3 July 2001

I am sitting on a lichen-covered rock just off the Columbine Trail, in the company of four great ponderosa pines and a younger stand of aspens. The columbines (the light blue natives, not the domesticated yellow variety) are blooming, as are the currant bushes, the wild rose along the creek, the lupine and some sort of Compositae. Most of this glade is covered with golden banner (Thermopsis montana), which are all spent, laden with long pods of seeds.

You can hear the never ending tap-tap-tap of hammers on metalwork at the handicrafts center just over the rise, but any light breeze through the aspen leaves drowns out this artificial noise. Flows are low in the brook, but you can still hear it lightly bubbling down.

These natural sounds are periodically punctuated by the loud percussion of shotguns on the range less than a half mile to the east. But it is still peaceful here. An oasis of stillness in the midst of activity.

The air is slightly muggy from the thunderstorm that passed over at lunch, dark and loud without shedding a drop.

I don't spend enough time in forests. Since starting this entry, I have heard four bird songs that I recognize as familiar, but can only identify the broadtailed hummingbird. One of the others is either a Townsend's solitaire or a hermit thrush, but I forget which.

I lay back on the cool stone, a pleasure in this damp heat, and watch the clouds swirl above me, framed in the branches of ponderosa and one Douglas fir. The lower clouds are rapidly flowing northwest, while those higher up are coursing their way east.

I was just passed by the Environmental Science class, headed up the trail single file. Our entire youth group is here, perhaps envious that I get to spend my day sleeping on cool rocks.

Guess I should go get something done.

It is late, nearly midnight under a nearly full moon. I write these notes by flashlight in my tent.

We were invited to join a neighboring group from Tempe, Arizona, for a friendship campfire. A large group, an incredibly friendly group, adults and youth. Later joined by the camp cooking staff and the South African guest.

I have never had someone take such pains to hear and repeat and try to use my name without trying to sell me something. We are a small group of only seven, and most of them had our names down pat by the first game.

They treated us to chicken burritos cooked in dutch ovens.

Your choice of mild or spicy hot. The "mild" was rich with jalapenos. Too scared to try "hot."

Followed by dutch oven cherry cobbler.

If you have never had dutch oven cooking, your life is missing something. But our cherry and peach cobblers have all been better than theirs. Even the batch we cooked up while camped in a foot and half of snow. Not that theirs wasn't good, just different. And I know what they did wrong: they mixed their ingredients. A no-no for dutch oven cobbler.

Felt like paupers dropping in on the rich neighbors. We had nothing prepared to offer. My co-leader dug up a can of popcorn and some crisco out of the trailer, and that pittance was our contribution.

Had enjoyed dutch oven popcorn and watched it made, but never actually cooked it before. But I did OK, once we figured out how to get the heat right. It was a big hit, with each batch gone before the last kernels had finished popping.

They started the evening with a game of "chubby bunny."

If you ever get a chance to watch a game of chubby bunny, do not miss it.

If you are ever invited to play a game of chubby bunny, think twice before agreeing.

They described it as a game of funny and sadistic embarassment, and were not far off. I lucked out, and was still being introduced around when the game was started and did not participate. But the other six did, with an even larger number of their members.

One of our own won, with a record of eight marshmallows. He needed a victory in his life, even if it was just "chubby bunny."