Mortaine’s Blog

John and I are camping this weekend at Cisco Grove. Kind of a last-minute decision, we decided Friday morning during breakfast to go after all.

I brought my spinning wheel, laptop, and some books with me, so I’ve been “wheeling” while he goes out with the Jeep club, wheeling.

At night, it gets really cold. I’m glad we brought my 20 degree bag, but I’ve still been chilled at night.

Yesterday, I went for a short dip in a very cold river, then rinsed off at the showers. The cold dip felt great on my back– it was like icing it, first thing in the morning. I sat around camp and spun for a while, made myself lunch, and was just deciding if I should take a nap or do something else, when two of the other wives who had stayed behind drove up and invited me into town with them. So we went into Truckee, which is basically high-priced tourist-trap shopping for clothes that I can neither afford nor fit into. I spent most of the time sitting outside with the dog one of the wives had brought along. I actually didn’t mind too much– I didn’t really want to spend a whole bunch of money on stuff I don’t need.

When we got back, it was about 4:00, and the club hadn’t returned yet. I bought a book while I was out– The Lovely Bones and made the mistake of starting to read it. It had me crying in the first 15 pages, and was a very sad, very haunting novel that starts out with the protagonist’s murder. It was a very beautiful, but very sad book. And I couldn’t put it down until I finished reading it, sometime well after dark, after dinner (ribs), even after the party in the campsite next door had started. At one point, I just started crying, and John got all worried that he’d done something to make me sad. I tried to explain how cathartic the book was– I’ve needed a really good cry for about 2 weeks now. But mostly, I just muttered “cathartic” and kept burbling.

Later, at the club campsite party, I brought over my spinning wheel and made yarn and chatted with folks about it. Eventually we dragged ourselves to bed, though the party was still going strong.

Today, I’m not sure what I’ll do. Probably read a book, spin some yarn, maybe do a little knitting. We’ll see. Not spend much time on the Internet, though. If I didn’t have to connect to send an important work-related email, I wouldn’t. It’s $3 for 15 minutes, here. Since the cost of the campsite is close to $30, I’m still trying to figure out what the benefit is over a Best Western. My back and I haven’t found one yet.