2012 Guy’s Camp Out: Frogs, Flooding and Fire

Another camp out is in the books. Staying true to Guy’s Camp Out tradition, this one started out a little wet, but dried off just in time. Even though the rain spoiled our fishing tournament, the flooded creek created it’s share of classic Guy’s Camp Out memories. More on that in the pictures and videos below.

NOTE: For some of the videos, I made the rookie mistake of holding the camera vertically instead of horizontally, so I apologize for the small picture. For the video of Randy crossing the creek, I started vertical and switched to horizontal, which causes all sorts of craziness when you try to watch the video. Damn shame, too, because it’s probably the best video from the camp out.

The fun started with this little guy, who kinda looks like he’s flipping me off. I snagged him while I was searching for firewood and managed to slip him into Bill’s cargo pants pocket. It was a direct violation of Bill’s “no pranks” rule, but I think we all know that when you try to enforce a rule like that, you’re really just asking to be pranked. Bill found the frog a few minutes later and tried to stick it down my shirt. Good times.

Here’s a shot of the campsite during a round of horseshoes. In the past, we’ve placed the horseshoe pits about 10 feet behind the chairs on the left, but this year we put them closer to the action. Whoever made that decision, it was a good call.

While everyone was out on a 4-wheeling trip, John took the opportunity to channel his inner caveman by building what was probably the biggest fire in Guy’s Camp Out history.

A little horseshoes — that’s Team Bill & Bill — as seen through John’s bonfire.

All that fire building (and a couple beers) convinced John to brave the rapids and take a swim.

At around 5 o’clock, a few of the guys decided to try to take their 4-wheelers across the flooded creek. Bill and Randy made it across. Bill Rahn tried, too. He wasn’t as lucky.

After John and Jason dragged Bill and his 4-wheeler back to shore (see that video here), Randy showed Bill how it’s done by hauling ass back across the creek.

This is what happens when you drown your 4-wheeler in a creek. After an oil change and some sputtering around, the old Foreman was running like new. Bill decided against another attempt at crossing the creek, because he’s a big pussy.

It was slightly stupid of me, but I decided to crouch down behind the horseshoe pit to capture some of the action. After Bill almost hit me with a horseshoe (see that video here), I went to the other end to capture Randy and John in action. As you’ll see in this video, John does his best to distract Randy, but Randy still scores. I have no idea what John is saying to Randy and I’m not sure I want to know, either.

Darkness fell pretty quickly that night. Here’s a cool shot of John’s bonfire. To create those sparks, I told Jason to give one of the logs a kick. He doesn’t mind sticking his feet in roaring fires, so he agreed.

John had a beer, and some Southern Comfort. And another beer, and some more Southern Comfort. By 9 p.m., John was  “Bill drunk.” (NOTE: “Bill drunk” is term used to described anyone who gets really fucking wasted. I’m talking falling backwards in their chair wasted. Sort of like Bill used to get back in early days of the camp out.) 

Bill had a few too many beers and couldn’t find a tree, so he said “Fuck  it” and pissed his pants. He claims Randy poured water on his pants, but we all know the truth.

We’ll end on a good note. Bill, Randy and Josh chatting around the fire. All in all, I’d say it was a good camp out. Only 361 days until next year’s throwdown. Where will you be on June 1, 2013?

“My man MCA has a beard like a billy goat”

“Well I got to keep it going keep it going full steam / Too sweet to be sour too nice to be mean / On the tough guy style I’m not too keen / To try to change the world I will plot and scheme.”

– Adam “MCA” Yauch on “Intergalactic” (1998)

Music is an important but often overlooked component of any camp out. Bill mentioned it in an email last week (having someone in charge of music), and I agree completely.

When no one is in charge of the music, the results can be disastrous. The playlist continues unchecked and, before you know it, we’ve listened to an entire Nickelback album, and that’s no fun for anyone. Sure, you can avoid that torture by putting the playlist on shuffle, but then you end up having AC-DC followed by Britney Spears. Have you ever listened to “Thunderstuck” and “Baby One More Time” back-to-back? Your ears will bleed.

So yes, we definitely need to get the “music situation” under control.

I wasn’t really sure what the solution was or what the playlist would include (who am I to decide what tunes should be played?), but then something terrible happened: Adam Yauch died.

Most of us know Adam better as MCA, the gravely-voiced, big brother-like member of the Beastie Boys who spit rhymes like “droppin’ science like Galileo dropped the orange” (“The Sounds of Science”) and “I’ve got more rhymes than I’ve got gray hairs, and that’s a lot because I’ve got my share.” (“Sure Shot”).

For millions of 30-something year old white guys like me, the Beastie Boys were our first foray into hip hop and defined music for us for 25 incredibly awesome years. I consider myself very lucky to have seen the Beastie Boys in concert, even if it was only once (with Bill in 2004 at Philly’s Wachovia Center).

It’s funny how the Beastie Boys and I continued to be linked by camping. My earliest memory of listening to the Beastie Boys, and probably the moment I really fell in love with them as a group, was listening to “License to Ill” in a tent with Brian Hanford during a Boy Scout campout in 1988. (Was it a Boy Scout campout with Brian Hanford? I don’t remember him being a Boy Scout, but in my memory, he was there.)

We were listening to “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” and “Paul Revere” on a shitty little boom box and it must have been a little too loud (is there any other way to listen to the B-Boys?) because one of the adult Scoutmasters came over and yelled at us to turn it down. For a 13-year-old boy, that moment of rebelliousness was like a drug and I’ve been hooked on the Beasties ever since.

And so, to pay homage to Adam, I propose that the music at this year’s campout be a 50/50 mix of Beastie Boys tracks and whatever else dares to go up against it. Hell, if it were up to me, it would 100 percent Beastie Boys, but sometimes you have to listen to other stuff in order to realize how awesome a band really is, right?

Throwin’ down with some horseshoes

In addition to fishing, poker, and pulling devious pranks on each other, one of the other activities that has become a camp out tradition is horseshoes. We’ve been playing it at the camp out for as long as I can remember, and we tinker with the idea of a horseshoe tournament every year, but we never really make it happen.

Until this year.

I propose we pair up in teams of two and throw down in the First Annual Camp Out Horseshoes Tournament. The winning team wins … who cares. I don’t know what the winning team will win, other than bragging rights. If anyone has any ideas, leave a comment.

In preparation for our horseshoe showdown, I did some research into the game itself. The following rules and guidelines come from the National Horseshoe Pitchers Association (NHPA), which means they know what the fuck they’re talking about when it comes to chuckin’ shoes.

LAYOUT – The stakes should be 40 feet apart and should protrude 14 inches out of the ground. We never measure the distance between the stakes, but we probably should.

TURNS – The player who scored last throws first in each round. He throws both shoes and then the other player throw both of his shoes.

SCORING – There are two types of scoring methods in horseshoes: cancellation and count-all. We typically use the cancellation method. I like this method, even though it can get a little confusing, because it makes it exciting late in the game when you might have to cancel out the opposing team’s winning points in order to stay alive.

POINTS – Official rules award three points for a ringer (both bumps (“calks”) on the tips of the shoe are past the stake) and one point for a shoe within 6 inches (or one shoe width) from the stake (a.k.a. “a shoe-in”). Amateurs like us usually also give two points for a leaner. 

CANCELLATION SCORING – Only one team can score in each round. Ringers cancel each other out (a ringer thrown by both team creates “dead ringers”). For non-ringers (shoe-ins) the closest shoe gets one point. If Team A throws a shoe-in and Team B throws a ringer, the ringer cancels out the shoe-in and Team B gets three points. If Team A throws two shoe-ins and Team B throws a ringer, the ringer cancels out both shoe-ins and Team B gets three points (I could be wrong about that. I someone wants to double check, that would awesome.)

WINNING – The game ends when one team reaches 21 points. You must win by two points.

The First Annual Camp Out Trout Fishing Tournament

One of the best things about our campsite, besides being located in the middle of Bumblefuck, Egypt, is the pretty decent fishing stream that runs alongside the site. And, because it’s in Bumblefuck, you don’t really need a license to fish.

I don’t recommend fishing without a license, though. Not because you could get in trouble and have to pay a $100 fine ($50 plus two times the cost of the required license), but because I’m a firm believer that fishing without a license pisses off the fishing gods, which means you won’t catch any fish.

Not everyone usually fishes at the Camp Out, but for those who do (Bill, John, Jason, Josh, myself), I’d like to propose a camp out trout fishing tournament. I’ve even taken the liberty of coming up with a name for this camp out trout  fishing tournament. I call it, the “First Annual Camp Out Trout Fishing Tournament.”

First Annual Camp Out Trout Fishing Tournament Rules

• Whoever catches the most trout gets to choose one lure from each competitor’s tackle box (with exceptions for lures that hold serious sentimental value).

• Whoever catches the biggest (longest) fish gets to choose one lure from the tackle box of the person who catches the smallest fish.

• If two competitors tie for the most trout caught, the winner will be the competitor with the biggest (longest) fish. 

• The tournament fishing period starts at sunrise on Saturday, June 2, and ends at 8 p.m. on Saturday night. (I’m open to revising this rule. For example: Maybe we should make it a two-hour tournament, from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Thoughts?)

• All trout must be of legal length (seven inches). 

• All trout must be kept by the competitor and returned to the camp site to be counted. In other words, don’t forget your stringer. I’ll be using a creel, like this one from Dick’s ($12.99).

• If no one catches a trout, we’ll all choose one lure from our tackle box and throw it into the stream to appease the fishing gods because we’ve obviously done something to piss them off.

So there you have it, the First Annual Camp Out Trout Fishing Tournament. With any luck, we’ll all catch a bunch of fish and have some nice grilled trout for dinner. Or the winner will catch one measly brown trout and walk away with a bunch of new lures. Either way, it’ll be fun.

The camp out breakfast menu

In case you haven’t noticed from the giant title at the top of this blog, there are only 47 days until this year’s camp out. That means an email will probably be sent by either Bill or myself telling people to officially mark the date on their calendar and secure the necessary permission from wives/girlfriends/parole officers. Some of you may need permission from all three.

Since there’s only a month-and-a-half until the feast — I mean camp out — I thought I’d use this blog entry to outline the breakfast plans for Sunday morning. You may remember an entry from last year in which I debated the merits of camping breakfasts (“Go Big or Go Home?”). In that entry, I volunteered myself to be the breakfast chef for this year’s camp out and promised to prepare “a real breakfast.”

I intend to keep that promise — although I can’t promise that it’ll be “a good breakfast” — and have prepared the breakfast menu below.

Coffee and orange juice

I’ve listed coffee first on the menu because it’s the most important part of any balanced breakfast. It’ll be nice, strong, hair-on-your-chest coffee, too. For those of you who don’t drink coffee, orange juice will be served in sippy cups.

Beer pancakes

I wrote about these pancakes in a blog entry last year. Like I said in that entry, they’re basically instant pancakes made with beer instead of water. That’s right, you’ve finally got an excuse to have beer for breakfast. They might be awesome. They might be terrible. We’ll see, but I’m pretty sure they’ll be awesome. For the purposes of this menu, I’m officially calling these “beercakes.” I was going to call them “mancakes,” but that sounded funny.

Scrambled eggs

If you don’t like the idea of beercakes, it’s probably because you’re lame. In that case, or if you just want something to go with your beercakes, I’ll also make scrambled eggs. These won’t be regular old scrambled eggs. I’m going to throw in some diced green pepper, onion, and a very unhealthy amount of shredded cheddar cheese. I’m talking about a LOT of cheese. You won’t shit for a week. If that doesn’t sound good to you, you can grab a Pop Tart and  your orange juice sippy cup and sit by the fire until your diaper is ready to be changed.

Sausage

That’s right, sausage. Why no bacon? Because bacon is a pain in the ass to cook at home, which means it’s a major pain in the ass to cook in the middle of the woods in Perry County. Besides, even at its best camping bacon is always limp and half cooked. Fuck that. The sausage will be links, the pre-cooked kind without the weird skin on the outside. Again, because it’s easier, but also because that’s the best kind of sausage. If you disagree, I might consider other sausage options, but don’t count on it.

Best Camp Out Moments of All Time: Snakes, Shaq sucks, and Brian gets stuck

So far in our countdown of the best camp out moments of all time, we’ve relived Larry not being able to find the campsite (#10) and John taking a 47-hour nap (#9). Since there are only 52 days left until this year’s camp out, I’m going to have to skip #8 and #7 (mainly because I couldn’t come up with 10 good memories) and cover 6, 5, and 4 in this entry and 3, 2, and 1 in another entry a few weeks from now.

I’ve included actual photos of #6 and #4, but I wasn’t quick enough with the camera to capture #5. The funny thing about the three memories below? Only one of them involves alcohol. Can you guess which one?

Best Camp Out Moments of All Time #6: Snakes in a Tent (2011)

This is probably a “Best Camp Out Moment” only for me, but it was a fun prank, so I’ve decided to include it. It happened last year. I was fishing downstream and was walking back to the campsite when I spotted a a six foot rattlesnake curled up beside the trail. Stupidly, I decided to catch the rattler. I was successful, and once I had it, I didn’t want my catch to go to waste, so I did what any of us would have done: I put the snake in Josh’s tent.

Josh spent the night with that rattlesnake and didn’t discover it until the next morning when he poked his head in his tent and saw the snake curled up on his sleeping bag. Ask John to do the impression of the snake for you. Also, I’m not that good at identifying snakes because it wasn’t a six foot rattlesnake, it was a one foot garter snack. Still, pretty damn funny.

Best Camp Out Moments of All Time #5: Brian vs. Kevin (“Shaq sucks”) (2006)

This is an old school memory witnessed by myself and Bill. Brian H., Kevin B., Bill and I had just arrived at the campsite. We were just getting settled in when the topic of conversation turned to sports. Specifically, Brian and Kevin began discussing the merits of a certain Miami Heat center named Shaquille O’Neal.

I don’t remember the entire course  of events, but the discussion soon turned into a debate (Kevin was a big Shaq fan). The words “Shaq sucks” were mentioned a few times. Bill even got in on the action, fueling the fire with his own “Shaq sucks” commentary, which was funny to watch because Bill doesn’t know shit about sports. Kevin was beginning to get mad and soon, for some weird reason, he and Brian challenged each other to a wrestling match (I think that’s what guys in their 30s do instead of actually fighting).

The match ended with Kevin getting really pissed off and going home about 30 minutes after he arrived. Shaquille O’Neal would go on to play another six seasons in the NBA before retiring.

Best Camp Out Moments of All Time #4: Brian got stuck (2009)

It rained the night hard the night before the 2009 camp out (of course) and we were getting a little bored when Brian had what seemed like a good idea at the time: He was going to take his beat up SUV across the creek for a little off-roading adventure. He made it across the creek, but 15 minutes later, while we were sitting around the fire, we heard the unmistakable sound of a car stuck in the mud.

“vvvvvvvvvvvvvVVVVVV!!”

“VVVVVVVVVVVVVVV!!!!”

As the tires spun into the muck on the other side of the creek, the SUV sank deeper and deeper. Someone came to the rescue with a shovel and Brian spent the next half hour digging his car out of what looked like a permanent parking spot. The car was eventually freed and Brian learned a valuable lesson: Never drive a tw0-ton vehicle on a muddy four-wheeler trail after a rain storm.

It’s going to rain. Deal with it.

It’s sort of a running joke that if my cousin ever needs some rain for his crops, all he needs to do is invite us up to go camping. That’s because it’s rained during at least five of our first eight campouts. (Or right before the camp out, in the case of 2010’s mudfest.)

No big deal, though. We’ve grown to expect it and we’ve gotten pretty good at rigging tarps to stay dry. The rain does put a damper on our fishing and horseshoe plans, but a guy’s camp out in the rain is still better than no camp out at all, right?

The free two-month weather forecast on the Farmer’s Almanac website only goes up to the end of May (a week before the campout), but according to the witches and psychics they employ to predict (control?) the weather, we can expect it to be “sunny, warm” the week before the campout. That means it’ll rain like hell during our weekend and then go back to being “sunny, warm” afterwards.

In preparation for the downpour, here are a few tips to make camping in the rain a little more bearable:

• Avoid cotton clothing. Synthetic materials dry faster and keeps you warmer when wet.

Actually, that’s about the only good tip I could find, besides “stay the fuck out of the rain.” One lame website suggested that you “Don’t forget to bring your PMA (Positive Mental Attitude).” I don’t know what the hell that’s all about. The website also suggested “Looking for rainbows” and “splashing through puddles.”

The best way to prepare for the rain is the assume it’ll happen. If it does, we’ll be ready. If it doesn’t, that’s even better. Either way, if anyone at the camp out starts talking about keeping a Positive Mental Attitude, I’m going punch your Positive Mental Attitude in the balls.

Recipe: Lime and Pepper Grilled Chicken Breast

We never have chicken breast at the camp out. I’m not sure why, because it’s pretty good, either in recipes like this one or just with some barbeque sauce slathered all over it. Sometimes we make drumsticks. They’re okay I guess.

The key with chicken breast is to buy it on sale and in bulk. At least once every two months, the Giant brand chicken breast (it’s okay to go generic here) will go on sale for half off (normally $3.99/pound, on sale for $1.99/pound) or buy one, get one. Stock up when it’s that price, and you’ll save a ton of money. Same thing with good hot dogs. They’re always buy one, get one. Especially this time of year.

Alright, enough yapping. Let’s eat.

LIME AND PEPPER GRILLED CHICKEN BREAST

INGREDIENTS

• 1/2 cup lime juice (from about 4 limes)
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 4 boned, skinned chicken breast halves

DIRECTIONS

1. Combine lime juice, sugar, pepper, oil, salt, and 1/4 cup water in a large bowl or resealable plastic bag. Stir to dissolve sugar and salt. Set aside.
2. On a flat surface, lay 1 chicken breast half between 2 large pieces of plastic wrap. Using a mallet or a small saucepan, pound chicken to an even 1/4- to 1/3-in. thickness. Put chicken in bowl or plastic bag with marinade. Repeat with remaining breasts. Cover or seal; chill 30 minutes.
3. Preheat a gas or charcoal grill to medium-hot (you can hold your hand 1 to 2 in. above cooking-grate level only 3 to 4 seconds). Remove chicken from marinade and grill 4 minutes (cover if using gas). Turn chicken over (cover if using gas), and grill until cooked through (chicken should feel firm when poked), 3 to 4 minutes.

Who wants to eat some mud bugs?

To me, crawdads are like cockroaches that live underwater, but to other people they’re a tasty snack. I’ve eaten them before and they’re okay, I guess. Like any shellfish, they require a lot of work for only a little bit of reward, which is why they’re not in my regular meal rotation.

Regardless, it might be fun to grab some from the creek and cook ’em up at the this year’s camp out. To catch some, we’ll need a net. Preferably one of those big six foot wide ones that are mounted to sticks. Does anyone have one?

Before we eat them, we should probably agree on what the hell they’re called. Around here, most people call them “crawdads.” Down south, the more common name is “crawfish.” I’ve even heard a few people call them “crayfish” but, for some reason, no one ever calls them “craydads.” Some southerners even called them “mud bugs,” but that name sounds disgusting, so let’s avoid that one.

Once we wrangle up a few dozen crawdads and clean them off, cooking them is pretty simple. You just boil them for 15 or 20 minutes with a little Old Bay seasoning thrown in for good measure, then you dig in. Like lobsters (to which the crawdad is related), only the tail meat and the claw meat is edible. The ones around here are too small to have much edible claw meat, so we’ll probably only be eating the tails.

For a lesson in how to eat a water roach, see the video at the bottom of this entry. It includes an optional “suck the head” step. No thanks.

CRAWDAD FACTS:

Louisiana supplies 98 percent of the crawdads harvested in the United States.

Despite the large-scale production in Louisiana, most frozen crawdads available in supermarkets in other states are Chinese imports.

Louisiana crawdads are usually boiled live in a large pot with heavy seasoning (salt, cayenne pepper, lemon, garlic) and other items such as potatoes, corn on the cob, turkey necks and sausage.

When living in the wild, an adult crawdad will reach maturity in about 4 years, and they can live anywhere from 20 to 30 years.

If a crawdad loses a claw, it will grow back.

You can often determine if a body of water is contaminated or not, by its crawdad population. If there are crawdads in the water, it will not likely be contaminated, as crawdads will help purify the water by feeding on algae and bacteria.

Crawdads shed their exterior shell at the end of June. They usually eat their old skeleton in order to recover the calcium and phosphates contained in it.

Crawdads eat plant material, but also snails, clams, insect larvae, small fish and other dead crap they might find.

NEXT SATURDAY: Poker for dummies

Recipe: Campfire tuna surprise

You’ve gotta be a little wary about recipes that use the word “surprise” in the title. The surprise is never a good one. In the case of this one, the surprise is cashews, which the original recipe had, but I removed. The rest of the recipe isn’t too bad, but I’m skeptical that it’ll turn out anything like the tuna casseroles from my childhood. Probably because the regular noodles have been replaced by Chow Mein noodles. Maybe that’s the surprise.

CAMPFIRE TUNA SURPRISE

• 1 can Tuna (drained)
• 1 can Cream Of Mushroom Soup
• 1 can Chow Mein Noodles (5 oz size)
• 1/2 cup Green Onions (chopped)
• 1/2 cup Celery (chopped)
• 2/3 cup Milk

DIRECTIONS

Put everything in a heavy saucepan and place on hot coals. Stirring often, cook until the onions are soft. Serve with some type of bread on the side.