My Search for Happiness

             There I stood last Friday, surveying the commercial campground of Palisade State Park. It was already past noon and campsites were going fast. The woman at the entrance of the park was nice enough to allow me to check out the three remaining available camp spots before I committed to staying for two nights. While I weighed my options, four children on scooters and bikes rode past laughing and screaming. I had a tough decision to make: take the cramped, groomed square of grass with a barbeque stand next to the reservoir, or continue searching, possibly unfruitfully.

            Earlier in the week I had planned on visiting the Little Lyman Lake area in the Uintas for a nice fishing trip, but bad weather forced me to look for warmer options a bit south of Northern Utah. After some online searching, I found some places of interest in the Manti-La Sal Mountains, namely Joe’s Valley Reservoir and Pete’s Hole. Both appeared to have good fishing conditions and the surrounding area looked beautiful.

            Well, the area was beautiful. Especially the miniature glaciers that blocked the access road to my destinations. Despite my disappointment at the impossibility of reaching a suitable campground, I still managed to cast my fishing line out a few times into a tiny lake near Skyline Drive called John August Lake. I didn’t catch anything, but it helped ease my frustration and allowed me to build up enough motivation to start a new search for a camping/fishing spot in a region that I was completely unfamiliar with.

            By the time I reached Gunnison, the landscape had become too desert-like and I ended up heading north again. So there I was at my next stop: Palisade State Park. It seemed futile to continue searching, and there were only three spots left at the state park. And it was afternoon. On the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend. The situation was looking bleak. After about fifteen minutes of deliberation, I decided against staying at Palisade State Park. I could tell that the campground would be full of noise all weekend and that privacy in such a place would be nonexistent. I would rather set up my tent next to the roadside than deal with the “cozy” quarters I was currently faced with.

            Boy, am I glad I moved on. The very next site I came across was pure heaven. I would tell you where it was, but it was too much of a happy surprise for me to just give out the information. The campground was secluded and only had nine sites, only three of which even became occupied during my visit. The site I chose was tucked back behind some trees and was completely hidden from the view of any of the other sites. Plus, there was a trail behind my picnic table that led directly down to the reservoir that my campsite overlooked.

            Between Friday and Sunday I thought multiple times about how fortunate I had been in finding what I would call “the perfectly groomed campsite, which still retained the look and feel of ‘roughing it.’” I also thought about how miserable I would have been surrounded by the roar of watercraft and screaming children at Palisade State Park. What really surprises me, though, is that despite all of my research and planning, I ended up staying at a place that was a last-minute discovery and relatively undocumented on the Internet. I suppose some things in life must be kept secret in order to preserve their beauty and appeal. Needless to say, I will be returning to that campsite, and I’m sure it will make me just as happy as the first time I discovered it.

Human Repellent

             In the event that you are going camping this weekend, remember the mosquito repellent. If you are like me, though, you will also need to take along a few other items in order to fend off a much more annoying threat: other campers. No, I’m not asocial. Well, not completely anyway, but the magic of the Uinta Mountains is hard to properly experience without copious amounts of silence. I’ve written this series of steps to help you keep away from other humans and hopefully find your own slice of solitude this weekend.

The first and most important step in seeking silence is straying from the beaten path. Since this is Memorial Day weekend, the realist in me knows that the Uintas will be crawling with other outdoor enthusiasts who are just as excited as I am to explore the cool, quiet mountains for the first time this year. I have nothing against them. That just means I’ll have to avoid the popular areas and find an extremely secluded spot somewhere. Now that I don’t own a Jeep anymore, it will be a bit more difficult to stray from the beaten path, but I think I can still find a nice, quiet place of my own in the woods. I simply have to find a dirt road smooth enough for my little Nissan to traverse.

The second step in the quest for quiet is related to the first: be willing to hike a little. The popular camping areas are popular because a person can easily park their car right in front of the tent and fire pit areas. If you’re up for a bit of a physical challenge and really want to experience the pure peace that nature affords, plan on packing your gear and hiking into the woods a mile or so. This may mean leaving a few not-so-necessary items behind, but trust me, when you lie down at night (on the hard ground because the air mattress was too heavy) and hear the sounds of flowing creeks and chirping crickets instead of screaming children, you’ll be glad you did.

The third and final step in tracking down tranquility is to decorate accordingly. This is where the actual human repellent comes in. When you set up your camping area, be sure to place items around that will deter other people from coming anywhere near you. These items can be as simple as a sharpened stick with a fake skull on top of it or playing a sound track loudly with wild animal noises on it, like angry bears and howling wolves. When attempting to induce fear in other campers, it’s so easy to do, especially if you’ve got a healthy imagination. Just don’t overdo it and end up frightening yourself.

I hope you find plenty of peace and quiet this Memorial Day weekend. Make sure to get a good head start in order to claim a great camp site away from everybody else. If you do have to resort to spending your camping trip in a populated area, take solace in the fact that I will be comfortable surrounded by my moat with alligators, listening to the songbirds and wishing I had six more ears to take in the silence all around me.

Ticked Off

            “Oh my! You have Lyme disease! You might die!” the Austrian doctor shouted at me. Well, maybe it wasn’t shouting, but spoken German, for some reason, almost always gives the impression of shouting. Anyway, I was stunned when I heard those words. The only thing I knew about Lyme’s disease was that you could get it from ticks, and, at that moment in a small clinic in the hills of Vienna, I learned that it was supposedly fatal. Three weeks previously, I had noticed a small, angry red dot on my back that hurt, but thought that it was just an insignificant bug bite. That day I visited the doctor the dot had expanded out into a pinkish, two-foot-wide ring that had me slightly concerned. And apparently for good reason.

            Now, for the record, Lyme disease is not as lethal as my Austrian doctor would have me believe. Also, if you are a doctor, take it from a guy who has been improperly informed of his imminent death: don’t tell your patients that they might die, unless you really know what you’re talking about. After getting a second opinion from a team of noticeably less panicked doctors at the Vienna General Hospital, I found out that my Lyme disease was still treatable and that death was actually the least of my worries. More often than not, untreated Lyme disease affects the body in a number of undesirable ways, such as paralysis, palsy, and cognitive issues, among others.

            It has been almost ten years since that day in the park when a small tick found its way down my shirt and plunged its disease-ridden mouth into my soft, vulnerable skin, injecting bacteria into my body. The microscopic organisms quickly multiplied, amassing a small, yet potent army in order to launch an all-out attack on my central nervous system. Well, they never made it, thanks to the help some antibiotics, and my stubborn will to live.

            Ticks freak me out. The idea of a small animal that likes to try and burrow into a person’s skin is completely horrific. I only tell you this so you’ll be extra careful and watchful during tick season, which happens to be right now until the end of June. Ticks love any place with lots of brush and vegetation, but what they love even more are warm, dark places, like armpits or skin folds. The best way to prevent a tick from making you its personal blood bank and potential disease host is by dressing in a long-sleeved shirt and pants that adequately cover your legs while walking in dense vegetation.

            Here in Utah, the chances of contracting Lyme disease are not as high as in other parts of the world, but there are plenty of other frightening maladies that ticks can carry. Should you find a tick on your person, don’t panic and try pulling it off with your bare fingers. You should pull the head and body out with a pair of tweezers, and carefully, because if the head or any mouthparts are left behind, it’s possible that any bacteria the tick was carrying could enter the small wound from the tick’s bite. Make sure to wash and disinfect the bite area thoroughly, and, just in case any unusual symptoms occur, keep the tick to give to a doctor. Good luck dodging those little blood-sucking fiends this year and remember to check yourself well after traveling through brush and thick vegetation.

Good Clean Fun

WARNING! If you are neither a consumer of fish flesh nor a fan of the fish-gutting process, or if you are a fish, read no further! What you are about to read is full of potentially upsetting material (especially for the fish-folk)!

The worst part about fishing is cleaning the fish. Oh, I’ll do it, but I really don’t like it. The whole process of fishing is slightly disturbing, from the moment the fish discovers a sharp pointed object lodged in its lip to the moment you peel the skin off the meat after it has been thoroughly cooked. But fresh fish tastes so good! The short time it takes to consume a recently grilled fish is worth every second of horror involved in preparing the fish for consumption.

I am always game for a fishing trip. Not because I like pulling fish out of their comfortable habitats, bashing them on the head, pulling out their insides, and then eating them (actually, I do like the eating part). I like fishing because for every ten minutes of reeling and “fish-catching,” there are sometimes two or three hours of pure relaxation. Unless you’re a fly-fisher. Fly-fishers are the businessmen and artisans of the fishing realm. Someday when I’ve got a little more time on my hands, I’d like to learn the finer points of the sport, but for now I’m content sitting on the shore of a lake waiting for the next little tug on my fishing line.

A few years ago, my dad, two brothers, some neighbors and I decided to visit Mirror Lake together and fish. I was excited because there were five other people who would be shouldering the fish cleaning experience. Boy, was I wrong. Apparently, my older brother had never really learned how to properly gut a fish, my younger brother was too squeamish, my dad had done his share of fish cleaning when he was a teenager, and my neighbors were under the impression that I was going to take care of all of their gutting needs.

So there I sat for an hour and a half, on the shore of Mirror Lake, slitting fish open, ripping out vital organs, cutting off heads and tails, and looking extremely sad so the others would take pity on me. Well, they didn’t, and after I had cleaned the last fish (there were six of us, and each of us had caught about three fish) I was hopeful that I could simply enjoy the afternoon and the beautiful scenery surrounding me. As I looked up, there it was, in all of its glory: a pink pile of fish guts bathing in the gently lapping shallows. No amount of sunshine, pine smell, and pristine silence could cover up the offending view before me. I vowed then and there to never gut another fish. Oh, I’d go fishing, but someone else would do the cleaning. Or I’d take up catch-and-release.

It’s amazing what a little campfire, an iron skillet, a pat of butter, some lemon pepper and freshly-caught fish can do to a person’s resolve. Within twenty minutes of committing to my impulsive oath, I was telling myself that I’d gut another fish if it meant I would experience the heavenly taste of cooked trout again. Fishing for me is a roller coaster of emotions: trouble-free while waiting for a bite; elation at having caught something (even if it is just a weed); disappointment if I catch just a weed; sadness for taking the life of an animal that never did me any harm; disgust while disemboweling, beheading and de-tailing; and satisfaction while devouring the fish. Like most roller coasters, the initial fear and trepidation are worth the excitement and fun in the end. And if you also struggle with the fish cleaning process, just remember, fish don’t have feelings (this statement is probably not true, but if it helps you sleep at night, so be it!).