Re: Tale from the 'Insecure Newbie'

[connie B Berto <cberto@juno.com>]

Thanks, Dyane and Sylvia, for your posts!  When I started endurance
riding  I was a real newbie at camping out, because I grew up overseas
and  I never got to do it when I was little, so I'm making up for it now.
  (The camping, that is--I don't plan to ever grow up!)    I am slightly
claustrophobic so I have never used a tent or camper or shell in
horsecamping.   Used to sling  the air mattress  on the ground.   Well,
unseen sharpish things made it clear that wasn't so great.  Then I tried
self-inflating jobs and ridge-rest pads.   They worked OK, provided my
sleeping bag and I didn't slide off during the night.  Last year I
finally got smarter and bought an LLBean folding cot with mattress for
under my bag, and I am in hog heaven.   I put a blue tarp under the cot
so I can hear any footsteps or pawsteps, which is what I heard in the wee
hours  two weeks ago camping up at Mt. Lassen Volcanic Park.   A silver
fox visited me, toenails scritching on the tarp.   Beautiful animal in
the flashlight beam...he had a tracking collar on.   I didn't know until
the next morning that he had taken one of my boots and dropped it about
20 feet away from the cot, and also took my little alarm clock and
dropped it 20 feet in another direction.  When he returned the next
night, I told him that I was on to his games and to go away, which he
did...   
     What happens when it rains, snows, or when the wind tunnel is all
cranked up?   We set up inside the spotlessly clean trailer, of course!  
 Being naturally just and pure of heart  (:-)) I invariably drop off to
sleep immediately as soon as I pull the zipper up on my bag.   My
husband, being a mean ol grouch (;-))) and who hates sleeping anywhere
else but in the comforts of home,  lies awake listening to me snore and
then, of course, moans about it all the next day.   Sleeping out in the
open like that is inconvenient at times but,  such gifts in return!   The
wondrous stars and meteors, visits from foxes or deer, the coyotes
howling in the distance, the wild  geese honking as they pass overhead in
the dark, the horses happily munching, a whinny or two...those things I
can't give up on  yet.    Regards,  Connie B    

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