Wabasha, MN

Moteled it last night in Wilmar, MN, I know that was a little quick, but I just didn’t feel like hunting down a campground. Tonight I’m camping west of Wabasha. I’m used to having the campgrounds to myself this late in the year, but the weather is still pretty mild in Minnesota and this is a weekend so I’m camping between two groups of young folk who seem to be competing to be the most obnoxious campers in this part of the country. One group, I think all guys, is listening to AC/DC and managing to hold conversation at a level that would be more appropriate at an AC/DC concert. On the other side is a group that I’m guessing forgot to bring flashlights because every time one of them wanders into the woods to piss, they have to play Marco Polo to find their way back. I’m not sure why they don’t just follow the glare from the bonfire they have going, but it is crowded enough here they might wander over to the wrong one. Lord knows they don’t want to wander to this one, I’d hate to have to hit someone with my fire-poking stick, that’d be one dirty deed done dirt cheap. Anyway, I don’t want to sound pissy, this has been an otherwise great night. Had steak with sautéed onions and au gratin potatoes with a nice cheap cabernet drunk out of a peach can, the peaches were the appetizer for tonights meal. I’m now sitting in front of a nice warm campfire and wondering if these two groups will decide to go to bed early tonight… yeah right.

I just stopped to poke the fire and was thinking about how I really hate when people blare music whilst camping, how if that’s what they want to hear, they oughta just stay home and leave the woods in peace. Then I remembered I once had a mix cd titled, “Sitting around a campfire drinking cheap beer out of a broken cooler Music”. Ok, I’ll admit to a little hypocrisy, but dammit there wasn’t any fucking AC/DC on that cd. Anyway, I’m a grouchy old man and I’m sure when I was younger I might have pissed off an old person or two in the days of Natural Light and stolen steaks.

Oh Clinton Lake, we were some rowdy beer-soaked bastards.


This whole trip reminds me of the Ultimate Road Trip that Jason and I took in those younger poorer days, when nothing beat splitting a smoke, sitting on a rock, and making do with what little we had brought.

Oh, days pass and they pass and don’t we wish just now and then we could pluck one from the rack like an old record and let it spin if only for an hour?

UPDATE: The Next Morning: Karma is great, one of the AC/DC guys backed his truck into a tree, pretty hard by the sound of it, too. Heh heh heh.