Praying for Foul Weather

Whenever I stay at my in-laws I bring my tent and sleep in the back yard. I just think it’s easier this way. It avoids all the suffering and tears that inevitably follow from spending more time inside with everyone else… not to mention the runny nose, itchy ears, and all the sneezing. I have pretty bad allergies, you see, and their old family farm house has a lot of triggers for me.

As a father of two young children and with all the commitments that go along with that role, It’s been fun to make our frequent trips to the family farm into mini-campouts. It’s also become my own little gear lab. I generally pray for foul weather, and get a kick out of testing my various gear combinations without the risk that would accompany pushing the limits further from shelter.

This talk of “pushing the limits” might sound a bit overblown for a guy who is camping in the back yard, but it should be noted that I live in Minnesota. When it’s winter here, even a walk to the mailbox can be an experience of “pushing the limits!” At any rate, I sleep outside year round, and when it came to Christmas this year, even I was pretty sure that I would not last the night outdoors.

Our first night there was unseasonably warm. It was slightly above freezing all day long. This did not please me since, as I said earlier, I pray for foul weather. My night out passed without event, but I was awoken suddenly by the voice of my wife, “Alex, Alex!!! Get up!!! You’re going to miss it!!!” Groggily, I fumbled with the zippers on my sleeping bag, tossed on my down puffy, and emerged from my crunchy tent. There stood my wife clad in nothing but mukluks, her nightgown and a smile (why doesn’t every night of sleeping out end this way?) The reason for her smile was obvious. The sky was aflame with the rising sun. We crashed through the crusty snow taking pictures and laughing. Sometimes I’m glad that I have allergies.

It was the second night that my wish for bad weather was to be granted. Throughout the day the weather stations talked of the temperatures “falling off the shelf” and the arrival of high winds causing blizzard conditions. The winds were to arrive in the afternoon and temperatures were to reach -18°F as the night progressed. In hopeful expectation, I had brought two down bags (a 40° bag and a 15° bag) which I planned to nest one inside the other. For sleeping pads I brought my RidgeRest SOLite as the first layer, followed by my NeoAir Xlite. All of this was then to be snuggly inserted into my new single walled, 1 person, 4 season tent.

I had not personally slept out in conditions like this before. I’d done -8° with no wind, and a of couple years ago (again, during Christmas at the farm) I slept in an igloo with temps around -11, but igloos are famously warm by comparison, and wind dramatically changes things in the winter, so this really was going to be a different ballgame.

As the day went on, the predictions came true. The winds began to howl across the lake from the northwest, and the temperatures steadily dropped. Finally the time had come. With a nice full tummy of bacon wrapped li’ll smokies and and two shots of olive oil, filled my water bottle with hot water, grabbed my pee bottle and left the cozy warmth of the house for my tent.

It was perfect. The wind was surging through the trees with an enormous roar. It was like daggers, stinging any exposed skin. Off to bed. Getting situated with two bags, various bottles and all the zippers was a bit of a chore, but once settled in, it was a heavenly experience. All around me was this weather that we’d been worrying away at all day. To be exposed to it for even a short length of time would quickly kill anyone. And yet, here I was, in it, touching it, listening to it, tasting it. The tent shuddered against the wind, and the night went on.

At one point, I don’t know when, I woke up. To my surprise I was too warm. The wind was still howling. I got a nice shower of frost in my face as I unzipped my bags. “Need more ventilation,” I thought, so I unzipped the door. What greeted my eyes was much more than ventilation. The clouds had blown over and in their wake was a sea of icy stars flooding the sky. Not expecting that, I was gripped anew with child-like wonder. I spent the next several minutes with frozen hands fiddling with my camera trying to get a decent exposure before finally zipping back into my warm cocoon.

I found out later that temperatures had got down to -20°F. Though I did not expect to make it through the night, I ended up being toasty warm the entire time. Unfortunately, I was not greeted by my wife this time as I emerged from my tent, but I was sure to return the favor by crawling into bed with her and giving her a chilly hug once I got inside. Sometimes I’m glad that I have allergies… sometimes.

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Note: I wrote after Christmas in 2014 but never got around to posting, so all references to weather conditions are dated.

An Unexpected Visit

As I was running down a lonely gravel road today, I heard from behind me what sounded like an approaching waterfall. Just as I was noticing this, wind began to blow grass and dust past me from behind. I stopped and spun around only to be stunned by the realization that I was now in the middle of a quickly rotating mass of air. It was about 25 feet across and surging all around me, blowing the grass and dust into a ring of frantic activity. It was marvelously unexpected. I must have looked like a dazed five-year-old standing there in the middle of the road slack-jawed and wide-eyed.

Slowly the vortex began to move off of the road and out into a bean field, contracting and expanding as it went. Not wanting to let the experience go, I ran after it through the knee-high beans. Now the presence of the funnel was even more obvious for it flattened the beans nearly to the ground as it spun over them with enough force to occasionally rip off leaves and send them spinning a hundred feet or so into the air.

I clumsily dashed about for a bit trying to capture the most intense center of the little devil, but eventually I realized I wasn’t likely to experience anything better than I already had already been gifted with, so I stopped. I stood there for maybe five minutes or so watching it work its way across the field, snatching up bean leaves and twirling them skyward. Above me the sky was blue, dotted only with the occasional puffy cloud. Grinning from ear to ear, I pulled some bean stalks out of my running sandals and walked back to the road.

What a strange thing, this life.