hot shower and put on clean clothes, maybe do a little laundry.

so i had a little look at the extended weather forecast, because if you're going to come out, you may as well come out on a day the forecast doesn't look so good.

wednesday. forecast of rain, freezing rain, sleet and snow all day. good day to wake up in the early am, put on a lifejacket, and paddleskedaddle right out of there for a number of hours.

but then i was huddled by my fire tuesday afternoon with rain, sleet, and freezing rain coming down and i texted a friend to ask about my forecast. nothing about it was good. no break in the misery. and it's not so bad to just hunker down in a storm while camping. it can be lovely.

but hunkering down and then waking up early and having to manage the chores of getting up AND leaving camp without the benefit of having made a fire (because who wastes firewood and firestarter and time like that?) seemed like too much of a slog, and it was still early enough in the afternoon that i could get home before dark (really i only needed to leave camp before dark, but hey.) so i packed a big dry bag with the things that needed to go home, my overnight stuff, grabbed my paddle and jacket, and i bugged out.

at home i had my shower, ate hot food, and watched the storm from inside, knowing i could start from here to do my wednesday erranding and truly, i'd looked at the revised weather report and there seemed to be no reason to return to camp wednesday at all because the nasty wasn't going to lift until thursday morning.

ok, fine.

i'm not that comfortable leaving all my gear on a campsite for that long, but the only real access is by boat, and WHO WOULD BE OUT CRUISING in that weather?

so yeah, the only significant risk would be if the wind came up and my tiedowns failed. once again. weather forecast. i love that thing. wind supposed to be little or none until thursday afternoon.

so fine. warm and dry until thursday if i want. return around noon on thursday and check camp. if all well, continue camping. if camp damaged, pack up partly, go home. come out again on nice day to get rest of stuff.

good plan.

when i arrived thursday not a line was out of place. there was some moisture in the tent where the fly (old, old tent) had become waterlogged, but none of the water had leaked through to my sleeping gear.

friday was fine and dry and i put up lines and aired out all the bedding and took the fly off the tent and let everything dry.