Napped like I earned it.

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I hadn't been awake long, well, really awake.  I hit a wall like a speeding car.  Came to a dead stop, crashed, but didn't burn.  Good sleep.  Really good.  I was hoping it would reset my schedule, or offer the opportunity for it.  That didn't work out.  Still, gotta do what you gotta do. 

Before I found out I may have a minor financial disaster to work, I ordered some things.  Among the items are a couple of wool blankets.  Not the pressed ones, the real things.  They do come covered in... something.  Something nasty.  Reminds me of  the peacoat I was issued in the service, at least before it was sent away for cleaning.  I think that was the first thing that happened, before we even took them anywhere.  Fitted, name stenciling, then off to the cleaners.  The other smell was of the dungaree blue.  They must have died those things for a week, several times.  I don't think that odor ever came off.  Still, no problem.  But I don't want to take them to a dry cleaner.

With a front loading washer, after an initial cold wash, I'll probably just hang them somewhere.  My clothes-line isn't strong enough to handle them.  I'll figure something out.  They weren't actually too awfully smelly until they got wet.  I had almost thought to just let them go, but... just couldn't.  Glad I didn't.  I could only imagine being out in the wilds and having them get wet for the first time.  Beside being nasty to the nose, the stuff they use is damned toxic.  Won't kill a critter like me, but could make me sick.  Out in the bush is not a good place to be sick.

As I said, I am gearing up for functional camping.  I won't have a cellphone, I won't be taking home appliances, I won't have this, or that, or the other thing.  I hope to have just the basics, man style, perhaps a fishing license and minor gear, enough food to allow me to merely scrape by though for an extra three days, a couple of means of cleaning water, basic cleaning and medical kit, cordage, cutting, and fire starter gear with a notion to learn how to make fire without that.  Some hiking, some fishing, and sleeping as need be.  The first trip will be, perhaps, what others consider a two day trip.  I will give myself four days, and prep for that, just in case.  I can choose where to go, to make sure I have a source of water, room to camp without being trampled by hordes of others, and some other things.  I haven't decided where to go yet, but I have been, roughly, looking for a while.  There are several possible choices.  I have to take an easier course first.

Maybe just a pipe dream.  But it's there.  I have most gear, I just wanted a decent axe, wool blankets, tarpline, and a few other things.  I do have 550 parachute cord, but it isn't dependable.  I bought it before I realized that there are a lot of fakes out there of that.  I want cordage that I know.  I'll compare some of the stuff I buy to some of the stuff I have, to see where it really fits.  Who knows if I will ever get out.  I will be ready if I end up, one day, after planning and plotting and hording, to just go.

Yeah.  Even before Mark Twain, both myself and my brother always wanted to... just go.  A few years, some experience and other experiences, and... perhaps... a little planning isn't a bad thing after all.  It's not like we never did go, but to mixed results.  But then again, that is camping, or even life.  The draw, or the ideal, will never be the real.  But that is why, when you are done, you go home, I suppose.  It's the attempt at perfecting the real that is the draw.  Not to make the ideal real, but just the reverse.  To learn to live with, and enjoy, the real... come what may.  Same with all of my efforts after the brass rounds dropped and I realized I could make real, but real wasn't ideal, and what those differences are. 

Hmm?  Don't know.  Almost sleep talking.  Later.