solo camping

so, next thursday, i am going camping... alone. i have decided to do this for several reasons:

1. i have never done it.
2. it is the weekend of my 5 year anniversary, but my husband will be out of town.
3. i was trying to get a group to go camping here the following weekend but it's a "rustic" site and half of the people i camp with won't do pit toilets.
4. i have some serious thinking to do about my future in the job world and there are too many distractions in chicago to really be able to sort anything out.
5. i have had it with the city and the 800 million people and their kids.

initially, a friend was trying to get a camping group together for the weekend of June 8. we were actually slated to go memorial day weekend, but that feel through when her neice's high school thought it would be a good idea to have graduation weekend over the holiday. so our trip to Devil's Lake got cancelled. boo. THEN i decided that i was going to do Trek's Ride for Hope. i was going to camp, do the ride and then camp some more and thought i'd invite the group to come along with me. in looking for places near Waterloo, WI, i came across this rustic campsite. alas, i knew the rustic wouldn't go over well and in looking for other suitable places, it ended up falling through.

then my husband decided to go to maine over our anniversary weekend. it sounds shitty, but it's not. he has a very good reason to go at this time. so instead of try to make all of my friends camp and place where they'd have to crap in a hole, i decided to just book the damn site myself and to hell with people who didn't want to join me. and i booked it over my anniversary weekend. i never signed up for the bike ride, so i then decided to book an old campsite stand-by for our group the weekend of the 8th. camping two weekends in row! woo-hoo! bring on the ticks!

anyway, i have thought briefly about bringing someone with me, but i'm tired of dragging people around with me. scott won't go camping anymore because of his back. shannon doesn't know how to ride a bike and 99% of the reason i'm going to waterloo is to ride along the Glacial Drumlin Trail. Diane won't do the pit toilet and no-shower thing. kristin hasn't been camping with me in ages. annette probably would go, but she probably has other plans.

the creepy thing is that i'll be THE ONLY ONE at this campground the first night i'm there. of course, that is what the reserveamerica.com website says. these sites are also first-come-first-served, so anyone could show up. there are 15 sites and it seems pretty secluded, which is what i liked. but for friday and saturday night, there is someone camping RIGHT NEXT TO ME! WTF?? there will also be people in the group site down the road. i'm just hoping that no one bugs me. that the sites are far enough away that if those assholes next to me are loud, it doesn't bother me. because the last thing i want to have to do is raise a stink with a camping neighbor when i'm a solo female camper. we'll see what happens. anyway, should be interesting.

i've already started my lists. the thing about camping alone is that you can't borrow stuff from a fellow camper. of course, even when i've camped with one other person there is something we always forget... we always have to make a trip to target. i'm trying to go minimalist. you can't drive your car to the site, so i'll have to lug everything i bring down there... and i'm all the way at the opposite end. i'll end up bringing that damn huge cooler, but hopefully that will be the most annoying thing. plus the tent. and the air mattress. unless there are suitable hammock trees, then i may scrap the whole tent idea (unless it rains).

anyway, i'm going to try to blog on my iPhone while i'm there. it may not work so well. i will definitely be making facebook updates, just to let everyone know i'm still alive. :)

Fire in the Hood

we had a fire across the street from our condo tonight. i was watching the simpsons and i heard sirens. i looked out the window to the east and saw plumes of smoke wafting across the field. so i paused the dvd, grabbed my camera, keys and shoes and ran out the door. i ran into a neighbor and we joined the crowds outside. it was 5pm. a fireman was trying to wrench off the cover to the hydrant on the corner of our property. he was working very fast and getting a little frustrated because he couldn't get the hose coupling to thread correctly. he eventually got it and got the hose going. bill and i headed to the alley to the east of albany because we saw the smoke coming from that direction. this fire had happened so quickly that people were really close to the house that was on fire. at the corner of the alley and the sidewalk (about 100 yards away) we could feel the heat from the fire billowing out the back of the third floor of the building. it appeared to be an attached porch that had 10 foot flames shooting out of the top. from the front of the building, they had a hook and ladder truck spraying the fire from above. i could hear the sizzle and pop from the water hitting the flame. smoke and black ash was floating through the air, making it hard to breathe.

we then relocated to the front building and watched the firemen break out all of the windows from the sunrooms and the living rooms. eventually, the police made us all get back and they put up yellow police tape. it was weird standing on our lawn, watching this building burn. along with hundreds of our neighbors. there were at least six fire trucks that i could see on albany and argyle and in the alley. there were also about six cop cars, one parked on our lawn. there was an ambulance parked down on argyle west of troy. i had heard from a fireman in the alley that there was an old woman on the first floor. i read on the tribune later that someone went to swedish covenant hospital in fair-to-serious condition from a medical condition not related to the fire. and, as the fire was raging through the back of the building, i hoped to God that there wasn't anyone on the top two floors.

eventually, we went back to our condos. some of the fire trucks left around 6:15. as of 8pm, they were all gone, but the road was still blocked off. it is now 8:48pm and Com Ed is working in front of the building to cut off the gas lines, i'm assuming. Here are some pics of the building before the fire.

here is the burning out building in its final state. i'm sure they'll board up the windows tomorrow. and i'm also sure this will sit empty and bombed out for quite some time.

more updated photoshop stuff

updated photoshop job