Day 66 of my 47th year

In the morning my wife woke up feeling lousy and announced that her throat hurt and that our long-planned trip to her colleague’s birthday was probably off. Then Maria generously said, “Honey, go camping with your friends if you want...” She did not have to tell me twice — fifteen minutes later I was standing by the door with my things. =)

A spontaneous men’s camping trip had been planned for Saturday. We quickly agreed on the location, firewood, participants, and radio frequencies. I took the toll road. I brought noodles, canned fish, non-alcoholic wine, vegetables for fish soup, and all sorts of other things. My wife, by the way, ended up going to the birthday party after all and did not get home until close to 11 p.m.

I got there fairly quickly, though the navigator took me off the toll road and along weird bypass roads to Gzhel. There I bought firewood and fuel briquettes. I was the first to arrive at our clearing. At that point the Little One was holding another clearing to the left of the forest. In the end we decided to set up on my clearing. Pasha, one of his classmates, and some of Pasha’s colleagues took the neighboring clearing across from our tree.

The Little One joined me, we started a fire, and sat cracking sunflower seeds. Soon limping Igoryan arrived with Motya and Yura. When they drove into the forest, they tried calling me on the radio. I could hear them perfectly, but they could not hear me. Something in my settings is off. I quickly pitched the tent, arranged the sleeping area, and started making my favorite “owl soup” — fish soup =) It turned out excellent; everyone ate and finished it. After lunch the Little One and I inflated the SUP boards and paddled up the Nerka. I wore a wetsuit — it was cool out, though inside the suit it was almost too warm. We paddled for a while and came back to camp. Then Pasha came over with a friend to try the SUP; we let them ride, and then another couple came and paddled too.

Toward evening I remembered that I had brought the drone, launched it, and for the first time flew above the forest. The Nerka from a bird’s-eye view looks spectacular. I filmed the sunset, our tree, flew over to Pasha’s campsite, and photographed their sauna. After sunset, lots of stars came out, and I got some cool phone shots of them. Igor and Yurik tried to get into Pasha’s sauna, but something went wrong and they got offended and did not steam after all. Then the moon rose and it started getting noticeably colder. We sat by the fire we had built on the bluff overlooking the Nerka, sipped tea — some of us alcohol — and had male conversations. Closer to 10 p.m., some young people from Pasha’s neighboring camp came over. Amazingly, one of the girls turned out not only to be from Bauman, but from my department specifically. I have almost never met anyone from my department. Nice. The young people were interesting and worked on communication satellites. We played riddle games with them. Fun.

Around 10 p.m., late-arriving Zheka D. showed up with his son, who was asleep. Igor had waited and waited for him and then fallen asleep in the hammock. Zhenya put up the tent, but while moving his son the boy woke up, so Zhenya had to put him back to sleep and then fell asleep with him. The Little One also went to bed after the young people left, but I was not sleepy at all, so Yura and I sat talking until I finally started nodding off. I said goodnight to drunk Yura and went into the tent. I was too lazy to unzip the double sleeping bag and fit one into the other the way I had planned, and I paid for it — my feet were freezing all night. I got terribly cold and kept waking up. Restless Yura, who had slept from 8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m., woke everyone up — he got Igor up, then Zheka D. woke up too, and the three of them sat by the fire until 6 a.m. drinking cognac and talking. I woke up from time to time and went out to join them briefly. A good day.