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In the mix

Sometimes the best things in life really are free.
During a hiking trip, that might be the beautiful starry skies, the windswept cliffs and the sound of a bubbling brook.
Or it could be something entirely manmade.

One of the downers of being the SLOWEST person in my hiking group during last year's trip through the High Sierras over Labor Day was being the last person to choose a tent site.
When I finally stumbled into camp after a day alternating between terror and joy -- thought I was lost a few times and then found out I wasn't -- my three trailmates had already pitched their tents and were chilling out before the evening meal.
I ended up setting mine up about 1.5 feet from where Lon would cook our supper that night.
This posed a bit of a logistics problem, but I figured it would be OK as long as my tent didn't catch fire, and Lon said it was all right.
Then came some trail socializing with a couple and their tagalong trailmate.
Sitting upright on a log and making chitchat taxed my endurance terribly. At any given moment, my system might have started shutting down from sheer exhaustion. Heck, I'd made it into camp, and now I was supposed to make nice?
The only thing I wanted was to crawl into bed.
But I joined the "fun," interrupted by a brief awkward moment.
Someone, who shall remain nameless (but it wasn't me), made a noise that indicates one's digestion is right on track.
The conversation paused and all eyes shifted to me for a moment, including the real culprit's. I wasn't sure what to do.
Should I say, "Hey, I didn't do it"? Then the noise would be acknowledged, and we'd all have to deal with it some way.
The guilty party said nothing. So I maintained silence about the gaseous elephant on the mountain we were all tiptoeing around for a second. Then someone started up the chat again.
Sure, I took the fall, but worse things have happened.
After a few more minutes, it was time for bed. That's when the miraculous happened.
Chris and Christina were the heartiest eaters during the trip, so when the wife held out a bag of brown powder and asked if they'd like some chocolate pudding, their eyes lit up.
You'd have thought it was gold.
They grabbed it and made off to the campsite. I quickly went to bed, but for several minutes I heard a chorus of ecstasy coming from Chris and Christina while they stood just outside my tent (in the cooking area) and mixed up the pudding with hot water.
They were literally singing, "Pudding! Pudding! Pudding!"
"Ouch, pudding burn!" Chris said once when the chocolate stuff spilled over onto his hand during a particularly enthusiastic stir.
But they went right back to, "Pudding! Pudding! Pudding!"
I never again saw them quite as happy as they were upon scoring the pudding, mixing it up and consuming it.
I wonder sometimes if they ever have been as happy as on that evening in the High Sierras with the pudding.

Posted by at 04:18 PM | Permalink