Camp Survival 101: Location, location, location

My last dispatch, made from the cool and aromatic confines of a fast-food dining room somewhere in extreme Northeast Ohio, described my present situation. Kristin and I were living out of a tent in a fairgrounds parking lot. We had gone to the restaurant only long enough to write a column, draw a cartoon and juice up our phones. Then it was back to the lot to rejoin the 1,100 other bicyclists who had signed up for the annual week-long journey known as the Great Ohio Bicycle Adventure.

Rising at first light and pedaling 50 or so miles each day might sound like a punishment to some, but for Kristin and me, it’s a weird summertime ritual we have truly enjoyed for years. While the ride is a big part of the adventure, the whole thing wouldn’t be half the fun without the constant undercurrent of survival. There are daily missions to be made for the things that make life livable. Food, water and coffee top the list in equal measure. Showers and restroom facilities follow closely behind.

As one might easily imagine when over a thousand people are in the hunt for the same basic resources, a little bit of strategic thinking can pay huge dividends. Nowhere is this more crucial than when considering the placement of one’s tent in relation to the banks of portable field toilets that serve this vagabond community. Prime land is quick to go in the optimum area both upwind and slightly out of earshot of the constantly slamming fiberglass doors of the Porta Pots. Selecting a spot more distant than necessary can create perils of an entirely different nature. As is so often said in the world of real estate, “Location, location, location!”

Potty proximity is more crucial to the happiness and well-being of my wife than myself. After all, if you give a man a minute behind a tree wider than his shoulders, you’ve solved fully half the problem. But trees are scarce in fairgrounds parking lots, and quite frankly, for men of a certain age, nature seems to call at about a 5-to-1 ratio to that of his female contemporaries.

Further complicating the matter is the downright necessity for constant hydration while riding the bike all day. I’m chugging over a gallon of water a day on the ride alone, and trust me that stuff isn’t all evaporating off into the atmosphere. I spend half of my night wearing a zig-zag deer path between the tents to the distant Porta Pots. There, no matter the hour, I am invariably greeted in passing by the weary visages of others in my cohort. Kristin makes a single trip and sleeps soundly thereafter. I may have married a camel.

The treat of foul weather helps to even the score, as any man with a lick of sense and a slight deficiency of modesty spends a portion of his daylight hours discretely gathering empty sports drink bottles in a desperate effort to remain inside his tent throughout the rain. Women have no choice but to dash through the raindrops toward the distant slamming doors.

I made the mistake of bragging about this in a gathering of camp friends, half of whom were women. I believe one or more of them may have unleashed a curse upon me based on the events of the following night. We’ll get to that chapter next week.

Kristin and John Lorson would love to hear from you. Write Drawing Laughter, P.O. Box 170, Fredericksburg, OH 44627, or email John at jlorson@alonovus.com.