Farewell Party

We kept the party mellow. Nobody got crazy. I sipped a beer and thought that beer was just as gross as I remembered it. It was to be a few years before I realized that my problem was with Budweiser, and that there really are good tasting beers out there. I tried the orange wine cooler, and that tasted pretty good. Life was good.

People came and went from around the campfire back to their tents. After a couple of beers, Dewey couldn’t stop laughing and telling us all the latest stories about his Martian friend Moshkeloge. He eventually laid down in front of the cook tent and went to sleep.

After sundown, Moose took me off to the side. “Some of the crew have been in their tent for a long time. I’d like to just check on them and make sure they’re okay, but they might be doing things that if I saw, I’d just have to do something about. Could you go check on them? All I need to know is if they are okay.”

“Sure, Moose!” I stood up, and then realized that I had killed almost a whole two-liter bottle of orange wine cooler. And I never drank alcohol. It was a wobbly walk to the tent. I hollered, “Knock, knock!” before I opened the tent flap.

Everybody was okay. They were all just sitting around on cots talking about astronomy and music in a smoky tent. I joined in the conversation. Somebody eventually said, “You’ve had a few, huh, George?” and chuckled.

“Yeah. Almost a whole two-liter bottle.” And then it dawned on me. “Oh, no! The hangover!” I grabbed my head.

Mark said, “Hangovers happen because you get dehydrated. Drink all the water you can before you go to sleep.”

“I’m gonna do just that!” I said and left the tent. I scrounged around for my one quart water bottle and filled it at the filtered water pump. I found Moose and plopped down into a camp chair next to her.

“Everybody is fine.”

“Thanks, George.”

Throughout the rest of the evening I killed two water bottles (of water) while chatting with Moose, Tammi, the NPS workers, and the packers. Everybody started tossing their empty beer cans around the sleeping Dewey.

And so ended our last night in the Backcountry.