A Scorpion bit my baby on the balls
A Scorpion bit my baby on the balls



Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and love the Cows
Or: "SO FUN!" It's camping!


Los Villarrubias - at the spot, before the storm, in the love.

Camping. Camping = adventure, relaxation, new places, old faces and a general raising of spirits (to both mouth and heaven). I love to camp with my family and friends, spend lots of time doing nothing, barely talking, burning things, drinking things, smoking things and eating even more...things - preferably dead and made of meat. Our Mexico camping history is short and checkered, with our last attempt stopped in it's jaunty tracks by rain...This is the story of another camping trip. The kind of camping trip where rain just comes to wash off your sins, break your tents, complicate your night...but it won't stop ya. Nothing can. No Cow. No Scorpion. No muddy road (well, for the Van it did...)...you get it. This camping trip rocked.

The Caravan on the road again for the first time

We went camping with our Club - the Beach Wagon Dragons? The Poisoned- Thought Parents? Who knows which, what, who....its our awesome group of families. Our Gang. The Koch family and the Dea-Shermans, the coolest friends a family lost in the world could get found with, plus 1 dog / familiar per family. We had tried to get this trip together last year, but life got in the way. So glad this time we put life aside, if only to live a little. Destination: Corrinches Reservoir in the town of Mascota. The opposite of our dusty little beach town, this is a cool and correct mountain town. We were stoked for chilly weather, the green grass, and a get away often hard to find in paradise...really!!

Blue skies, green grass, and the promise of a simple three days away.

After an early morning meeting for a Sunday, clearing the hang-overs and dream-drops from our eyes with coffee and vodka (me), we headed off, a 3 car caravan on a 3 hour tour to Mascota. The road cleared the week from my head, and great songs, good smoke and family really got me excited for our arrival! Mascota greeted us with sun and blue skies that we all knew could be 1 of 2 faces she had. But for now, we said "Hello! Take us into your hills , we love you Mascota!". To the hills we went. Crossing a small rushing river we had been warned about, we felt the hardest was over. It was not, but luckily, nor was the best. We arrived at the actual Reservoir (called a "presa" in Spanish) and found camping was not really the joint there, so with a little direction from the locals, we headed through various gates into the wilderness and the unknown...

The first of many gates that would lead us to the promised land.

Mud. Lots of Mud and rocky terrain was the welcome our dear Mascota had for us. We were opening gates that led to areas probably not often thought of as camp sites, but that is what Mexico is often about - finding your spot in it, and most likely, no one bothering to complain. This was that kind of place. Our only immediate problem was the Good Ship. If you know us, you know that the "Good Ship" is our Van, our trusted whale who we rode to our destiny in Mexico and keeps us safe always. Wellllll...the Good Ship is intended for more luxurious roads than this one, and we took her to the bad part of the forest. Let's keep this short (and not boring) - As She entered danger, the clouds darkened, storm was coming...She was almost stuck in mud, She almost did not get out, but in the end, She got free and She barely got to shelter before the hard rains hit. By "She" I mean us. But really. Its the Van's fault. So, since she was bad, we left her at the Reservoir restaurant, and loaded all the other cars with our shit, and off we went.

We have arrived!

Enter awesomeness: We found the coolest little spot in the middle of a raised valley, full of green grass, big views, and no other humans!! The sweet spot. We proceeded to set up our camp, big tents, small tents, sun/rain tents that didn't last... the whole bag. We were so stoked! Andrea and I have a new tent, and it says it sleeps 8. Its just our size, like a little heroin den, without the dope. Space for all. Sleeping, standing. good times. Even when the rain came, we didn't care. We were sleeping in the wet spot, and that was good.

I am Theo, I am the fire-starter.

We had bought 1 billion pieces of firewood (almost) and soon the fire came into shape thanks to the fiery heart that is Theo. He is the fire-starter. What came next was what this is all about to me. Joking. Smoking. Midnight Toking. Relaxation. Family. Friends.

Camping
Camping

That's a pretty awesome sight, and not just because the Cows are heading towards the car.

This is how my dog ruins a Father-Son self portrait, and creates the funniest photo of the weekend.

We were in a Cow Cruising area. Not only did they cruise this area/hill/our campsite, they really liked to poop in it. During our time there, they seemed to get more and more interested/furious about us being there, and then finally came in closer. Ate a tea kettle chord. Pissed off the dogs. There were a few times where Cows stopped seeming silly, and became just big and scary. We were eating their family at night in our steaks and burgers after all...but in the end, they were just Cows. Not Brilliant. Scared of dogs. Beside the Cows, we didn't really see anyone else out there, but a few Cowboys, and they seemed nice. Though we were on someone's land, that someone didn't seem to care.


First contact

You couldn't really ask for more on a Tuesday afternoon.

My loves.

We found a little rushing river/shower not far from our camp. This was our first shower in the 2 days we had been walking and living in the dark red clay mud of the land we were squatting at. It was pretty awesome. I had my hair washed and styled by our 2 resident awesome child-creatures, Astrid and Talula (Maximo's big sisters). I would have waited in line for hours for a hair-washing at this point, so I felt lucky. My son loved the water, my woman looked amazing laying in and around it. It was a good spot.

Best. Hair-washing. Ever.

the Little Ball biter in question.

We ate well. We drank well. Lots of meat for those of us that prefer that bag, lots of non-meat for them other guys. On the last night, after some rain during the day, Maximo was by our (fly infested) food tent when he started crying, pointing at his butt, yelling "hurt butt!!" The worst of the hurts, in my opinion. Clearly this was not normal, and Andrea rushed to find the problem, and took off his diaper. To the quick - Maximo had a scorpion in his diaper. It had stung his balls. HIS BALLS, sweet jesus. In short, he was fine. He stopped crying pretty quickly, was tired from not napping, and went to sleep shortly after as we all worried about him, watched his breathing, and stressed out for an hour. When he woke, he was fine!! Crazy. Amazing. But not surprising. Why? Because my son has balls of steel. He is the little MAN. Shortly after, another scorpion fell into my boot from a lamp. I saw it, shook it out, panicked. Didn't get bit. The next morning, one fell at Andrea off a box. Saw it, killed it. Yet, another one when we were loading up the van. Holy shit. I still got that "Scorpion worry" still now.


So Bizarre....

Maximo Lobo and the wolf-dog Daisy. On Cow watch.

This was 3 nights in wilderness. This was somewhere and something new in it's own way. We had a blue moon one night. I have camped, but I have not camped with a 2 year old boy that is mine. Or with these great new friends. Or in the wild wilderness of Mexico, where the Cows are bull-ies, the Dogs watch your tent at night, the Scorpions come in 4 packs. This was something good, and I can't wait to do it again.

Wrapping it all up in Style, Andrea and Treva keeping the car from vomiting our stuff out...

Same time next year!