It was 37 degrees the night before, but I was still excited to get up on Saturday, September 22nd, 2018 and ride towards Mauston & Necedah, WI to camp in Buckhorn State Park. https://dnr.wi.gov/topic/parks/name/buckhorn/
If there’s not snow on the roads, I need little excuse to ride somewhere. My friend Beefy has had a rough time of late, and he’s taking a rare and amazing space of time for himself. 7 days camping in a remote location alone; alone except for me joining him for one night. I had just come back from camping at the Tomahawk Rally and had a couple of new pieces of gear I was eager to try out.
I already carry a small complement of survival gear in my bags at all time: tactical flashlight, husqvarna hand axe, emergency fire starting materials (dryer lint, etc), towel, emergency hand warmers, and various other crap. The new gear I was bringing was a hand chainsaw and a Klymit sleeping matt.
You can see the chainsaw here. This comes from some experiences camping with just my hand axe and getting worn out trying to harvest deadfall. The good news is, the thing works well. The bad news is, it will make you overly confident and you’ll spend way too much time sawing through a 12″ log.
The Klymit sleeping pad is my second new addition. Compared to my ancient self-inflating Coleman sleeping pad, it’s a huge improvement. It packs up into about 1/3 the space, but you have to blow it up. Well, this non-smoker can inflate the Klymit in about 30 seconds and it is more comfortable and keeps you off the ground and warm. A good upgrade for sure. It still takes < 5 minutes to set up my camp.
We had an outrageously wet August & September in Wisconsin this year. Closer to Lake Michigan in places like Port Washington this mean roads washed out and homes flooded. Out in North-Central Wisconsin, it just meant standing water all over the place. Standing water means mosquitoes. Unbelievable plagues of mosquitoes. I just utterly hate any “real” bug spray with Deet in it, it makes me sick. I’ve tried a lot of natural repellents such as various kinds of wood (peña wood is a popular one) , lemon-eucalyptus bug sprays, and the like. The fact is, out in the north woods I can spray the organic shit directly on the mosquitoes and they lap it up like catnip. Only fire, tons of smoke, and/or extreme cold will do.
No problem. We’ll just make a fire. But everything is extremely wet. It’s been raining like crazy for a month. No problem: I’ll just cut wood in half, saw deadfall in half with my new hand chainsaw. Trim tiny slivers off with my Coupon Cutter. Shave magnesium filings off the primitive firestarter.
Fine, bust out the lighter.
Fine, bust out the bag of dryer lint I keep in my saddlebags for emergencies.
Fine, bust out the bone-dry peña wood I brought up just in case.
FINE. Pour the kerosene meant for the camp lamps onto this fucking mess.
I consider myself pretty good with fire, I can usually get a fire started with pretty primitive means, like careful knife work and a magnesium fire starter. It took us two hours to get a fire started. Still, when it’s a couple guys in the woods, what else do you have to do besides drink beer while you work on the fire?
Food acquired, we set about the work of cooking steak and mushrooms in a large cast iron pan. I’m a pretty handy cook at home, and I love primitive cooking. It was made easier this time by Beefy bringing his cage and more kitchen gear than I can usually fit in saddlebags. Glorious ribeyes and beers by an open fire are among the great simple pleasures of being alive.
Speaking of Beefy’s cage: I have a poor track record of converting cagers to riders. My wife is the only one I can claim credit for. However, we talked at length about how things were changing for him and that it was reasonable he could get a two-wheeled freedom machine soon. Another brother of the road? Yea, life is good.
My 3-layer military sleep system of nested bags can be a bit difficult to get into after a lot of beers, but waking up in extreme cold provides the necessary clarity. Beefy made eggs over a campfire that, once again, took too long to get rolling, and I rolled home and left him in his solitude.
two wheeled thoughts 