Month: October 2016

 

I love backpacking and hiking gear.  I am a gear head.  Dale is a gear head.  Psst! I actually think he’s worse than me!  He loves to research the latest and greatest that technology and his pocketbook will allow.  Anything to make our experience a more comfortable one!  As a friend of mine always says,”Your trip is only as good as the gear you take”.

My gear enables me to enjoy the outdoors. I have a great backpack. It’s designed especially for women, saves my back and fits my hips like a glove. I have hiking poles with shock absorbers built into them to help save my knees. I have the latest and greatest in clothing to keep me cool, dry, warm and from getting sunburned. I have the best lightweight waterproof boots for my feet. My sleeping bag is down.  My tent is waterproof and has LED lights built into it.  All my gear is meant to make my trip the most enjoyable it can be, with the exception of one thing.

I’m a girl. And you know what that means? It means I’m not built like a boy. I can’t draw my name in the snow.  It means when nature calls, I have to shed my gear, unzip my pants and squat in the woods. It means I have to be careful what spot I choose to be one with nature.  Stinging Nettle or Poison Ivy can ruin a squat in the woods quicker than anything else. So can a hornet…

So with that thought in mind, the hunt was on for a device that would shorten my bathroom break, would keep me from having to shed gear to pull down my pants and would also eliminate the need to keep a sharp eye out for foliage or insects which might invade my privacy.  A female urination device (FUD) to be exact ~ I’m uncomfortable with the word, “urination”.  It sounds so vulgar.  Just like the words, “pee”, “crap”, and “shit in the woods”.  I can’t say them without scrunching my face like I just bit into a lemon.  Now ask me to say, “poop’, “potty” and “tinkle”, and you’ve got my attention and I’m giggling like a junior high schooler. I compare those words like I would compare the stench of dead animals to rainbows.  Guess how the word placement fits on that spectrum…

I scanned the internet.  I cautiously shopped the isles of REI and Cabela’s, while keeping a watchful eye out for any salesperson who might ask me if I needed help.  Is this what a guy feels like when he’s buying condoms for the very first time?  Sweaty palms, heart pounding in your ears, dry mouth and expelling gibberish when asked if there’s anything you need?  Yikes!! All I want to do is to be able to go potty in the woods without all the production.

Finally, I found something that looked cute, discreet and user friendly!
I even liked the name, “Go Girl”.  Like, “you go girl ~ that’s right!”  “That’s the way to do it ~ I’ll never let you down.”  “I’ll be there for you
whenever you feel the urge ~ my new best friend in the woods!!”  The reviews for the product sang praises for ease of use.  Women from all over love this de
vice. This must be the one for me!

I read the packaging ~ wow!  I can use this anywhere!   This is glorious!  The instructions said I should practice with it a few times to get the routine down.  Psh… Practice?  I don’t need no stinkin’ practice, I just wanta play the game!   But, being the team player I am, I practiced.  Or attempted to.

I thought I’d try it out in my backyard.  You know, to mimic being in the wild outdoors.  I stood in the middle of the yard with my pants down around my knees ~ I looked around and thought, “This is a bad idea”.  What if a meter reader came through?  What if my neighbor’s son just happened to be home and looked out his second story window that overlooks my back yard?  What if my other neighbor came out and looked over the fence to say, “Hi” like he normally does? What if my husband came home in the middle of the day?

Then I had a fantastic idea! I’ll go upstairs into the shower and try it out! No muss, no fuss! I took my clothes off (like I would be totally naked in the woods, right?), got into the shower and tried to use the Go Girl ~ my best friend ~ the one thing that has my back (or front).  I positioned it like it said in the instruction ~ Okay.  Now I can’t go to the bathroom.  Not a single drop came out.  Really??  Okay.  Let’s run some water.  I turned the shower on, which only resulted in me getting wet.  I repositioned the Go Girl and…. still nothing.  Great.  Now what?  Drink lots of water! So I positioned my mouth under the shower head and proceeded to drink massive quantities of water, which only resulted in me getting full and totally drenched.

Why does this have to be so frickin’ hard?  All I want is to be able to go to the bathroom in the woods without pulling down my pants.  That’s not asking for much….  Well, apparently, it is.

While I was thinking about what to do next, the urge hit me.  Yes!!  Here it comes!! Position that Go Girl and let it do it’s stuff!  Wait, why is there no suction like there is supposed to be?  I bent over, trying to see what went wrong.  I fiddled with it a bit and just when I thought I had it right, the bodily fluid flowed.  Right.  Down.  My.  Leg.  Yeah, you have a vision right now…. What in the hell?

I envisioned myself in the woods when nature calls, using the device, only to return from my potty break with wet pants.  Seriously?  Am I that technologically challenged that I cannot use this device??  Is my body not built for these things?  It’s because I’m older and have squirted out two children and things are kind of saggy now, right?  That’s it!! My body is old and run down, I can’t help it and the Go Girl can’t help me.

The Go Girl ended up in the trash and I still squat in the woods.  And I’m good with that.

 

 

 

 

Dale and I own a cabin in the woods.  It takes us exactly one hour to drive from our home to the cabin’s front door. It sits on a few acres on a remote site nestled in the blue spruce and aspens adjacent to the White River National Forest.

Our cabin in the woods 

Dale’s family built it from a kit in 1971.  It’s a 2 room cabin ~ no bathroom.  It does have cold running water that is gravity flowed from a spring located up the hill from the cabin.  The cabin was originally built as a hunting cabin.  You know the kind ~ where good old boys sit around the table drinking beer and whiskey, telling stories of their latest encounters with elk, deer and bear.  The kind of cabin where girls aren’t allowed to stay with the exception of when they come to clean up the mess left by the men who occupied it previously during hunting season. Summers up at the cabin were spent fixing holes in the fence where the elk had crashed through the winter before, or cleaning up the mouse droppings those nasty little rodents had left while tap-dancing all over the counters.  It was work.  

The ComodeDid I mention there are no bathrooms at the cabin? There is a little outhouse located about 20 yards down the hill from the cabin.  It is insulated with dated pieces of gold, avocado green and blue carpet.  Its decor consists of cobwebs, spiders, bugs and mice.  It’s not an outhouse a girl would be comfortable in, but it serves the purpose.  Making a trip to the outhouse in the middle of the night is every girl’s nightmare ~ grabbing a flashlight, I usually opt to hide behind at tree instead of making the trek to the hut. I always thing about bears waiting for me to make a midnight run. Every time I open the door, cobwebs hit my face and I end up slapping myself silly.  When I sit down, I envision monsters living in the pit my bottom is hanging over.  

Over the years the cabin has seen many visitors come and go.  Everyone who visits is encouraged to sign the front door.  It has become a journal of entries describing hunting wins and losses, snowpack depths, bbqs with friends and family, snowshoe trips, snowmobiling trips, hiking trips and even a couple of girls weekend with my gal pals.  It has seen many loved ones come and go ~ there are entries on the door written by those who are not with us anymore.  There are also short stories describing how our sons introduced their future spouses to our home away from home.  There are now stories of our grandchildren’s visits.

Over the past few years, Dale and I have redecorated it from when his folks used to take care of it.  The cabin has been passed down to us and is in our care.  We have changed the look and have made it more family friendly.   It’s been cleaned of all the junk that had attracted mice in the past.  Because we’ve kept up on it, it is more user-friendly and a lot cleaner.

It’s now fun to go up to the cabin to get away from it all.  There is a wood stove to cook on.

There is a stone fireplace built into the front porch to burn a few steaks on.  Even though there is a small black and white tv up there (for watching Bronco games years ago), it’s not used ~ at least when I’m there.  There is no cell service.  No telephone line.  No radio reception.  It’s a glorious getaway where no one can find you.

Poker night with my peepsAnd because we remodeled the cabin to accommodate more visitors and activities, we added a new and improved bathroom system. Thank goodness for Cabela’s!  I can now sit in luxury on the front porch and admire the scenery in style!! 

The biggest plus about going to the cabin is the lack of cell service.  We love going to the cabin to get away from it all.  To unplug. To energize.  To decompress.  To recharge our batteries.  We want to have so much fun that we forget all about email, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.  No cell service means we get to totally escape modern conveniences for a weekend.  

A few weeks ago, my girlfriend visited me for for a few days.  She’s from Denver and we decided to spend the weekend at the cabin.  We arrived and much to my horror, found out that there is now 3 bars of 3G network at the cabin!!! What in the hell is going on?  The cabin is not longer a safe haven from all the technology that supposedly makes our lives easier.  No longer are we able to escape the world for a weekend to reap the benefits of what nature has to offer us.  Technology follows us in the form of a cell phone.  My friend was on the phone constantly ~ messaging with those on the front range, checking email, checking facebook, talking to friends.  I sat and enjoyed the fire I had built in the fireplace and sipped on a glass of wine while she basked in the glow of her cell phone.   

Why do we feel the need to be connected to the outside world?  I’m just as guilty as the next person.  I enjoy sharing my adventures and taking my friends along on a virtual vacation with me.  Why is it so hard to enjoy the moment, the beauty and the simplicity which we are lucky to experience for one weekend, without letting the complexity of our lives invade our little bubble?  

Because of the newly implemented cell service, I feel the cabin is no longer an  “off the grid” place to escape to.  Visitors now need to make a conscious effort to put down their phones and enjoy the benefits the cabin has to offer. And that’s too bad.  I’m thinking of making a new rule when visiting the cabin:

ALL PHONES MUST BE PLACED ON AIRPLANE MODE

I hate rules….