The Vacation,

Part 2; McCargoe Cove,

So there I am, in McCargoe Cove with four days and 28 miles ahead of me. I was well prepared with a flask of Drambuie and "Lonesome Traveler" by Kerouac in my pack. Much thought went into these two items. I was going to fill my flask with Jameson, but didn't think I wanted the harshness that comes with straight whiskey. My last backpacking trip I took some Drambuie with me and it didn't go over so good, so I was a bit hesitant with the choice, but made it anyways. On this trip however it worked just fine, but I will get to that later. The next book on my "to read" bookshelf was "The Time Traveler's Wife" clocking in at 546 pages, weigh well over a pound. To much book for the trip, so I had to take a book out of order. Although that sounds like a big deal, I assure you it isn't. I thought of taking Jack London's "Iron Heel", a futuristic sci-fi novel with radical socialism in it. However I just read a history of the IWW and have been taking heat from my far rightwing friend who thinks I'm a red, so I thought I would go another way. I went with the Kerouac book with some hesitation also since I had just listened to "On the Road" a week before. But a decision had to be made, so I made one (14 ounces lighter than TTTW).

It seemed pretty apparent to me right away that my hiking companions were not as excited about the trip as I was. One seemed to be suffering from a little backwoods burn out from spending all summer in the woods and the other seemed to be much more interested in his email inbox than the wild beautiful seclusion ahead of us. Oh well, nuts to them, I got Drambuie and Kerouac.

As we were sitting on the pier in the evening, I noticed a red fox across the cove from us. The beautiful animal with it's big bushy tail and narrow tapered legs colored black like it's wearing boots, seemed to shine extra red in the low rays of a setting sun. At the same time we were sharing the dock with a much more common animal the North American red neck. They were on a fishing trip and not wanting to deal with the annoying noise these animals make we retreated to our campsite.

Although I was tired from not getting a good nights sleep in two nights, I decided to stay up and read by headlamp for awhile. It was my turn to sleep in a tent alone and I figured I should enjoy it since the next two nights I would be in the dreaded shared tent. Also there was a loud game of cribbage going on in the next campsite that would of been hard to sleep through.

Finally the moon rose and I closed my eyes.