Bit of a row…

On My Terms recently invited me to camp with her and her family in the Teton National Forest. I graciously accepted the offer and asked how, exactly, they were camping and what I should do to prepare.

She informed me they would be renting a cabin and a few cabin tents.

“We can have a campfire and camp grill at the cabin tents,” she informed me.

“Do the cabins have loos?” I asked.

“Yes and heat,” she replied.

Wanting heat and others to prepare my meals, I immediately got online and reserved myself a cabin with two double beds, a twin bed, a desk (for penning letters), a toilet, bathroom sink, a shower, and a heater.

At this point in the game I was traveling alone but I figured someone would eventually decide to join me on this adventure. If they didn’t, On My Terms had alluded to the fact that, should cold air ensue, she would probably be joining me in my glamping establishment.

About a week away from the departure date I received a text from Har asking if the invitation to camp was still open. It was indeed and with that a mini high school reunion was set to take place in Colter Bay Village.

After a very long drive to the forest (we were following On My Terms who appeared to be driving there via Google’s terms) we made it to the village and, eventually, retreated to our sleeping quarters.

Har and I slept quite well and were more than ready for a day of adventure. We brewed a pot of coffee, grabbed the pot and walked up to the cabin tent where On My Terms and her family were preparing breakfast.

After a lovely camp meal we decided to give a canoe a try.

On My Terms, a regular in the canoe, had hoped to be assigned to the back of the canoe but the boys at the dock would have none of that. She became the bowman, Har was directed to the stern and me to the middle.

We began rowing and within just a few minutes rowed right into a docked boat.

“Jesus Christ! Have neither of you ever rowed a boat before?” On My Terms shouted from the front.

“I’m Greek,” Har said and added, “We’re not even supposed to camp.”

“No need to get into a row over a row,” I quipped.

Due to the lack of synchrony and my strong desire to take photos, I refrained from rowing and making further comments and, instead, I focused on documenting the occasion. Besides, anyone who rows knows that, just as there can be too many cooks in the kitchen, there can be too many paddles outside of the canoe.

My decision did not go unnoticed.

“Are you even paddling?” On My Terms inquired.

“No, she isn’t,” Har quickly replied, most likely relieved to not have On My Terms questioning her work.

“I’m documenting,” I replied and snapped another photo.

This did not deter On My Terms from her self-appointed position of captain.

“Left. Right,” she barked. “Why the fuck are we not going straight?”

“Do we need to get you a shot or a cigarette?” Har inquired.

“What you need to do is to get rowing straight. I can’t believe I’m the only one in this canoe who knows how to row. I should be in the back,” she snapped and then muttered something.

“Have you ever heard of undercurrent? It’s a real thing,” I advised, then took a selfie.

After a while we were able to better coordinate our efforts and, when we weren’t contending with undercurrents and large wakes, we rowed quite well together.

Unfortunately, our lack of coordination presented again when we pulled the canoe ashore to consider new seating arrangements. On My Terms stepped out, then I stepped out at the same time Har was stepping out. Sadly, Har got dumped into the water.

“Jesus Christ, have you no canoe etiquette?” On My Terms asked me, rhetorically.

I apologized and wished I had my camera out at that moment. To have documented that would have been amazing.

After a short break we returned to the canoe and, despite initial desires, assumed our same positions.

We made it back to the dock without further incident—we did actually take a bit of a wrong turn, but that’s what being in nature is all about.

“I can’t believe we finally got our shit together just as we are returning the canoe,” On My Terms stated.

“Rowing with new partners is like sex with a new partner,” I said. “The first few times are a little awkward. Once you get to know each other, and can better coordinate your moves, it ends.”

And with that, we returned to a task that, for the most part, does not require coordination or a long-term commitment: drinking by the campfire.

386 thoughts on “Bit of a row…”

  2. Hi, i read your blog occasionally and i own a similar one and i was just wondering if you get a lot of spam remarks? If so how do you stop it, any plugin or anything you can advise? I get so much lately it’s driving me crazy so any assistance is very much appreciated.

  3. My coder is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP. I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he’s tryiong none the less. I’ve been using WordPress on a number of websites for about a year and am worried about switching to another platform. I have heard very good things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can import all my wordpress posts into it? Any kind of help would be really appreciated!

  4. Heya i’m for the first time here. I found this board and I find It really useful & it helped me out much. I hope to give something back and help others like you helped me.

  5. Just desire to say your article is as surprising. The clarity on your put up is simply cool and i can assume you are knowledgeable in this subject. Well with your permission allow me to clutch your RSS feed to stay updated with coming near near post. Thank you one million and please carry on the rewarding work.

  8. Write more, thats all I have to say. Literally, it seems as though you relied on the video to make your point. You definitely know what youre talking about, why throw away your intelligence on just posting videos to your weblog when you could be giving us something informative to read?

  9. I believe what you posted made a ton of sense. But, what about this? what if you typed a catchier title? I am not saying your information isn’t good., but what if you added something to maybe grab folk’s attention? I mean %BLOG_TITLE% is a little vanilla. You could glance at Yahoo’s home page and see how they create post titles to grab viewers to open the links. You might add a related video or a picture or two to grab people excited about what you’ve written. Just my opinion, it would make your posts a little bit more interesting.

  13. I’m really enjoying the design and layout of your blog. It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more pleasant for me to come here and visit more often. Did you hire out a designer to create your theme? Fantastic work!

  15. After exploring a handful of the blog articles on your site, I really like your technique of blogging. I bookmarked it to my bookmark website list and will be checking back in the near future. Please check out my web site too and let me know how you feel.

  19. I am extremely impressed along with your writing talents and also with the format to your blog. Is that this a paid subject matter or did you customize it your self? Either way stay up the excellent high quality writing, it is rare to see a great weblog like this one today..

  22. When I initially commented I clicked the “Notify me when new comments are added” checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any way you can remove people from that service? Many thanks!

  25. Its like you read my thoughts! You appear to understand a lot about this, such as you wrote the book in it or something. I think that you just can do with some percent to pressure the message house a bit, but other than that, that is excellent blog. A great read. I will certainly be back.

  26. Good day! I know this is somewhat off topic but I was wondering which blog platform are you using for this site? I’m getting fed up of WordPress because I’ve had issues with hackers and I’m looking at alternatives for another platform. I would be great if you could point me in the direction of a good platform.

  28. After looking at a few of the blog posts on your web site, I seriously appreciate your technique of writing a blog. I book marked it to my bookmark webpage list and will be checking back soon. Please visit my website as well and tell me what you think.

  31. Simply wish to say your article is as astounding. The clearness in your post is simply spectacular and i can assume you are an expert on this subject. Fine with your permission allow me to grab your feed to keep updated with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please carry on the rewarding work.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *