Tripped Up
Jim Jelak
There are some men who can live quite happily without wilderness. Gladly, I cannot. So imagine how I felt when the people I work for told me 48 hours before I was to leave for Ely that work demands would keep me at the office. Imagine my despair.
The packs waiting next to the door are too painful a reminder of what could have been. Too painful of a reminder of what should have been. So all of the gear is taken downstairs and stored in the basement; out of sight but not out of mind.
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Thin fingers of flame penetrate and engulf the tepee of branches in the small campfire. Thick pungent smoke spirals up, fragrant and raw. The wood, scavenged off the forest floor, is not perfect firewood due to its rotted and moist condition; yet it suits my purposes just fine and makes a perfectly acceptable little campfire.
The fire mesmerizes me. I sit in silence in the near dark and enjoy the flame, the smoke, the crackle and settling of the wood. I feed the fire more wood as it feeds me.
Songbirds chirp and flit in the trees above me, preparing for a night on the roost. The moon rises burnt orange. I enjoy my seemingly aloneness but my reverie is too soon shattered as a car chugs up the hill on the subdivision road outside the east side of my property.
It was bittersweet fun while it lasted to imagine my little campfire glowed on the shores of Friday Bay. But it is folly to try and transform my suburban landscape into an acceptable replacement for the BWCAW. I am pathetic.
What adventures did Matt and Rick enjoy this day? I sit and wonder under the orange moon. What are their thoughts this night as they sit mesmerized before their own flames more than 500 miles to the North?
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