Camping Trip Quotes

Holmes and Watson are on a camping trip. In the middle of the night Holmes wakes up and gives Dr. Watson a nudge. "Watson" he says, "look up in the sky and tell me what you see." "I see millions of stars, Holmes," says Watson. "And what do you conclude from that, Watson?" Watson thinks for a moment. "Well," he says, "astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Meterologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful day tomorrow. Theologically, I see that God is all-powerful, and we are small and insignficant. Uh, what does it tell you, Holmes?" "Watson, you idiot! Someone has stolen our tent!

I want your babies, and your anger, and your cold blue eyes … “ I choke on my words and I am the one to look away. I bring my gaze back to her face and realize that if I can’t convince her now, I’m never going to be able to. “I want to go on anniversary dinners with you, I want to wrap Christmas presents with you. I want to fight with you about stupid things and then hold you down in my bed and make it up to you. I want to have more cake batter fights and camping trips. I want your future, Olivia. Please come back to me.

I want your babies, and your anger, and your cold blue eyes … I want to go on anniversary dinners with you, I want to wrap Christmas presents with you. I want to fight with you about stupid things and then hold you down in my bed and make it up to you. I want to have more cake batter fights and camping trips. I want your future, Olivia

I knew she loved me, but I wanted to hear it. The more she rejected me, the more aggressively I fought to tear down her walls. I pushed too far sometimes … like the camping trip. I tried to prove to her that she wasn’t as autonomous as she thought. I wanted to show her that it was okay to be vulnerable and to want me.

The whole time I pretend I have mental telepathy. And with my mind only, I’ll say — or think? — to the target, 'Don’t do it. Don’t go to that job you hate. Do something you love today. Ride a roller coaster. Swim in the ocean naked. Go to the airport and get on the next flight to anywhere just for the fun of it. Maybe stop a spinning globe with your finger and then plan a trip to that very spot; even if it’s in the middle of the ocean you can go by boat. Eat some type of ethnic food you’ve never even heard of. Stop a stranger and ask her to explain her greatest fears and her secret hopes and aspirations in detail and then tell her you care because she is a human being. Sit down on the sidewalk and make pictures with colorful chalk. Close your eyes and try to see the world with your nose—allow smells to be your vision. Catch up on your sleep. Call an old friend you haven’t seen in years. Roll up your pant legs and walk into the sea. See a foreign film. Feed squirrels. Do anything! Something! Because you start a revolution one decision at a time, with each breath you take. Just don’t go back to thatmiserable place you go every day. Show me it’s possible to be an adult and also be happy. Please. This is a free country. You don’t have to keep doing this if you don’t want to. You can do anything you want. Be anyone you want. That’s what they tell us at school, but if you keep getting on that train and going to the place you hate I’m going to start thinking the people at school are liars like the Nazis who told the Jews they were just being relocated to work factories. Don’t do that to us. Tell us the truth. If adulthood is working some death-camp job you hate for the rest of your life, divorcing your secretly criminal husband, being disappointed in your son, being stressed and miserable, and dating a poser and pretending he’s a hero when he’s really a lousy person and anyone can tell that just by shaking his slimy hand — if it doesn’t get any better, I need to know right now. Just tell me. Spare me from some awful fucking fate. Please.

The sadness is under the thoughts. It's like when you're on a camping trip, and it's really cold, and you put on extra socks and an extra sweater, but you still can't get warm, because the coldness is in your bones.

Of course, not everybody likes camping trips. I do not myself enjoy them much, because I'm not outdoorsy, or at any rate, I'm not outdoorsy overnight-without-a-matress-wise. There's a limit to the outdoorsiness to which some academics can be expected to submit.

Just because you toast marshmallows with a kid on a camping trip doesn’t mean he’ll become a Boy Scout.

Things I want to do with Hannah: dance, watch a movie, camp, swim, hike, bike, take a trip, build something, have a food fight, write more, do Christmas-

Jeff’s office looks like a cross between the overnight camping trip of a preternaturally rambunctious Boy Scout troop and an X-rated pajama party for a sect of animals for which there is no genus. What it smells like is more easily recognizable – dried-out pizza, stale beer and sweat.

I have been corrupted as much as anyone else by the vast number of menial services which our society has grown to expect and depend on. We should do for ourselves or let the machines do for us, the glorious technology that is supposed to be the new light of the world. We are like a man who has bought a great amount of equipment for a camping trip, who has the canoe and the tent and the fishing lines and the axe and the guns, the mackinaw and the blankets, but who now, when all the preparations and the provisions are piled expertly together, is suddenly too timid to set out on the journey but remains where he was yesterday and the day before and the day before that, looking suspiciously through the white lace curtains at the clear sky he distrusts. Our great technology is a God-given chance for adventure and for progress which we are afraid to attempt. Our ideas and our ideals remain exactly what they were and where they were three centuries ago. No. I beg your pardon. It is no longer safe for a man to even declare them!

True enough, but with the number of young parishioners being molested by priests throughout the country, wouldn’t the church be wise not to send young male parishioners on camping trips with potential pedophiles?” Zack pressed. He could see himself trying this case.

I must pack my short lifer full of interesting events and creative activity. Philosophy and aesthetic contemplation are not enough. I intend to do everything possible to broaden my experiences and allow myself to reach the fullest development. Then, and before physical deterioration obtrudes, I shall go on some last wilderness trip to a place I have known and loved. I shall not return.

Emily: Oh, Mama, look at me one minute as though you really saw me. Mama, fourteen years have gone by. I'm dead. You're a grandmother, Mama! Wally's dead, too. His appendix burst on a camping trip to North Conway. We felt just terrible about it - don't you remember? But, just for a moment now we're all together. Mama, just for a moment we're happy. Let's really look at one another!...I can't. I can't go on.It goes so fast. We don't have time to look at one another. I didn't realize. So all that was going on and we never noticed. Take me back -- up the hill -- to my grave. But first: Wait! One more look. Good-bye , Good-bye world. Good-bye, Grover's Corners....Mama and Papa. Good-bye to clocks ticking....and Mama's sunflowers. And food and coffee. And new ironed dresses and hot baths....and sleeping and waking up. Oh, earth,you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it--every,every minute? Stage Manager: No. (pause) The saints and poets, maybe they do some. Emily: I'm ready to go back.

Sometimes, when we are far from clocks and schedules, we can still recapture a lost sense of place-based time. On a relaxing camping trip or a long day outdoors, perhaps, we can slip back into the rhythm of the sun.

Two weeks earlier than scheduled, she flew into Vancouver and signed on with Greenpeace. The work was neither taxing nor truly exciting but the people she met more than compensated and she forged many new friendships. The high points were the trips they made by sea kayak, exploring the wild inlets farther up the coast. They watched bears scoop salmon from the shallows and paddled among pods of orcas, so close you could have reached out and touched them. At night they camped at the water's edge, listening to the blow of whales in the bay and the distant howls of wolves in the forest above.

I want your babies, and your anger, and your cold blue eyes … “ I choke on my words and I am the one to look away. I bring my gaze back to her face and realize that if I can’t convince her now, I’m never going to be able to. “I want to go on anniversary dinners with you, I want to wrap Christmas presents with you. I want to fight with you about stupid things and then hold you down in my bed and make it up to you. I want to have more cake batter fights and camping trips. I want your future, Olivia.

SCENE: Apollo jogs along the beachfront, shooting arrows backwards from his golden bow. He's followed by campers dressed in combat gear, jogging in military formation. APOLLO: I don't know but I've been told! CAMPERS: We don't know but we've been told! APOLLO: The sun god's got a bow of gold! CAMPERS: The sun god's got a bow of gold! APOLLO: He's the best shot in the land! CAMPERS: He's the best shot in the land! APOLLO: Augh! [Apollo trips and lands on his backside] I've fallen in the sand! CAMPERS [jogging circles around him]: Augh! He's fallen in the sand! APOLLO: I meant to do that, so don't laugh! CAMPERS: He meant to do that, so don't laugh! APOLLO [tries to get up but falls back again]: Ow! I hurt my godly calf! CAMPERS: Ow! He hurt his godly calf! APOLLO [glowering and starting to glow]: If you want to live another day ... CAMPERS: If we want to live another day ... APOLLO [radiating brighter]: STOP REPEATING WHAT I SAY! CAMPERS: STOP - um... - Military cadence written, chanted and abruptly ended by Apollo Best. Scene. Ever. - P. J.

Life is an extended camping trip. With a leaky, inferior tent one runs no more risk of rain than anyone else; but if it does rain, the person in the cheap tent chances soaking in his sleeping bag, and possibly dying of hypothermia.

Marial and Uncle were no longer by his side, and they never would be again, but Salva knew that both of them would have wanted him to survive, to finish the trip and reach the Itang refugee camp safely. It was almost as if they had left their strength with him, to help him on his journey.

I'm just sorry. Sorry that there won't be any more camping trips for kids or rock bands or even new books to read. No more movies or fresh bags of popcorn. It really sucks when you think about it. Of course, there is the possibility that we might be able to win this war, but not for a very long time. Probably longer than you and I will ever exist in this world." "I try not to think about it." "Sometimes it's all I ever think about.

When my son David was a high school senior in 2003, his graduating class went on a camping trip in the desert. A creative writing educator visited the camp and led the group through an exercise designed to develop their sensitivity and imaginations. Each student was given a pen, a notebook, a candle, and matches. They were told to walk a short distance into the desert, sit down alone, and “discover themselves.” The girls followed instructions. The boys, baffled by the assignment, gathered together, threw the notebooks into a pile, lit them with the matches, and made a little bonfire.

Occasionally he took us on a picnic or a camping trip and taught us many valuable lessons. The chief one was to remember that camping was a good way to find out people’s characters. Those who were selfish showed it very soon, in that they wanted the best bed or the best food and did not want to do their share of the work.

Turn off the device and take your child for a walk through the woods or on a hike up a mountain. Go on a camping trip. Late at night, when it's absolutely dark, take your child's hand and ask her to look up at the stars. Talk with her about the vastness of space and the tininess of our planet in the universe. That's reality. That's perspective.

The human mind was set up to categorize, generalize. It makes life so much simpler. I want to tell you that I never, ever think in stereotypes, but the more precise truth is that when I catch a stupid thought skittering across the surface of my brain, I send little villagers after it with torches. I check myself constantly, like a mother looking for deer ticks at the end of a camping trip. “What’s that? Is it a speck of dirt or something hateful, something dangerous?” You don’t want these stupid suckers to take root.

Sleep is light in nomad camps. The body, exhausted by space, grows warm, stretches out straight, recalls the length of the trip. The paths of the mountain ridges run like shivers along the spine. The velvet meadows burden and tickle the eyelids. Bedsores of the ravines hollow out the sides. Sleep immures you, bricks you up. Last thought: have to ride around some ridge...

She had got it into her head that we, her little family, would go on camping trips. Cook freshly caught trout beside a lake where the sun never set. I hope she got there with her drinking.

The weather turned cool a few weeks later, and that winter was when Mia had her accident. So that actually turned out to be the last time I went camping. But even if it weren’t, I still think it would be the best trip of my life. Whenever I remember it, I just picture our tent, a little ship glowing in the night, the sounds of Mia’s and my whispers escaping like musical notes, floating out on a moonlit sea.

Chris loved to look at every type of plant, animal, and bug he hadn’t seen before on the trail and point out those he did recognize. He enjoyed walking along small streams, listening to the water as it traveled, and searching for eddies where we could watch the minnows scurry amongst the rocks. On one Shenandoah trip, while we were resting at a waterfall, eating our chocolate-covered granola bars and watching the water pummel the rocks below, he said, “See, Carine ? That’s the purity of nature. It may be harsh in its honesty, but it never lies to you”. Chris seemed to be most comfortable outdoors, and the farther away from the typical surroundings and pace of our everyday lives the better. While it was unusual for a solid week to pass without my parents having an argument that sent them into a negative tailspin of destruction and despair, they never got into a fight of any consequence when we were on an extended family hike or camping trip. It seemed like everything became centered and peaceful when there was no choice but to make nature the focus. Our parents’ attention went to watching for blaze marks on trees ; staying on the correct trail ; doling out bug spray, granola bars, sandwiches, and candy bars at proper intervals ; and finding the best place to pitch the tent before nightfall. They taught us how to properly lace up our hiking boots and wear the righ socks to keep our feet healthy and reliable. They showed us which leaves were safe to use as toilet paper and which would surely make us miserable downtrail. We learned how to purify water for our canteens if we hadn’t found a safe spring and to be smart about conserving what clean water we had left. At night we would collect rocks to make a fire ring, dry wood to burn, and long twigs for roasting marshmallows for the s’more fixings Mom always carried in her pack. Dad would sing silly, non-sensical songs that made us laugh and tell us about the stars.

The first stage of camping always involves a trip to an outdoor equipment store like REI. These stores are well known for their abundance of white customers and their extensive inventory of things for white people to buy and only use once.

As I was running back to camp, thoughts of tripping and crushing the endangered lemur crowded my head. I could see the headline, "Former NFL Cheerleader Squashes World's Smallest Primate With Her Left Breast." I slowed down just a little bit.

CONSPIRACY is a plan to do something subversive. Three guys planning a camping trip . . . nah, that’s just three guys planning a camping trip. But three guys planning to take a camping trip and rob a bank along the way . . . that’s a conspiracy.

People who have never canoed a wild river, or who have done so only with a guide in the stern, are apt to assume that novelty, plus healthful exercise, account for the value of the trip. I thought so too, until I met the two college boys on the Flambeau. Supper dishes washed, we sat on the bank watching a buck dunking for water plants on the far shore. Soon the buck raised his head, cocked his ears upstream, and then bounded for cover. Around the bend now came the cause of his alarm: two boys in a canoe. Spying us, they edged in to pass the time of day. ‘What time is it?’ was their first question. They explained that their watches had run down, and for the first time in their lives there was no clock, whistle, or radio to set watches by. For two days they had lived by ‘sun-time,’ and were getting a thrill out of it. No servant brought them meals: they got their meat out of the river, or went without. No traffic cop whistled them off the hidden rock in the next rapids. No friendly roof kept them dry when they misguessed whether or not to pitch the tent. No guide showed them which camping spots offered a nightlong breeze, and which a nightlong misery of mosquitoes; which firewood made clean coals, and which only smoke. Before our young adventurers pushed off downstream, we learned that both were slated for the Army upon the conclusion of their trip. Now the motif was clear. This trip was their first and last taste of freedom, an interlude between two regimentations: the campus and the barracks. The elemental simplicities of wilderness travel were thrills not only because of their novelty, but because they represented complete freedom to make mistakes. The wilderness gave them their first taste of those rewards and penalties for wise and foolish acts which every woodsman faces daily, but against which civilization has built a thousand buffers. These boys were ‘on their own’ in this particular sense. Perhaps every youth needs an occasional wilderness trip, in order to learn the meaning of this particular freedom.

The group was known as Agassiz’s Club, more officially as the Saturday Club. One summer, when the club went off to the Adirondacks on a camping trip, Longfellow refused to go, because Emerson was taking a gun. “Somebody will be shot,” said Longfellow, explaining that Emerson was too vague to be trusted with a gun.

And thus to my final and most melancholy point: a great number of Stalin's enforcers and henchmen in Eastern Europe were Jews. And not just a great number, but a great proportion. The proportion was especially high in the secret police and 'security' departments, where no doubt revenge played its own part, as did the ideological attachment to Communism that was so strong among internationally minded Jews at that period: Jews like David Szmulevski. There were reasonably strong indigenous Communist forces in Czechoslovakia and East Germany, but in Hungary and Poland the Communists were a small minority and knew it, were dependent on the Red Army and aware of the fact, and were disproportionately Jewish and widely detested for that reason. Many of the penal labor camps constructed by the Nazis were later used as holding pens for German deportees by the Communists, and some of those who ran these grim places were Jewish. Nobody from Israel or the diaspora who goes to the East of Europe on a family-history fishing-trip should be unaware of the chance that they will find out both much less and much more than the package-tour had promised them. It's easy to say, with Albert Camus, 'neither victims nor executioners.' But real history is more pitiless even than you had been told it was.

As she walked, the horror stories she'd heard from Felix and the others became real. This is what their underground efforts were fighting against. These camps, these guards, were reality to thousands of people... Reality to the person who had just made the trip up the chimney. If they did not stop this madness, it would be the end of them all.

Teedie and Johnnie didn't have much in common--but they shared a love of the outdoors. They both loved a good story, too. And that was enough to change America.

APOLLO: I don’t know but I’ve been told! CAMPERS: We don’t know but we’ve been told! APOLLO: The sun god’s got a bow of gold! CAMPERS: The sun god’s got a bow of gold! APOLLO: He’s the best shot in the land! CAMPERS: He’s the best shot in the land! APOLLO: Augh! [Apollo trips and lands on his backside] I’ve fallen in the sand! CAMPERS [jogging circles around him]: Augh! He’s fallen in the sand! APOLLO: I meant to do that, so don’t laugh! CAMPERS: He meant to do that, so don’t laugh! APOLLO [tries to get up but falls back again]: Ow! I hurt my godly calf! CAMPERS: Ow! He hurt his godly calf! APOLLO [glowering and starting to glow]: If you want to live another day… CAMPERS: If we want to live another day… APOLLO [radiating brighter]: STOP REPEATING WHAT I SAY! CAMPERS: STOP—um… —Military cadence written, chanted, and abruptly ended by Apollo (Best. Scene. Ever. - P.J.)

Who among us has not heard it? The wolf of this beloved, damaged earth, beckoning us by name just outside our safe living room, demanding our own response? The strange and persistent furry-pawed knocking? We peek tentatively through the door, just ajar, and see that there is no road, no sidewalk, barely a trail—and that obscured by stones, by leaves, by an intimation of the remains of those who have walked before us upon the unyielding circle of life. In spite of it all, we long to walk this path. For we know that there is more than what has been given and named by the overculture, more than what we have been told is true, more than green gardens and nature calendars, and recycling, and a summer hike in the mountains, and an occasional camping trip. More, even, than an hourlong “forest bath,” however lovely that sounds. We know there is a wilder earth, and upon it—within it—a wilder, more authentic human self. We know the need of each for the other is absolute.

We can combat existential anguish – the unbearable lightness of our being – in a variety of ways. We can choose to work, play, destroy, or create. We can allow a variety of cultural factors or other people to define who we are, or we can create a self-definition. We decide what to monitor in the environment. We regulate how much attention we pay to nature, other people, or the self. We can watch and comment upon current cultural events and worldly happenings or withdraw and ignore the external world. We can drink alcohol, dabble with recreational drugs, play videogames, or watch television, films, and sporting events. We can travel, go on nature walks, camp, fish, and hunt, climb mountains, or take whitewater-rafting trips. We can build, paint, sing, create music, write poetry, or read and write books. We can cook, barbeque, eat fine cuisine at restaurants or go on fasts. We can attend church services, worship and pray, or chose to embrace agnosticism or atheism. We can belong to charitable organizations or political parties. We can actively or passively support or oppose social and ecological causes. We can share time with family, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances or live alone and eschew social intermixing.

As Erica had warned, he couldn’t outrun them. Soon, they were nipping at his heels. Unfortunately, Alexander forgot step one—try to fight them off—and went right for step two: play dead. He dropped to the ground so quickly that the mother bear actually tripped over him, like he was a human speed bump.

It was because of this that she had allowed herself to sleep in, and now it was half past twelve and she was standing on the tree lawn in her robe and a pair of her son Trip’s tennis shoes, watching their house burn to the ground. When she had awoken to the shrill scream of the smoke detector, she ran from room to room looking for him, for Lexie, for Moody. It struck her that she had not looked for Izzy, as if she had known already that Izzy was to blame. Every bedroom was empty except for the smell of gasoline and a small crackling fire set directly in the middle of each bed, as if a demented Girl Scout had been camping there.

Not a wonder you are out camping with us princess,” Rizz said dryly. Falita gave a clearing snort of her opposite nostril and looked up. “Why's that?” “One can't go snorting and blowing snot all over a castle. It would ruin the décor!” Falita ignored the comment. “A bath would certainly freshen things up.” “You've bathed three times in five days. How many more baths do you need?” Artamos asked. “Enough to stay clean, and I don't recall either of you bathing on this trip.” “I don't need to Princess,” Rizz replied. “I have my own naturally sweet odor.” Falita scrunched up her nose, “I'm aware of that, and it is not pleasing in camp.

...feeling sure that I would learn something and at the same time get rid of a severe bronchial cough that followed an attack of the grippe and had troubled me for three months. I intended to camp on the glacier every night, and did so, and my throat grew better every day until it was well, for no lowland microbe could stand such a trip.

Henry Ford’s antisemitism was rank, and it was unchecked. He spewed it freely in private tirades among friends, family, close business cohorts, newspaper reporters, or pretty much anybody within earshot. He lectured his sometimes-weary auditors in the Ford Motor Company offices, in private chats, in interviews, at dinners, even on camping trips. Ford “attributes all evil to Jews or to the Jewish capitalists,” a close friend wrote in his diary after witnessing a late-night, round-the-campfire diatribe. Ford whined about “New York Jews” and railed about “Wall Street Kikes.” He even ordered his engineers to forgo the use of any brass in his Model T automobile, calling it “Jew metal.

In the summer of 1949, Borman was one of a select few cadets to tour postwar Germany. For him, the biggest impression came at the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau...The trip sickened and saddened him, and it reinforced his certainty that America was a force for good in the world, a country that stepped up to help suffering people and defend freedom.

Returning from a hunting trip, Orde-Lees, traveling on skis across the rotting surface of the ice, had just about reached camp when an evil, knoblike head burst out of the water just in front of him. He turned and fled, pushing as hard as he could with his ski poles and shouting for Wild to bring his rifle. The animal—a sea leopard—sprang out of the water and came after him, bounding across the ice with the peculiar rocking-horse gait of a seal on land. The beast looked like a small dinosaur, with a long, serpentine neck. After a half-dozen leaps, the sea leopard had almost caught up with Orde-Lees when it unaccountably wheeled and plunged again into the water. By then, Orde-Lees had nearly reached the opposite side of the floe; he was about to cross to safe ice when the sea leopard’s head exploded out of the water directly ahead of him. The animal had tracked his shadow across the ice. It made a savage lunge for Orde-Lees with its mouth open, revealing an enormous array of sawlike teeth. Orde-Lees’ shouts for help rose to screams and he turned and raced away from his attacker. The animal leaped out of the water again in pursuit just as Wild arrived with his rifle. The sea leopard spotted Wild, and turned to attack him. Wild dropped to one knee and fired again and again at the onrushing beast. It was less than 30 feet away when it finally dropped. Two dog teams were required to bring the carcass into camp. It measured 12 feet long, and they estimated its weight at about 1,100 pounds. It was a predatory species of seal, and resembled a leopard only in its spotted coat—and its disposition. When it was butchered, balls of hair 2 and 3 inches in diameter were found in its stomach—the remains of crabeater seals it had eaten. The sea leopard’s jawbone, which measured nearly 9 inches across, was given to Orde-Lees as a souvenir of his encounter. In his diary that night, Worsley observed: “A man on foot in soft, deep snow and unarmed would not have a chance against such an animal as they almost bound along with a rearing, undulating motion at least five miles an hour. They attack without provocation, looking on man as a penguin or seal.

Elle’s throat jerked, her lips pressed together. “No, it’s the opposite. When I’ve had a crappy week, I come out here and look at the stars and I remember being six years old and watching my first meteor shower on a family camping trip and feeling awe like I’d never felt before. Stars shooting through the sky, it was like . . . it was magic. Carl Sagan said we’re made of star stuff and it’s true, you know? Stars, the really big ones, don’t just make carbon and oxygen but they keep burning and burning and burning and that burning produces alpha elements like nitrogen and sulfur, neon and magnesium all the way up to iron. It’s called supernova nucleosynthesis. Say that five times fast.” Elle laughed and Darcy’s chest ached

The last morning I woke up with Lindsay, she was leaving on a camping trip to Kauai—a brief getaway with friends that I’d encouraged. We lay in bed and I held her too tightly, and when she asked with sleepy bewilderment why I was suddenly being so affectionate, I apologized. I told her how sorry I was for how busy I’d been, and that I was going to miss her—she was the best person I’d ever met in my life. She smiled, pecked me on the cheek, and then got up to pack. The moment she was out the door, I started crying, for the first time in years. I felt guilty about everything except what my government would accuse me of, and especially guilty about my tears, because I knew that my pain would be nothing compared to the pain I’d cause to the woman I loved, or to the hurt and confusion I’d cause my family.

Having nothing more than those two pennies was both horrible and just the slightest bit funny, the way being flat broke at times seemed to me. As I stood there gazing at Elk Lake, it occurred to me for the first time that growing up poor had come in handy. I probably wouldn’t have been fearless enough to go on such a trip with so little money if I hadn’t grown up without it. I’d always thought of my family’s economic standing in terms of what I didn’t get: camp and lessons and travel and college tuition and the inexplicable ease that comes when you’ve got access to a credit card that someone else is paying off. But now I could see the line between this and that—between a childhood in which I saw my mother and stepfather forging ahead over and over again with two pennies in their pocket and my own general sense that I could do it too.

As I stood there gazing at Elk Lake, it occurred to me for the first time that growing up poor had come in handy. I probably wouldn’t have been fearless enough to go on such a trip with so little money if I hadn’t grown up without it. I’d always thought of my family’s economic standing in terms of what I didn’t get: camp and lessons and travel and college tuition and the inexplicable ease that comes when you’ve got access to a credit card that someone else is paying off.

I do not know whether the needed refinements are possible, nor do I know, speaking more generally, whether the full socialist ideal is feasible, in the Carensian, or in some other form. We socialists don’t now know how to replicate camping trip procedures on a nationwide scale, amid the complexity and variety that comes with nationwide size. We don’t now know how to give collective ownership and equality the real meaning that it has in the camping trip story but which it didn’t have in the Soviet Union and in similarly ordered states. The camping trip’s confined temporal, spatial, and population scale mean that, within its confines, the right to personal choice can be exercised, without strain, consistently with equality and community. But while that can happen in the small, we do not know how to honor personal choice, consistently with equality and community, on a large social scale. But I do not think that we now know that we will never know how to do these things: I am agnostic on that score. The

Mountaineering, she understood, was an essential expression of some odd, immutable aspect of my personality that I could no sooner alter than change the color of my eyes. Then, in the midst of this delicate rapprochement, Outside magazine confirmed it was sending me to Everest. At first I pretended that I’d be going as a journalist more than a climber—that I’d accepted the assignment because the commercialization of Everest was an interesting subject and the money was pretty good. I explained to Linda and anyone else who expressed skepticism about my Himalayan qualifications that I didn’t expect to ascend very high on the mountain. “I’ll probably climb only a little way above Base Camp,” I insisted. “Just to get a taste of what high altitude is about.” This was bullshit, of course. Given the length of the trip and the time I’d have to spend training for it, I stood to make a lot more money staying home and taking other writing jobs. I accepted the assignment because I was in the grip of the Everest mystique. In truth, I wanted to climb the mountain as badly as I’d ever wanted anything in my life.

As I read, I imagine Strane in sexual harassment training, irritated he had to sit through it at all—none of it would have touched him—along with the other teachers who saw me, the one who called me Strane's classroom pet, Ms. Thompson and Mrs. Antonova, who recognized the clues but didn't protest when those clues were used as evidence of an emotionally troubled girl. I imagine them sitting through the training, nodding in agreement, saying yes, this is so important; we need to be these children's advocates. But what have they done when faced with situations in which they could actually make a difference? When they heard of the camping trips the history teacher took each year with his students, when faculty advisors brought students into their homes? All of this feels like performance, because I've seen how it plays out, how quickly people lift their hands and say, It happens sometimes, or Even if he did do something, it couldn't have really been that bad, or What could I have done to stop it? The excuses we make for them are outrageous, but they're nothing compared with the ones we make for ourselves.

Riding a bike is one of the best ways to explore parts of Finland in summer. The terrain is largely flat, main roads are in good condition and traffic is generally light. Bicycle tours are further facilitated by the liberal camping regulations, excellent cabin accommodation at campgrounds, and the long hours of daylight in June and July. The drawback is this: distances in Finland are vast. It’s best to look at planning shorter explorations in particular areas, and combining cycling with bus and train trips – Finnish buses and trains are very bike-friendly

The first days of January 1942 brought enormous amounts of snow. The reader already knows what snow meant for the clergy. But this time the torture surpassed the bounds of the endurable. At the same time the thermometer hovered between 5 and 15 degrees below zero. From morning till night we scraped, shoveled, and pushed wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of snow to the brook. The work detail consisted of more than 1,000 clergymen, forced to keep moving by SS men and Capos who kicked us and beat us with truncheons. We had to make rounds with the wheelbarrows from the assembly square to the brook and back. Not a moment of rest was allowed, and much of the time we were forced to run. At one point I tripped over my barrow and fell, and it took me a while to get up again. An SS man dashed over and ordered me to turn with the full load. He ran beside me, beating me constantly with a leather strap. When I got to the brook I was not allowed to dump out the heavy snow, but had to make a second complete round with it instead. When the guard finally went off and I tried to let go of the wheelbarrow, I found that one of my hands was frozen fast to it. I had to blow on it with warm breath to get it free.

Perhaps that was just a hunch." Barbee shivered again. He knew that he himself possessed what he called the "nose for news" - an intuitive perception of human motivations and the impending events that would spring from them. It wasn't a faculty he could analyze or account for, but he knew that it wasn't unusual. Most successful reporters possessed it, he believed - even though, in an age of skepticism for everything except mechanistic materialism, they wisely denied it. That dim sense had been useful to him - on those summer field trips, before Mendrick turned him out, it had led him to more than one promising prehistoric site, simply because he somehow knew where a band of wild hunters would prefer to camp, or to dig a comrade's grave. Commonly, however, that uncontrolled faculty had been more curse than blessing. It made him too keenly aware of all that people thought and did around him, kept him troubled with an uneasy alertness. Except when he was drunk. He drank too much, and knew that many other newsmen did. That vague sensitivity, he believed; was half the reason.

But Dave Wain that lean rangy red head Welchman with his penchant for going off in Willie to fish in the Rogue River up in Oregon where he knows an abandoned mining camp, or for blattin around the desert roads, for suddenly reappearing in town to get drunk, and a marvelous poet himself, has that certain something that young hip teenagers probably wanta imitate–For one thing is one of the world's best talkers, and funny too–As I'll show–It was he and George Baso who hit on the fantastically simple truth that everybody in America was walking around with a dirty behind, but everybody, because the ancient ritual of washing with water after the toilet had not occurred in all the modern antisepticism–Says Dave "People in America have all these racks of drycleaned clothes like you say on their trips, they spatter Eau de Cologne all over themselves, they wear Ban and Aid or whatever it is under their armpits, they get aghast to see a spot on a shirt or a dress, they probably change underwear and socks maybe even twice a day, they go around all puffed up and insolent thinking themselves the cleanest people on earth and they're walkin around with dirty azzoles–Isnt that amazing?give me a little nip on that tit" he says reaching for my drink so I order two more, I've been engrossed, Dave can order all the drinks he wants anytime, "The President of the United States, the big ministers of state, the great bishops and shmishops and big shots everywhere, down to the lowest factory worker with all his fierce pride, movie stars, executives and great engineers and presidents of law firms and advertising firms with silk shirts and neckties and great expensive traveling cases in which they place these various expensive English imported hair brushes and shaving gear and pomades and perfumes are all walkin around with dirty azzoles! All you gotta do is simply wash yourself with soap and water! it hasn't occurred to anybody in America at all! it's one of the funniest things I've ever heard of! dont you think it's marvelous that we're being called filthy unwashed beatniks but we're the only ones walkin around with clean azzoles?"–The whole azzole shot in fact had spread swiftly and everybody I knew and Dave knew from coast to coast had embarked on this great crusade which I must say is a good one–In fact in Big Sur I'd instituted a shelf in Monsanto's outhouse where the soap must be kept and everyone had to bring a can of water there on each trip–Monsanto hadnt heard about it yet, "Do you realize that until we tell poor Lorenzo Monsanto the famous writer that he is walking around with a dirty azzole he will be doing just that?"–"Let's go tell him right now!"–"Why of course if we wait another minute...and besides do you know what it does to people to walk around with a dirty azzole? it leaves a great yawning guilt that they cant understand all day, they go to work all cleaned up in the morning and you can smell all that freshly laundered clothes and Eau de Cologne in the commute train yet there's something gnawing at them, something's wrong, they know something's wrong they dont know just what!"–We rush to tell Monsanto at once in the book store around the corner. (Big Sur, Chap. 11)

The Unknown Soldier A tale to tell in bloody rhyme, A story to last ’til the dawn of end’s time. Of a loving boy who left dear home, To bear his countries burdens; her honor to sow. –A common boy, I say, who left kith and kin, To battle der Kaiser and all that was therein. The Arsenal of Democracy was his kind, –To make the world safe–was their call and chime. Trained he thus in the far army camps, Drilled he often in the march and stamp. Laughed he did with new found friends, Lived they together for the noble end. Greyish mottled images clipp’ed and hack´ed– Black and white broke drum Ʀ…ɧ..λ..t…ʮ..m..ȿ —marching armies off to ’ttack. Images scratched, chopped, theatrical exaggerate, Confetti parades, shouts of high praise To where hell would sup and partake with all bon hope as the transport do them take Faded icons board the ship– To steel them away collaged together –joined in spirit and hip. Timeworn humanity of once what was To broker peace in eagles and doves. Mortal clay in the earth but to grapple and smite As warbirds ironed soar in heaven’s light. All called all forward to divinities’ kept date, Heroes all–all aces and fates. Paris–Used to sing and play at some cards, A common Joe everybody knew from own heart. He could have been called ‘the kid’ by the ‘old man,’ But a common private now taking orders to stand. Receiving letters from his shy sweet one, Read them over and over until they faded to none. Trained like hell with his Commander-in-Arms, –To avoid the dangers of a most bloody harm. Aye, this boy was mortal, true enough said, He could be one of thousands alive but now surely dead. How he sang and cried and ate the gruel of rations, And grumbled as soldiers do at war’s great contagions. Out–out to the battle this young did go, To become a man; the world to show. (An ocean away his mother cried so– To return her boy safe as far as the heavens go). Lay he down in trenched hole, With balls bursting overhead upon the knoll. Listened hardnfast to the “Sarge” bearing the news, —“We’re going over soon—” was all he knew. The whistle blew; up and over they went, Charging the Hun, his life to be spent (“Avoid the gas boys that’ll blister yer arse!!”). Running through wires razored and deadened trees, Fell he into a gouge to find in shelter of need (They say he bayoneted one just as he–, face to face in War’s Dance of trialed humanity). A nameless sonnuvabitch shell then did untimely RiiiiiiiP the field asunder in burrrstzʑ–and he tripped. And on the field of battle’s blood did he die, Faceless in a puddle as blurrs of ghosting men shrieked as they were fleeing by–. Perished he alone in the no man’s land, Surrounded by an army of his brother’s teeming bands . . . And a world away a mother sighed, Listened to the rain and lay down and cried. . . . Today lays the grave somber and white, Guarded decades long in both the dark and the light. Silent sentinels watch o’er and with him do walk, Speak they neither; their duty talks. Lone, stark sentries perform the unsmiling task, –Guarding this one dead–at the nation’s bequest. Cared over day and night in both rain or sun, Present changing of the guard and their duty is done (The changing of the guard ’tis poetry motioned A Nation defining itself–telling of rifles twirl-clicking under the intensest of devotions). This poem–of The Unknown, taken thus, Is rend eternal by Divinity’s Iron Trust. How he, a common soldier, gained the estate Of bearing his countries glory unto his unknown fate. Here rests in honored glory a warrior known but to God, Now rests he in peace from the conflict path he trod. He is our friend, our family, brother, our mother’s son –belongs he to us all, For he has stood in our place–heeding God’s final call.

The next day’s call would be vital. Then at 12:02 P.M., the radio came to life. “Bear at camp two, it’s Neil. All okay?” I heard the voice loud and clear. “Hungry for news,” I replied, smiling. He knew exactly what I meant. “Now listen, I’ve got a forecast and an e-mail that’s come through for you from your family. Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first?” “Go on, then, let’s get the bad news over with,” I replied. “Well, the weather’s still lousy. The typhoon is now on the move again, and heading this way. If it’s still on course tomorrow you’ve got to get down, and fast. Sorry.” “And the good news?” I asked hopefully. “Your mother sent a message via the weather guys. She says all the animals at home are well.” Click. “Well, go on, that can’t be it. What else?” “Well, they think you’re still at base camp. Probably best that way. I’ll speak to you tomorrow.” “Thanks, buddy. Oh, and pray for change. It will be our last chance.” “Roger that, Bear. Don’t start talking to yourself. Out.” I had another twenty-four hours to wait. It was hell. Knowingly feeling my body get weaker and weaker in the vain hope of a shot at the top. I was beginning to doubt both myself and my decision to stay so high. I crept outside long before dawn. It was 4:30 A.M. I sat huddled, waiting for the sun to rise while sitting in the porch of my tent. My mind wandered to being up there--up higher on this unforgiving mountain of attrition. Would I ever get a shot at climbing in that deathly land above camp three? By 10:00 A.M. I was ready on the radio. This time, though, they called early. “Bear, your God is shining on you. It’s come!” Henry’s voice was excited. “The cyclone has spun off to the east. We’ve got a break. A small break. They say the jet-stream winds are lifting again in two days. How do you think you feel? Do you have any strength left?” “We’re rocking, yeah, good, I mean fine. I can’t believe it.” I leapt to my feet, tripped over the tent’s guy ropes, and let out a squeal of sheer joy. These last five days had been the longest of my life.

I remember once, on a family skiing trip to the Alps, Dad’s practical joking got all of us into a particularly tight spot. I must have been about age ten at the time, and was quietly excited when Dad spotted a gag that was begging to be played out on the very serious-looking Swiss-German family in the room next door to us. Each morning their whole family would come downstairs, the mother dressed head to toe in furs, the father in a tight-fitting ski suit and white neck scarf, and their slightly overweight, rather snooty-looking thirteen-year-old son behind, often pulling faces at me. The hotel had the customary practice of having a breakfast form that you could hang on your door handle the night before if you wanted to eat in your room. Dad thought it would be fun to fill out our form, order 35 boiled eggs, 65 German sausages, and 17 kippers, then hang it on the Swiss-German family’s door. It was too good a gag to pass up. We didn’t tell Mum, who would have gone mad, but instead filled out the form with great hilarity, and sneaked out last thing before bed and hung it on their door handle. At 7:00 A.M. we heard the father angrily sending the order back. So we repeated the gag the next day. And the next. Each morning the father got more and more irate, until eventually Mum got wind of what we had been doing and made me go around to apologize. (I don’t know why I had to do the apologizing when the whole thing had been Dad’s idea, but I guess Mum thought I would be less likely to get in trouble, being so small.) Anyway, I sensed it was a bad idea to go and own up, and sure enough it was. From that moment onward, despite my apology, I was a marked man as far as their son was concerned. It all came to a head when I was walking down the corridor on the last evening, after a day’s skiing, and I was just wearing my ski thermal leggings and a T-shirt. The spotty, overweight teenager came out of his room and saw me walking past him in what were effectively ladies’ tights. He pointed at me, called me a sissy, started to laugh sarcastically, and put his hands on his hips in a very camp fashion. Despite the age and size gap between us, I leapt on him, knocked him to the ground, and hit him as hard as I could. His father heard the commotion and raced out of his room to find his son with a bloody nose and crying hysterically (and overdramatically). That really was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I was hauled to my parents’ room by the boy’s father and made to explain my behavior to Mum and Dad. Dad was hiding a wry grin, but Mum was truly horrified, and I was grounded. So ended another cracking family holiday!

went off, without waiting for serving men, and unsaddled my horse, and washed such portions of his ribs and his spine as projected through his hide, and when I came back, behold five stately circus tents were up—tents that were brilliant, within, with blue, and gold, and crimson, and all manner of splendid adornment! I was speechless. Then they brought eight little iron bedsteads, and set them up in the tents; they put a soft mattress and pillows and good blankets and two snow-white sheets on each bed. Next, they rigged a table about the centre-pole, and on it placed pewter pitchers, basins, soap, and the whitest of towels—one set for each man; they pointed to pockets in the tent, and said we could put our small trifles in them for convenience, and if we needed pins or such things, they were sticking every where. Then came the finishing touch—they spread carpets on the floor! I simply said, "If you call this camping out, all right—but it isn't the style I am used to; my little baggage that I brought along is at a discount." It grew dark, and they put candles on the tables—candles set in bright, new, brazen candlesticks. And soon the bell—a genuine, simon-pure bell—rang, and we were invited to "the saloon." I had thought before that we had a tent or so too many, but now here was one, at least, provided for; it was to be used for nothing but an eating-saloon. Like the others, it was high enough for a family of giraffes to live in, and was very handsome and clean and bright-colored within. It was a gem of a place. A table for eight, and eight canvas chairs; a table-cloth and napkins whose whiteness and whose fineness laughed to scorn the things we were used to in the great excursion steamer; knives and forks, soup-plates, dinner-plates—every thing, in the handsomest kind of style. It was wonderful! And they call this camping out. Those stately fellows in baggy trowsers and turbaned fezzes brought in a dinner which consisted of roast mutton, roast chicken, roast goose, potatoes, bread, tea, pudding, apples, and delicious grapes; the viands were better cooked than any we had eaten for weeks, and the table made a finer appearance, with its large German silver candlesticks and other finery, than any table we had sat down to for a good while, and yet that polite dragoman, Abraham, came bowing in and apologizing for the whole affair, on account of the unavoidable confusion of getting under way for a very long trip, and promising to do a great deal better in future! It is midnight, now, and we break camp at six in the morning. They call this camping out. At this rate it is a glorious privilege to be a pilgrim to the Holy Land.

As I noted in Chapter 14, “The Earthquake,” there was a supermarket in Jerusalem where I shopped for fruits and vegetables almost every day. It was owned by an Iraqi Jewish family who had immigrated to Israel from Baghdad in the early 1940s. The patriarch of the family, Sasson, was an elderly curmudgeon in his sixties. Sasson’s whole life had left him with the conviction that the Arabs would never willingly accept a Jewish state in their midst and that any concessions to the Palestinians would eventually be used to liquidate the Jewish state. Whenever Sasson heard Israeli doves saying that the Palestinians really wanted to live in peace with the Jews, but that they just couldn’t always come out and declare it, it sounded ludicrous to him. It simply ran counter to everything life in Iraq and Jerusalem had taught him, and neither the Camp David treaty with Egypt nor declarations by Yasir Arafat—nor the Palestinian uprising itself—had convinced him otherwise. As I said, as far as Sasson was concerned, the problem between himself and the Palestinians was not that they didn’t understand each other, but that they did—all too well. Sasson, I should add, did not appear to be ideologically committed to Israel’s holding the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He was a grocer, and ideology did not trip easily off his tongue. I am sure he rarely, if ever, went to the occupied territories. Like a majority of Israelis, he viewed the Israeli presence in the West Bank and Gaza Strip primarily in terms of security. I believe that Sasson is the key to a Palestinian–Israeli peace settlement—not him personally, but his world view. He is the Israeli silent majority. He is the Israeli two-thirds. You don’t hear much from the Sassons of Israel. They don’t talk much. They are not as interesting to interview as wild-eyed messianic West Bank settlers, or as articulate as Peace Now professors who speak with an American accent. But they are the foundation of Israel, the gravity that holds the country in place. And, more important, years of reporting from Israel have taught me that there is a little bit of Sasson’s almost primitive earthiness in every Israeli—not only all those in the Likud Party on the right side of the political spectrum, but a majority of those in the Labor Party as well; not only those Israelis born in Arab countries, but those born in Israel as well. Indeed, the Israeli public is not divided fifty-fifty on the question of peace with the Palestinians. The truth is, the Israeli public is divided in three. One segment, on the far left—maybe 5 percent of the population—is ready to allow a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza tomorrow, and sincerely believes the Palestinians are ready to live in peace with the Jews. Another segment, on the far right—maybe 20 percent of the population—will never be prepared, for ideological reasons, to allow a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza. They are committed to holding forever all the Land of Israel, out of either nationalist or messianic sentiments. In between these two extremes you have the Sassons, who make up probably 75 percent of the population. The more liberal Sassons side with the Labor Party, the more hard-line Sassons side with the Likud, but they all share a gut feeling that they are locked in an all-or-nothing communal struggle with the Palestinians. Today the

As Matt began to turn the pages, he found himself distracted. His eyes began drifting around the room, finally coming to rest on the silent air conditioner that sat in one of his windows. He walked over to the air conditioner and turned it on full blast. Its soft hum was music to his ears. And what about music? Matt grinned and placed a tape in his tape deck and turned up the volume. Everything sounded and felt so good. Suddenly he remembered his reading lamp. He reached over to the wall and flipped the lamp’s switch. When the light came on, Matt whooped with joy. He felt a thrill of excitement as he turned on his clock radio. He even set the alarm to go off. “And TV!” Matt cried, racing over to his television set. “I’m going to watch TV!” By the time Mrs. Carlton appeared in the doorway, Matt was sitting on his bed reading, after turning on every electrical appliance in his room. “What on earth is going on in here?” his mother called over the din. Matt looked up from his book and grinned. “I was just checking to make sure that everything still works,” he told her. Mrs. Carlton shook her head. “Come and get yourself some breakfast,” she told Matt. “And for heaven’s sake take a bath and change your clothes.” As she walked away Matt could hear her mumble under her breath, “The way that boy looks after a simple backyard camping trip. You’d think he was just through a war!

The troupe also made a 20,000–mile trip into the European war. Hope was the first American entertainer to perform in Sicily. He did a show at Messina just after the enemy had fled the town and was still bombarding the area with its artillery. By the end of the war, it was estimated that Hope had appeared at virtually every camp, naval base, and hospital in the country. He had made half a dozen trips overseas, including a tour of the South Pacific in 1944 that was highlighted by a crash landing in Australia. With him then was the same crew that had gone to Italy the year before: Langford, Colonna, dancer Patty Thomas, guitarist Tony Romano, and an old vaudeville pal, Barney Dean. Newsweek called it “the biggest entertainment giveaway in history,” a pace that no one in show business has ever equaled. “It is impossible to see how he can do so much, can cover so much ground, can work so hard, and can be so effective,” novelist John Steinbeck said of Hope. For his service to the country, Hope was given more than 100 awards and citations and two special Oscars. He was voted a place in the Smithsonian’s Living Hall of Fame.

Coming back to the village through the snow, under the dark cloudy skies, Belle felt like she had been away for a lifetime. She had, in fact, never left the village by herself before this. There were a couple of overnight trips to fairs with her father, and once or twice during mushroom season they got swept up in the fury and spent a few nights in the forest, gathering morels and truffles and camping out. But that was all, and always with Papa.

I believe that the human mind is almost infinitely malleable and that people are going to adjust, within days or weeks, to life on the Cloud Ark. We will simply turn into a different civilization altogether from the one we grew up in. Our whole idea of nature will be forgotten. And a thousand years from now, people will go on ‘camping trips’ that will consist of sleeping in arklets, drinking Tang, and peeing into tubes just like their ancestors did.” “To them,” Doob said, “that’ll be a back-to-nature experience.” “I think that’s how we will see it, yes,” Tav said.

The rules to complete the Meanest Link are lengthy but straightforward. Paddlers can start the loop at any store and travel in either direction. You can do a section at a time or the whole loop in one go, which is known as the Full Link. No solo trips are recognized for safety reasons. You have to use the same watercraft for the whole section. You can paddle as fast or as slow as you like. The Meanest Link is not a race, but it’s perceived as one by most. You must visit, and preferably stay on, Bill Swift’s favorite site on Lake Lavielle, and cheers a preferred beverage — his was a can of Genesee Cream Ale. And on the Opeongo to Oxtongue Link, you have to go up the Little Mad to Source Lake, stop at Camp Pathfinder to pay your respects to the spot where it all began for Bill Swift in Algonquin.

As we sat together on a mid-river boulder, the shadows crossed the water and the sun sank lower. We looked into each other’s eyes and talked about all the things we loved. I realized then that there was no turning back: I had fallen in love with Steve. As the sun set, we made our way back across the boulders before it got dark. “Nighttime is croc time,” Steve told me. “It’s important to get off the water before they are active and hunting.” Back in camp, Steve started cooking. I asked if I could help. He waved me off. “My trip, my treat,” he said. I sat with my lemonade and watched the river as it changed with darkness coming on, and enjoyed the smell of onions cooking and steaks frying. I could hear the soft flapping noise of the fruit bats overhead. At first there were just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds, crossing above the crowns of paperbark trees and honey myrtles. In the last glimmer of light they looked surreal, spooky and beautiful, gliding across the darkening sky. I felt pleasantly tired, but Steve seemed more energized the longer we stayed in the bush. I would see it again and again over the years. This was where Steve belonged, and where he seemed most alive. We finished dinner, and Steve popped the dishes into the dishpan. “Right,” he said. “We’ll leave them to soak and come back to clean up later.” We jumped into the boat and headed back up the river. This was Steve’s favorite time. I hadn’t understood what he was doing on our first trip earlier that afternoon. He had memorized where he had seen the slides. While during the day we hadn’t spotted a single croc, almost immediately after getting on the water, Steve shone his spotlight across the inky blackness and picked up the red eye-shine of crocs. As we slowly idled the boat upstream, the red orbs would blink and then vanish as the crocodiles submerged on our approach. Suddenly I felt terribly exposed in the little dinghy. The beautiful melaleuca trees that had looked so spectacular during the day now hung eerily over the water, as their leaves dipped and splashed in the black water. Fish came alive too. Everything made more noise in the dark.

We returned to camp. Steve seemed calmer now that he’d gone up the river, gotten his bearings, and revisited familiar places. Just downstream from the camp, we hopped from one exposed boulder to the next, getting out into the middle of the river. I didn’t know what to expect. I still wasn’t completely sure of what crocodiles could do. I was pretty confident that they couldn’t fly, but beyond that, I didn’t know. I relied on Steve. As we sat together on a mid-river boulder, the shadows crossed the water and the sun sank lower. We looked into each other’s eyes and talked about all the things we loved. I realized then that there was no turning back: I had fallen in love with Steve. As the sun set, we made our way back across the boulders before it got dark. “Nighttime is croc time,” Steve told me. “It’s important to get off the water before they are active and hunting.” Back in camp, Steve started cooking. I asked if I could help. He waved me off. “My trip, my treat,” he said. I sat with my lemonade and watched the river as it changed with darkness coming on, and enjoyed the smell of onions cooking and steaks frying. I could hear the soft flapping noise of the fruit bats overhead. At first there were just a few, then dozens, and finally hundreds, crossing above the crowns of paperbark trees and honey myrtles. In the last glimmer of light they looked surreal, spooky and beautiful, gliding across the darkening sky. I felt pleasantly tired, but Steve seemed more energized the longer we stayed in the bush. I would see it again and again over the years. This was where Steve belonged, and where he seemed most alive.

Filming wildlife documentaries couldn’t have happened without John Stainton, our producer. Steve always referred to John as the genius behind the camera, and that was true. The music orchestration, the editing, the knowledge of what would make good television and what wouldn’t--these were all areas of John’s clear expertise. But on the ground, under the water, or in the bush, while we were actually filming, it was 100 percent Steve. He took care of the crew and eventually his family as well, while filming in some of the most remote, inaccessible, and dangerous areas on earth. Steve kept the cameraman alive by telling him exactly when to shoot and when to run. He orchestrated what to film and where to film, and then located the wildlife. Steve’s first rule, which he repeated to the crew over and over, was a simple one: Film everything, no matter what happens. “If something goes wrong,” he told the crew, “you are not going to be of any use to me lugging a camera and waving your other arm around trying to help. Just keep rolling. Whatever the sticky situation is, I will get out of it.” Just keep rolling. Steve’s mantra. On all of our documentary trips, Steve packed the food, set up camp, fed the crew. He knew to take the extra tires, the extra fuel, the water, the gear. He anticipated the needs of six adults and two kids on every film shoot we ever went on. As I watched him at Lakefield, the situation was no different. Our croc crew came and went, and the park rangers came and went, and Steve wound up organizing anywhere from twenty to thirty people. Everyone did their part to help. But the first night, I watched while one of the crew put up tarps to cover the kitchen area. After a day or two, the tarps slipped, the ropes came undone, and water poured off into our camp kitchen. After a full day of croc capture, Steve came back into camp that evening. He made no big deal about it. He saw what was going on. I watched him wordlessly shimmy up a tree, retie the knots, and resecure the tarps. What was once a collection of saggy, baggy tarps had been transformed into a well-secured roof. Steve had the smooth and steady movements of someone who was self-assured after years of practice. He’d get into the boat, fire up the engine, and start immediately. There was never any hesitation. His physical strength was unsurpassed. He could chop wood, gather water, and build many things with an ease that was awkwardly obvious when anybody else (myself, for example) tried to struggle with the same task. But when I think of all his bush skills, I treasured most his way of delivering up the natural world. On that croc research trip in the winter of 2006, Steve presented me with a series of memories more valuable than any piece of jewelry.

That trip was epic. Every day was an adventure. Bindi sat down for her formal schooling at a little table under the big trees by the river, with the kookaburras singing and the occasional lizard or snake cruising through camp. She had the best scientists from the University of Queensland around to answer her questions. I could tell Steve didn’t want it to end. We had been in bush camp for five weeks. Bindi, Robert, and I were now scheduled for a trip to Tasmania. Along with us would be their teacher, Emma (the kids called her “Miss Emma”), and Kate, her sister, who also worked at the zoo. It was a trip I had planned for a long time. Emma would celebrate her thirtieth birthday, and Kate would see her first snow. Steve and I would go our separate ways. He would leave Lakefield on Croc One and go directly to rendezvous with Philippe Cousteau for the filming of Ocean’s Deadliest. We tried to figure out how we could all be together for the shoot, but there just wasn’t enough room on the boat. Still, Steve came to me one morning while I was dressing Robert. “Why don’t you stay for two more days?” he said. “We could change your flight out. It would be worth it.” When I first met Steve, I made a deal with myself. Whenever Steve suggested a trip, activity, or project, I would go for it. I found it all too easy to come up with an excuse not to do something. “Oh, gee, Steve, I don’t feel like climbing that mountain, or fording that river,” I could have said. “I’m a bit tired, and it’s a bit cold, or it’s a bit hot and I’m a bit warm.” There always could be some reason. Instead I decided to be game for whatever Steve proposed. Inevitably, I found myself on the best adventures of my life. For some reason, this time I didn’t say yes. I fell silent. I thought about how it would work and the logistics of it all. A thousand concerns flitted through my mind. While I was mulling it over, I realized Steve had already walked off. It was the first time I hadn’t said, “Yeah, great, let’s go for it.” And I didn’t really know why.

On this trip there was no minute of time while travelling between San Patricio and the settlements on the San Antonio River, from San Antonio to Austin, and again from the Colorado River back to San Patricio, when deer or antelope could not be seen in great numbers. Each officer carried a shot-gun, and every evening, after going into camp, some would go out and soon return with venison and wild turkeys enough for the entire camp.

Generalized Inventory   In this, you could include the basic items that are general to the RV and don’t particularly fit into a separate category, but are essential to a successful trip”   A - Awning and fittings, Aluminum foil, Air pumps. B - Books, Brushes and dustpan, Bedding,

Like many children, I had a telescope from a young age. I was familiar with some constellations and the moon and planets. I always enjoyed looking up at the night sky and seeing the few stars up there in the orange sky in Liverpool, UK. The streetlights made it hard to see much of the night sky in Liverpool. I always enjoyed my camping trips to rural Wales because there were few streetlights and the night sky was actually black! It was a very different night sky, far more stars and the cloud of the Milky Way could be seen.

despite the monsoon-like weather, his hair still looked fantastic. I made it my mission to touch his hair before the trip was over so that I could find out if it was real or some crazy wig. I pointed to the map and said, “This is where they’re camping tonight. But we’re never gonna catch up to them without rafts. We should just

Welcome to Easytripguides. We are an outdoor adventure blog dedicated to encouraging individuals and families to break away from their daily life and reconnect through nature. Easytripguides usually shares various blogs and product reviews on kayaking, biking, camping, hunting, survival camping, etc. We further help families and individuals to go out and plan their trips safely. They also share gear reviews to help everyone explore using the best gears and products they tested, trusted, and loved.

Young people just now starting out in camping probably have no idea that it wasn't but a couple of decades ago that people went camping expecting to be miserable. Half the fun of camping in those days was looking forward to getting back home. When you did get back home you prolonged the enjoyment of your trip by telling all your friends how miserable you had been. The more you talked about the miseries of life in the woods, the more you wanted to get back out there and start suffering again. Camping was a fine and pleasant misery.

Coorie camping is about leaving your expensive devices at home and feeling like a wildling for the weekend. It's about taking turns to fetch water, boiling it and doling out cups of tea. What feels like a chore at home becomes fun on a camping trip. Decorate your tent with forest treasures until it looks like a woodland grotto and share memory games played in childhood with adult friends. There is also the chance to get really good at making campfires. Fire is our oldest and most ensuring form of heat and energy. Is it any wonder it's so important to our coorie experience?

Had I known just how memorable our trip was about to be, we never would have left the house.

guess my question is: Why do I feel the need to distinguish myself at all? Why would I ever wish, if not for a deeper relationship with a tragic event, for a more unusual relationship with a tragic event? At the time of that camping trip, I was in my midtwenties, ostensibly an adult, and yet I experienced what I would call a very puerile reaction to the vice principal’s announcement. Some part of me wished that in fact I had known someone who had been on a plane, or in the Towers, or in the Pentagon. Some part of me wished that the school had interrupted the trip—for me—because I, the friend of the teacher, knew someone who was yet to be accounted for or because my brother (and I don’t even have a brother) had been working in Tower 1 that day. To be clear, a larger part of me knew that this first impulse was morbid and solipsistic, and that I should be relieved to discover that everyone I knew was okay (and I was relieved, definitely), but still—what’s with this first part? Why do I have it? Why does anyone have it? I don’t know, but maybe, or definitely, it has something to do with storytelling. When we narrate the past, it helps to place ourselves as close as possible to the center of the action.

Helen and I made it a point to take the whole family out and spend time traveling or camping together. Sometimes the kids thought of these trips as forced marches, but I think that time we spent together has had a lot to do with our close relationship as a family today. We have a lot of good memories of traveling all over the country, especially in this one fine old DeSoto station wagon.

Rather than being defined by consistently applied principles—about the right to a democratically controlled public square, say, and to trustworthy information and privacy—we have two warring political camps defining themselves in opposition to whatever the other is saying and doing at any given time. No, these camps are not morally equivalent, but the more people like Wolf and Bannon focus on very real fears of Big Tech—its power to unilaterally remove speech, to abscond with our data, to make digital doubles of us—the more liberals seem to shrug and sneer and treat the whole package of worries like crazy-people stuff. Once an issue is touched by “them,” it seems to become oddly untouchable by almost everyone else. And what mainstream liberals ignore and neglect, this emerging alliance lavishes with attention.

Of particular concern to Simmel was how people coped. Unable to react meaningfully to every new piece of information, overstimulated citizens were apt to become “blasé” or, simply put, apathetic. They learned to suppress their feelings, to treat one another transactionally, to care less. After all, they had to. They heard terrible news from around the world daily, like the eruption of Mount Pelée, which killed twenty-­eight thousand people in minutes, or the horrors of British concentration camps in Africa. Meanwhile, they tripped over homeless people and tuned out strangers packed tightly in the streetcar. How could they possibly extend empathy, or even simple acknowledgment, to everyone they met? Instead, they closed off their hearts out of necessity. Their demanding outer world had devoured their inner world and, with it, their ability to connect.

When he finished he had a magnificent house, perched on the edge of a precipice at whose feet the ocean thundered, but it was a house that knew no happiness, for shortly after Whip had moved in with his third wife, the Hawaiian-Chinese beauty Ching-ching, who was pregnant at the time, she had caught him fooling around with the brothel girls that flourished in the town of Kapaa. Without even a scene of recrimination, Ching-ching had simply ordered a carriage and driven back to the capital town of Lihune, where she boarded an H & H steamer for Honolulu. She divorced Whip but kept both his daughter Iliki and his yet-unborn son John. Now there were two Mrs. Whipple Hoxworths in Honolulu and they caused some embarrassment to the more staid community. There was his first wife, Iliki Janders Hoxworth, who moved in only the best missionary circles, and there was Ching-ching Hoxworth who lived within the Chinese community. The two never met, but Howxworth & Hale saw to it that each received a monthly allowance. The sums were generous, but not so much so as those sent periodically Wild Whip's second wife, the fiery Spanish girl named Aloma Duarte Hoxworth, whose name frequently appeared in New York and London newspapers... p623 When the polo players had departed, when the field kitchens were taken down, and when the patient little Japanese gardeners were tending each cut in the polo turf as if it were a personal wound, Wild Whip would retire to his sprawling mansion overlooking the sea and get drunk. He was never offensive and never beat anyone while intoxicated. At such times he stayed away from the brothels in Kapaa and away from the broad lanai from which he could see the ocean. In a small, darkened room he drank, and as he did so he often recalled his grandfather's words: "Girls are like stars, and you could reach up and pinch each one on the points. And then in the east the moon rises, enormous and perfect. And that's something else, entirely different." It was now apparent to Whip, in his forty-fifth year, that for him the moon did not intend to rise. Somehow he had missed encountering the woman whom he could love as his grandfather had loved the Hawaiian princess Noelani. He had known hundreds of women, but he had found none that a man could permanently want or respect. Those who were desirable were mean in spirit and those who were loyal were sure to be tedious. It was probably best, he thought at such times, to do as he did: know a couple of the better girls at Kapaa, wait for some friend's wife who was bored with her husband, or trust that a casual trip through the more settled camps might turn up some workman's wife who wanted a little excitement. It wasn't a bad life and was certainly less expensive in the long run than trying to marry and divorce a succession of giddy women; but often when he had reached this conclusion, through the bamboo shades of the darkened room in which he huddled a light would penetrate, and it would be the great moon risen from the waters to the east and now passing majestically high above the Pacific. It was an all-seeing beacon, brillant enough to make the grassy lawns on Hanakai a sheet of silver, probing enough to find any mansion tucked away beneath the casuarina trees. When this moon sought out Wild Whip he would first draw in his feet, trying like a child to evade it, but when it persisted he often rose, threw open the lanai screens, and went forth to meet it. p625

Her classmates were evenly split between those obliterating their sorrows in carnal pleasures and those wanting to experience all the natural wonders of Mother Earth in her sunset days. Most had embarked on a sordid campaign of sex, drugs, and camping trips. That was Seattle for you.

What remained of my hope and idealism was further worn down when I was surprised by a robber who violently attacked me. In all of my urban camping trips, which were well over a dozen, short meaningless skirmishes had occurred, but serious attacks like this never happened. Fortunately, my rusty boxing skills allowed me to get away from being viciously mugged or maybe even killed.

After the trip to Germany, Ciara knew exactly how much Layla appriciated camping rough. As in not in the slightest and never again even if the apocalypse was happening.

I once said to her on the phone, "Jann, this group of kids in Newfoundland have won a spot at a rock camp showcase in Madrid. They are fundraising. They need to raise ten thousand more dollars if they are going to make the trip." Before I could finish talking, she said, "Okay, I'll give them five grand, you do the same, and it's done, easy." I answered, "I was going to suggest we sign a picture for them for their auction." Thanks to Jann, they made the trip. She changed the lives of a group of teenage rock and rollers that she didn't know.

we have two warring political camps defining themselves in opposition to whatever the other is saying and doing at any given time. No, these camps are not morally equivalent, but the more people like Wolf and Bannon focus on very real fears of Big Tech—its power to unilaterally remove speech, to abscond with our data, to make digital doubles of us—the more liberals seem to shrug and sneer and treat the whole package of worries like crazy-people stuff.

want your babies, and your anger, and your cold blue eyes … “ I choke on my words and I am the one to look away. I bring my gaze back to her face and realize that if I can’t convince her now, I’m never going to be able to. “I want to go on anniversary dinners with you, I want to wrap Christmas presents with you. I want to fight with you about stupid things and then hold you down in my bed and make it up to you. I want to have more cake batter fights and camping trips. I want your future, Olivia. Please come back to me.

Sadly, this game would prove to be the high point of the whole trip and our morale seemed to dip with each day of cricket we played. One of the main reasons for the tension and irritation was the umpiring. It set the already unstable camp on edge because we felt it was in favour of the home side. Hang on, I’ve been too kind there. We were sure it was in favour of the home side.

found the transport that was taking the children to a different level. Much younger kids were in tears, while all the older ones tried to comfort them. When the transport was full, they were driven to their destination. In spite of the situation, the children were impressed by the size of Camp 13 as they were driven through it; it seemed like it went on for miles. The transport entered an elevator of some type and the elevator started its trip down, further underground. The elevator stopped, the transport left, and went towards the buildings where these particular children would be staying.

In Colonel Montgomery’s hands these up-river raids reached the dignity of a fine art. His conceptions of foraging were rather more Western and liberal than mine, and on these excursions he fully indemnified himself for any undue abstinence demanded of him when in camp. I remember being on the wharf, with some naval officers, when he came down from his first trip. The steamer seemed an animated hen-coop. Live poultry hung from the foremast shrouds, dead ones from the mainmast, geese hissed from the binnacle, a pig paced the quarter-deck, and a duck’s wings were seen fluttering from a line which was wont to sustain duck-trousers. The naval heroes, mindful of their own short rations, and taking high views of one’s duties in a conquered country, looked at me reproachfully, as who should say, “Shall these things be?” In a moment or two the returning foragers had landed. “Captain——,” said Montgomery, courteously, “would you allow me to send a remarkably fine turkey for your use on board ship?” “Lieutenant——,” said Major Corwin, “may I ask your acceptance of a pair of ducks for your mess?” Never did I behold more cordial relations between army and navy than sprang into existence at those sentences. So true it is, as Charles Lamb7 says, that a single present of game may diffuse kindly sentiments through a whole community.

clear enough. I asked Birenbaum what he was ultimately trying to preserve by keeping Walden technology free. Was it the land, the cabins, and the lake, and leaving those spaces undisturbed by the outside world? Or were his efforts to keep the digital barbarians at the gate driven by a desire to preserve something deeper, that universal truth that not only made Walden what it was, but drove the Revenge of Analog in all its various forms? Birenbaum didn’t hesitate to answer. “We look at the heart of what we do, and it is interpersonal relationships,” he said. Any debate about technology’s use came down to a simple binary question: will it impact interpersonal relationships or not? “This camp could be wiped out by a meteor tomorrow, and we could rebuild across the road and we’d still be Walden,” he said. What mattered were the relationships and the uniquely analog recipe that enabled their formation. First, you place lots of people together, and have them relate to one another with the guidance of caregivers, who encourage and enforce mutual respect. Next, you mix in a program that creates various stresses, frustrations, and challenges that campers need to confront. This ranges from the simplest task of getting to breakfast on time to ten-day canoe trips in the harsh Canadian wilderness where twelve-year-olds might be expected to carry a 60-pound canoe on their head for a mile or more in the pouring rain, as blackflies gnaw at their ankles. These situations eventually lead to individual perseverance and self-respect . . . what most people call character. And that character is the glue that allows the relationships built at camp to last a lifetime, as my own friendships formed at Walden have. “You go a bit out of your comfort zone, endure a little hardship, people push you and help you to succeed, and you end up with friendships, confidence, and an inner fortitude that ends in a sense of belonging to a greater, interdependent community,” Birenbaum said. “This is one of the most basic aspects of the human condition.

Steve and I watched the dingo family play out its drama for a long time. Then we edged our way down to the dam and hopped in. The water was cold, but it felt good. “This is great,” I said, as we swam together. “I’ve been coming here since I was just a little tacker,” Steve said. Bob had brought his young son with him on his research trips, studying the snakes of the region. As I walked in and out of the water, washing up, shampooing my hair, and relishing the chance to clean off some of the desert dust, I noticed something hard underfoot. “Steve, I stepped on something here,” I said. He immediately started clearing the bottom of the pond, tugging on what I had felt beneath the murky water. “Tree limb,” I guessed. “Look around,” Steve said, yanking at the mired object. “No trees here at all.” He couldn’t budge whatever it was, but he didn’t give up. He went back to camp, drove to the dam in his Ute, and tied a chain to the obstacle. As he backed up the truck, the chain tightened. Slowly a cow’s pelvis emerged from the muck. I watched with horror as Steve dislodged an entire cow carcass that had been decomposing right where I had been enjoying my refreshing dip. I must have been poking among its rib cage while I brushed my teeth and washed my hair. Steve dragged the carcass a good distance off. “Do you think we should tell the crew?” he asked me when he came back. “Maybe what they don’t know won’t hurt them,” I said. Steve nodded. “They probably won’t brush their teeth in there, anyway.” “Probably not,” I said, pondering the possibility of future romantic dips with Steve, and what might lurk under the water at the next dam. When we returned to camp, Steve insisted I sit down and not lift a finger while he cooked me a real Aussie breakfast: bacon and sausage with eggs, and toast with Vegemite. This last treat was a paste-like spread that’s an Australian tradition. For an Oregon girl, it was a hard sell. I always thought Vegemite tasted like a salty B vitamin. I chowed down, though, determined to learn to love it. As the sun rose in full, Steve began to get bored. He was antsy. He wanted to go wrangle something, discover something, film anything. Finally, at midmorning, the crew showed up. “Let’s go,” Steve said. “There’s an eagle’s nest my dad showed me when I was just a billy lid. I want to see if it might still be there.” Right, I thought, a nest you saw with Bob years ago. What are the chances we’re going to find that? John looked longingly at the dam. “Thought we might have a tub first,” he said. The grime of the desert covered all of them. “Oh, I think we should go,” I said hastily, the cow carcass fresh in my mind. “You don’t need a bath, do you, guys?” “Come on,” Steve urged. “Wedge-tailed eagles!” No rest for the weary.

Steve and I watched the dingo family play out its drama for a long time. Then we edged our way down to the dam and hopped in. The water was cold, but it felt good. “This is great,” I said, as we swam together. “I’ve been coming here since I was just a little tacker,” Steve said. Bob had brought his young son with him on his research trips, studying the snakes of the region. As I walked in and out of the water, washing up, shampooing my hair, and relishing the chance to clean off some of the desert dust, I noticed something hard underfoot. “Steve, I stepped on something here,” I said. He immediately started clearing the bottom of the pond, tugging on what I had felt beneath the murky water. “Tree limb,” I guessed. “Look around,” Steve said, yanking at the mired object. “No trees here at all.” He couldn’t budge whatever it was, but he didn’t give up. He went back to camp, drove to the dam in his Ute, and tied a chain to the obstacle. As he backed up the truck, the chain tightened. Slowly a cow’s pelvis emerged from the muck. I watched with horror as Steve dislodged an entire cow carcass that had been decomposing right where I had been enjoying my refreshing dip. I must have been poking among its rib cage while I brushed my teeth and washed my hair. Steve dragged the carcass a good distance off. “Do you think we should tell the crew?” he asked me when he came back. “Maybe what they don’t know won’t hurt them,” I said. Steve nodded. “They probably won’t brush their teeth in there, anyway.” “Probably not,” I said, pondering the possibility of future romantic dips with Steve, and what might lurk under the water at the next dam.

In the daylight, we were lucky enough to spot a sheep trough not far from where we’d camped. This trough didn’t have a float valve, so it had overflowed and made a bit of a pond around itself. With all the sheep coming and going, the “pond” was more like thick, oozing mud than water. In spite of the obvious challenge of getting past the mud, I was determined to take advantage of a nice tub. As the only woman on the trip, I pulled the whole “ladies first” thing and headed off. I was excited as I hiked over with my toothbrush, soap, and shampoo. But as I arrived I was greeted by the overwhelming smell--a sheep had gotten bogged down in the mud and died some time ago. Its body was partially liquefied and teeming with maggots. Ignoring this little friend would be difficult, but I had no idea when I’d get my next chance to clean up. I picked my way around the mud and balanced precariously on the edge of the concrete slab that the trough rested on. The water was dribbling in slowly from the bore pipe, and three-quarters of the surface of the water was covered in an algae-like slime. After removing a patch of the green goo, I stashed my clothes on a dry corner of the concrete and eased myself in. I tried not to think about the water bugs nibbling on me, and I made a real effort not to stir up the sludge on the bottom of the trough--remnants of dead birds that had drowned. Put it out of your mind, I thought. As I held my breath, I went under. I resolved that I wouldn’t wash my hair again for a week. It was so icky to stick my head clear under! I finished up and let everyone have their turn. I suppose it was better than not bathing at all…perhaps.

We trapped several smaller females, all around the nine-foot mark. That’s when Steve stepped back and let the all-girl team take over: all the women in camp, zoo workers mainly, myself, and others. We would jump on the croc, help secure the tracking device, and let her go. At one point Steve trapped a female that he could see was small and quiet. He turned to Bindi. “How would you like to jump the head?” Bindi’s eyes lit up. This was what she had been waiting for. Once Steve removed the croc from the trap and secured its jaws, the next step was for the point person to jump the croc’s head. Everybody else on the team followed immediately afterward, pinning the crocodile’s body. “Don’t worry,” I said to Bindi. “I’ll back you up.” Or maybe I was really talking to Steve. He was nervous as he slipped the croc out of its mesh trap. He hovered over the whole operation, knowing that if anything went amiss, he was right there to help. “Ready, and now!” he said. Bindi flung herself on the head of the crocodile. I came in right over her back. The rest of the girls jumped on immediately, and we had our croc secured. “Let’s take a photo with the whole family,” Professor Franklin said. Bindi sat proudly at the crocodile’s head, her hand casually draped over its eyes. Steve was in the middle, holding up the croc’s front legs. Next in line was me. Finally, Robert had the tail. This shot ended up being our 2006 family Christmas card. I look at it now and it makes me laugh out loud. The family that catches crocs together, rocks together. The Irwin family motto. Steve, Bindi, and I are all smiling. But then there is Robert’s oh-so-serious face. He has a top-jaw rope wrapped around his body, with knots throughout. He took his job seriously. He had the rope and was ready as the backup. He was on that croc’s tail. It was all about catching crocs safely, mate. No mucking around here. As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?” “Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.” But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand. “Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible. Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc. “I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off. “Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too. When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim. “Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.” The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.

As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?” “Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.” But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand. “Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible. Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc. “I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off. “Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too. When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim. “Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.” The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.