Camping Ambers

Manny The Amazing Chef lets Sam try his 'Simple Vanilla Infused Syrup.'

Yay The Bench is Won! Check out that cute tree stump on the left.

Sam and I by the fire. What will I do without that "uncle-ah" for more than 2 months?

Nicole and I reading The Psychic Soviet and trying to evoke a Feminist Forest Revolution. Our efforts were drowned by everyone else grabbing their books and reading behind us. Death to pluralism!

Colin and Nicole before Colin leaves the band to pursue his solo career. Dig our bootiful tent in the background.

Mt. San Jacinto popped up like an alter-region of Southern California, and me like some mountain-deprived freak loved every bit of it.

Manny, Colin, Nicole, Sam and I reached the camping ground around 4pm, and after rejecting the original site allocated to us due to its children-manifested chaos, finally found our one-night home at a quieter, less terrifying Stony Creek. Since tent-setting took us 20 minutes instead of the proclaimed 5-hours, we had to pretend to hike around a bit before getting down to business, that is, finish off every bit of food we brought.

Manny was the chef du jour, and he brought the world's best kitchen into the wild. Zuccini, red peppers, onions on skewers, pita, snacks, veggie dogs, etc., his skills surpassed anything I'd have fancied working up. And mind you, this guy braved a bad cold to make all these gourmet preparations. Our night was spent in bliss round the fire, lapping up songs from Colin's guitar like "There is no death," "Long live death" from our made-believe band "The Drifting Ambers". Attempts to tell ghost stories a là East/west Comparatives got sidestepped for excessive love and beer all around. Tell me a year ago that I'd have made such dear friends in LA so quickly and so undeservingly, and I'll laugh to the mountains. Last night, there were plenty of laughing, but we were all up there doing it. Clearing our meals by 10 o'clock because we couldn't trust Nature's Maid, i.e. a bear, to do it, the last firewood crackled sleep.

Eddie, since he could not join us, lent me a thick comfy sleeping bag that proved to be more comfortable than my bed back home. The next morning, we were awakened by Colin's voice speaking through the "e-cord" (Manny's tent came with an outlet for electrical plugs, as camping 6000ft above ground naturally demands it). Coffee, eggs and breakfasts later, we trotted around a lake before heading down to our land of freeways and auto sales. I miss Mt. San Jacinto, and I'm proud to say that I didn't open a single page of the Being and Time that I brought up. Of course, my hubris of being a Dasein expert by the time we came down the mountain was exposed. But that's how people become experts in things, right? More camping guys, when I come back in July. Mmmmm...