John Goes Camping

New Year’s Eve
Dropped our son Mike off at his home in Madison on New Year’s Eve and spend the remainder of the night at our friends house eating ‘surf n turf’ off of the grill, washing it down with beer and wine in true Wisconsin tradition.

New Year’s Day
After an excellent breakfast and conversation, it was time to head to Uncle Paul and Aunt Shirley’s in Appleton where Diane and I will spend the night. Spending the night before the trip was done to make sure I’m ready by 7:00 am to board the 22 ton, 34 foot long internal combustion powered missile I’m going to call home for the next month. Stopped at the Stone Cellar Brew Pub to tip a few excellent stouts and have some pizza with friends before reporting to camp. Seven pm Diane and I were at Paul and Shirley’s where we had a couple more beers before turning in for the night. Six o’clock was wake up time, so I needed to set an alarm for the first time in a long time. Since all I had was my watch, I started pressing buttons to figure out how to set an alarm. Now my watch is way cool. It is synchronized with the Atomic clock in Boulder CO, so it never needs setting. It has a battery that is recharged by solar cells, so I never change batteries. So basically, I never use the buttons on my watch; therefore I don’t know how to use the three alarms that can be set on it. I got through it though and was fairly confident it would go off at 6. The only issue was I don’t know how to unset it. In other words, I will be getting up at 6 every morning from this day on until I do figure it out.Lights out, time to get some shut eye….man it’s dark in here, maybe I should get my flashlight in case I have to get up tonight. After 5-10 minutes going through my bag, I came to the conclusion that I’ve lost my flashlight before the trip has even started. Man, it was my favorite one, it’s either at our friends’ house, or I left it on the cupboard at home. I’m not sure, but I’ve still got a spare smaller one for the trip, so all is still good.