Campsite in Sproul State Forest, Early November

The weather has been wonderful these past few days. My husband and I are backpackers (him more so than me); and he had promised me that last weekend would be our final backpack of the fall, as the hours of darkness are encroaching quickly. But with such great weather, we reconsidered.

So Friday morning (yet another of my Freedom Fridays), we packed up our gear, and by lunchtime, we were on our way to Sproul State Forest for yet another backpack trip. I'll have to check my notes, but I suspect that this year I may have set some kind of record for the number of these trips I've gone on.

Our leaving was not easy. At the last minute, the kitchen sink began to leak. I cleaned it up and put a container beneath it to catch the drips. We opened up the cabinet doors and put a fan on the area for the hour or so that we had available. It'll have to wait to get fixed until we get back.

Just before we left, I turned the fan off and went to move it, and the handle broke off and fell down into the fan mechanism. A low-probability event: as I mentioned, leaving the house is not always easy!

We stopped for a pair of Burger King whoppers on the way. Sometimes even just one "real" meal on the way can make a big difference; we don't generally take a stove along or build a fire, so I knew that it would be cheese sandwiches and yogurt and snack bars and nuts from there on out. So I cherished my whopper!

By early afternoon, we had parked my car and gotten our gear out and strapped everything on our packs, as one does. Our hike into the site we call Pine Glen is a short one (relatively speaking), and so we did not travel light.

My husband brings along not just one but FOUR sleeping pads now, as he sleeps better when he is comfortable. He brought two LED lanterns for evening, and a hammock. And of course, we each brought a folding bag chair; it's so nice to have a REAL chair in the backwoods.

I had strapped onto my pack a small blue table, for playing cards by lantern light. The only amenities of civilization you will find in the woods are those you bring with you. My husband used to travel light, but I think I have corrupted him somehow. (I think of Out of Africa, one of our favorite movies. No, I don't travel with the Limoges china, but I do play Karen to his Denys, at least in the wilderness.)

My personal philosophy in backpacking, as in all things, is to get my work out of the way as soon as possible so that I may play without guilt. And so I am usually first to set up my tent. It takes about 10 minutes to set the tent up, about another 10 to get the gear inside. First I clear the area, then I put down a ground sheet. Then I crawl around on the ground sheet checking for (and removing) bumps underneath.

Then up goes the tent: out comes the tent itself, then I put together the poles, slide the poles through, snap the tent snaps to the poles, and finally secure the tent to the ground with tent stakes. We hardly ever camp out in bad weather so I don't even usually put the tent fly on. With the tent's huge stargazer panel, I am open to the sky, to the trees, to the stars, to the moon!

Then I unzip a side door (there's one on each side) and put my stuff in: two blankets to cover the floor, three sleeping pads, a sleeping bag, even a pillow. Yes, I bring a small pillow; it's so civilized. Voila! Ready for the night. (You may have a closer look at my set-up here.)

My husband often waits until near darkness to put up his own tent, but on this day, he wasn't far behind me. The light is shorter now, and daylight is gone from our campsite by about 6:30 pm. There isn't a lot of time to waste. He also put up a hammock behind our campsite, and a clothes line for hanging out clothes and airing out gear.

This is our campsite in Sproul when it has been completely set up. You can see the hammock in the upper left, by the clothes line. His and hers camping: the tent and chair on the left are mine; the ones on the right are his.

I am often asked, when I post pictures of our campsites, why my husband and I do not share a tent. And my answer is this: we used to, for many years. But no tent is ever big enough to hold the number of people it claims comfortably, and anything you do in the night disturbs the other(s). Let's be honest: your basic two-man tent is big enough for about one person.

My own tent is supposedly a three-man tent; I would tell you, people, they would have to be awfully small, good-smelling, polite, non-gaseous, non-squirmy individuals for it all to work out well. My three-man tent fits me - one small woman - nicely, with plenty of room left over for my stuff. I can even put my backpack inside if I need to, but when night comes, I usually just hang it from a branch of a nearby tree.

Once we had our campsite set up, I walked around taking pictures, as I am wont to do. You can see that the hammock in the upper left actually has my husband in it. He was working with it, and somehow it kept coming out too low. His posterior was dragging and I was laughing at him (sorry, couldn't help myself).

I walked back to ask if he might pose for a picture for me in his hammock, and my husband (dangit, that man can be a surly cuss) gave me "the finger!" I guess being a constant photo subject can be a stress and a burden sometimes. Also, I don't think he liked me mocking his hammock-hanging skills.

Our campsite was quiet and peaceful, and as dusk fell, I saw the white flip of white-tailed deer tails not far away. The animals are often on the move at the times of changing light: sunrise and sunset. The high for the day was 52 degrees F, so we were quite comfortable.

Except for the one tick that I removed from my pants each of the two days we were out, we were not bothered by any bugs at all, as opposed to last weekend's trip to Quehanna, where I was beset by deer keds, a variety of biting fly. I chased at least two dozen of them off me in Quehanna, and came home with at least a half-dozen bites. They like to bite you right at the hair line, and the bumps don't come up and get itchy till later on. Sneaky little suckers!

When night fell, my husband got the two LED lanterns out (you may see one hanging from the tree on the left) and hung them nearby, and we drew our chairs up around our little blue table and played a rollicking couple of games of Uno. Though I am must tell you that as it grows darker, it's awfully hard to tell blue from green. In any case, I was handily beaten at Uno before we finally gave up on the game.

Of course, we had our tunes on the whole time we were there - my husband takes along small speakers and an iPod, which contains some of the most marvelous music we own; it is the soundtrack of our lives.

We were listening to some mighty fine Who songs - the second album from their 1989 double live set, Join Together. And the Pete Townshend song Just a Little Is Enough just seemed especially fabulous, so I'm using it as my soundtrack song for this scene. (Though, in looking at all of our gear, you might think that a LOT - and not a little - is enough!)

The song was first released on Pete Townshend's original 1980 solo effort, Empty Glass, which is considered by many to be the best Who album that never was. The song also appears on the second album from the Who's 1989 double live set, Join Together, which I own and highly recommend (the first album features the entire rock opera Tommy; both albums are fabulous). So here is Pete Townshend, with A Little Is Enough.

I'm also going to include a little story I found online about this song, a tale I never knew till now:

"Meher Baba's secretary Adi Irani made a visit to London around this time, I tried to get his advice. 'My wife doesn't love me anymore,' I said. 'What should I do?' 'She doesn't love you at all?' he wobbled his head as he spoke. 'She said she loved me a little.' 'Ah!' Adi clapped his hands and smiled. 'A little! That's good. Love is universal. Limitless. So even a little is enough.' I wrote a song called 'A Little Is Enough,' and recorded it using the same system as I'd used on 'Let My Love Open The Door.' Although I'd always thought my love songs were terrible, I think this is one of the best songs I've ever written." - Pete Townshend.