After driving around the forest a bit, we finally decided on a place to camp. (Actually, Alan and Frondo drove around looking for a place to camp, I sat on the edge of the woods and drank beer and waited for them to get back.)
We decided on a spot that was near where we camped before, and was actually on the site where the rainbow gathering has met in the past. We found various evidences of hippie-kind such as:
The dream catcher. Ryan found this one and he actually brought it over a little warily, as if he had found some sort of voodish bad mojo.
Someone hung it up on a tarp line and I noticed later that night it aligned with the weenie tongs and roll of paper towel, which also happened to be my shit paper.
I had forgot to bring a roll of toilet paper and had to mooch someone else's roll of paper towels for that purpose. In fact the next night when it started to rain, I ran out of my tent not to save my gps of flashlight or my camera, instead I went for the roll of paper towels and got it to dry safety. Otherwise I might have to do it the hippie way, such as wiping my ass down with a corncob.
Other hippie evidence was the homemade rope-shoes. I suppose they would be comfortable if you do not mind spending a year or two popping blisters as you wait for your calluses to grow.
And, finally, the mysterious pit full of sour cream. OK, I do not know if hippies did this, but I still found this hole filled with containers of sour cream in the middle of the forest to be more than a little odd. So I am going to blame it on them anyways.
I was actually toying with the idea of going up there in feb when the hippies and bums are there. Bring big containers of some sort of food substance that I can buy in bulk for dirt cheap. Like oatmeal or gruel or something. Whenever some starving hippy comes around begging for food, I can give him a slopful of the food stuffs. I will keep the good food like the twinkies and the Doritos in my tent. And the hippies will love me because I'm slop man. And I can brag to people that I feed the homeless. It would be fun. Like going to the petting zoo and feeding the buzzard.
My personal highlight of the trip was my spool chair, a throne-ish chair I had cobbled together the night before out of old spools. It was ugly, sturdy, and oddly comfortable. Everyone got to try the spool chair.
Later Sunday night, just before the new years, we sacrificed it in the fire. I am sure a video of this will be turning up soon.
I had also brought a large spool to use as a table. I wanted to burn that too, but everyone was so happy with it simply being a table. S brightened it up with some wild flowers in a beer-vase.
We ended up abandoning it in the woods. I am sure some bums or rednecks will be thrilled to find it.
Frondo had set up a large tarp over a couple of trees. It ended up providing great shade and shelter from the little bit of rain we got.
It ended up looking better that the tarp I had put up over my cheap-ass last minute 26 dollar walmart tent. Welcome to camp Shit-Ed.
Oh well, I was warm and cozy in there that night. The weather temperature was perfect. I had an air mattress in my tent and it ended up being my snug little snoozing hole. I do not think I am going to use that cheap tent again, though.
Until next year, Ya'll
2026 Update
Nineteen years back, Ed was guarding a roll of paper towels from the rain like it was the Holy Grail.
Ah, 2007. A simpler age, when 'navigation' meant your friends drove around while you sat on a log and let beer do the thinking. Back then, a GPS and a camera were separate sacred devices, and a phone was for calling people, not for recording yourself wiping with paper towels. Now that entire trip would be one continuous livestream: 'Hippie Sour Cream Pit Mystery, Part 12.' Your $26 Walmart tent and tarp lean-to would be replaced by a $2,000 glamping setup with a propane heater and a Bluetooth speaker playing lo-fi forest beats. And instead of mooching paper towels, you'd have a subscription to a camping-toilet-paper delivery box. The sour cream pit would get its own crowdfunding campaign. As for the slop-man fantasy—Ed, that wasn't charity, that was a plan to weaponize oatmeal. At least you burned the spool chair, which is more respect than modern disposable furniture gets in a landfill.
“2007 Ed, when you sacrificed your glorious spool chair to the fire and let the table get abandoned in the woods, were you hoping the table would become some future camper's 'hippie evidence,' the way the dream catcher did for you?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2007 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, I hadn’t really thought of it that way, but now that you mention it, yeah, I guess I was hoping exactly that. The chair went out in a blaze of glory, right? It was ugly and sturdy and oddly comfortable, and burning it felt like sending off some kind of noble beast. But the table just sat there, all useful and flowered-up, and we left it like a dumb monument to our laziness. Maybe some future camper will find it and think, “Ah, here’s where the hippies held their sour cream council.” It’s not a dream catcher, but it’s got potential. Honestly, I’m more worried they’ll find my cheap Walmart tent and think I was the hippie. Egads. Anyway, if the table brings someone half the joy the dream catcher brought us, I’m all for it. Take that, forest.
