SeeingEyeBlog

I just got back from a camping trip from Catalina island with my brother-in-law’s brother, and some of his cousins. There were five of us, and I was told it would be a “survivor” trip, where we live off what we could procure from the surroundings. They brought fishing poles and a spear gun, and assured me we would have plenty of fish. I was excited because of the idea that we would really be living off the land, and exercising survival skills.

On the first day I saw one of the guys start eating a protein bar on the hiking trail, and I got my first clue that I might be the only one actually follwing the rules.

The second inkling came when we got to our destination beach and made camp near the northern end of the island. A couple of the guys spotted a cache of food that was dropped off by a pickup truck and abandoned. It ended up being food for a large group of boy scouts who were hiking in. So they stole a bunch of their food, and justified it by saying it was a life and death situation.

They ended up catching two fish the whole time, largely because their drive to fish went down after they started stealing food. The youngest kid with us (who just finished jr. high) found a pile of buffalo crap that apparently looked like pumpkin pie, stuck his finger in and scooped up a mouthful. I still can’t understand what was going through his mind as he extended his arm to the orange pile. I’m completely dumfounded, as we all were when he told us about what he ate.

My frustrations mounted higher after I hiked two miles to find water, and brought it back like someone in a third-world country. I was proud of finding the water by surveying the most likely part of the mountain. When I got back I learned that the rest of the guys had hiked to a civilized part of the island to buy food and water. I’m sure they were proud of their “survival skills.”

The trip was ridiculous, but it would be fun to try it again with some real survivors.