I strip down to my bandeau and dramatically throw my shirt onto the counter, then return to the cast iron Lodge pan in the sink. It rests there, the most precious thing in the kitchen, an expensive and intimidating piece I probably shouldn't touch. I’ve already detached our nylon bristled brush from its detergent handle and am scrubbing furiously, watching the caked egg slowly disintegrate under the hot water. Where the bristles fail, I use my fingernails. The egg rolls up like sweat on skin.
These pans last decades, they say, so I hunch over the sink basin imagining generations of women postured the same. As I clean, I wonder if the investment is worth my time. A ceramic pan would be sparkling by now.
But a Lodge pan evokes certain feelings, and this is what we buy. Our "return to nature" is characterized not just by rugged cast iron but a tough-built Yeti cooler and a smorgasbord of snacks. A bit of cleanup is to be expected, except that on quick trips like this it gets shoved into reality, delayed until I'm home again, surrounded by too much stuff.
As I dry the pan, I think of this burden of "stuff", the things we don't easily abandon. I’d like to think most of the items in our house are Logan’s, but I find pieces of myself everywhere, stuffed in drawers and at the back of kitchen cabinets. I mock Logan’s POP! figures but buy stuffed mice with long, dangling legs for the mantel.
And then there are things that are ours: Our backpacking gear is overflowing on the top shelf of our closet; our climbing gear is tossed around the garage; and our camping gear now requires a closet of its own. The pans and our Kingdom Six REI tent (which feels like a palace for two) are not replacements for our current inventory, but additions, extra things we keep and carry.
And if backpacking is a practice in what not to bring, then camping is a lesson in what you should, or could, like extra blankets and a tablecloth to cover the picnic table.
And for what? To create an experience dissimilar to our daily lives; to transfer ourselves, like paper dolls, to new scenes. Saturday night, hovered around a campfire made from moist logs, Josh, Logan, Danielle and I roasted hotdogs and warmed our hands with boiled apple cider. We talked about the sky, and the darkest places we've been. Logan's was back home, in the Illinois countryside. Mine was on the forested, peninsula roads of Acadia National Park in Maine, the only time I feared falling into the sea.
Our campsite at R Haven Family Campground wasn't nearly as black. But at least here, we could count the constellations.
Nearing midnight, I crawled next to Logan in our magnificent TETON, two-person sleeping bag and latched onto him for warmth. He was wearing a monkey onesie.
The next morning, the golden light bounced off the yellow and red trees and illuminated the dew.
I walked to the bathhouse and rinsed our dishes from the night before, then used Josh's knife to slice the bacon in half. I held nearly a pound of it in my hand until the first six slices sizzled and crisped, and then the second six, and the third...
Each minute we waited in the yellow breeze was one minute closer to dusk. Our hike at Cloudland Canyon State Park 11 miles away would take only three hours, which meant we had five hours to eat our breakfast. We finished our meal in five minutes instead, a fraction of the time it took to scrub the pan that cooked it. And then we sat around the fire, which rose modestly to the sky. I sipped my apple cider, cold, and watched the discarded egg shells char around the edges.
