Trip to the Other Farnsworths'

Well Ashley and I have been making a lot of promises lately about traveling places and hanging out with people. We had a long weekend opportunity, so we took the time to visit our most accessible relatives, the Farnsworths (my brother Heber)!

I had been promising to go out camping with Heber for some time. This was my big chance to experience his hobby: lightweight backpacking. And for me to hunt around Missouri, where apparently there are WILD TARANTULAS! But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So here's how it went down:

First of all, there's the issue of getting down there. Ashley is a bit of a home body but nothing compared to me. I think in my family (my descendants, that is) we will most likely do family reunions by video conference because I really don't like to travel. We talked about taking the trains, which is something I have enjoyed at times, but ultimately, for more than one person taking the car is the best way to go.

Anyway as many of you know I hate driving, so we had Ashley drive out of Chicago, which is always a very stressful experience. She's so great about that. I did a lot of open road driving down in the corn fields, but Ashley is the one who does the heavy lifting when it comes to driving. Thank goodness for. And for GPS also, by the way.

So Heber and I walked around a really big lake. Well, to me it looked pretty big. It was about 11.6 miles around. For heber, that's a walk in the park, or less. But remember, this is the guy who runs half marathons and then comes home and does yardwork because it wasn't a strain for him. Anyway it was good having some good brotherly bonding time. Heber is 12 years older than I am so he rememebrs me from my childhood, but I only have vague recollections of him ever living in the house. I think we discussed most of the major problems the world is facing. Now if only we were the benevolent dictators of the world.

You can see we are carrying backpacks. But this was ultralight backpacking. I mean, everything was titanium or some kind of lightweight foam that was just recently invented. I could walk around the earth with the pack I was carrying. Of course, mine was exceptionally lighter than his because he carried all the water. Actually the fact that he was carrying that much water was a bit strange to me considering we were at a lake and he had a filter. Maybe he knew how incredibly sqweamish I would be at the thought of drinking water that has only been passed through a rough filter, s0 he would have to bring along some real water. Heber actually did drink some of this lake water. I still get the heebie jeebies about this. I mean, I considered urinating in that same lake.

It was really pretty, though (yes I took this picture...actually two that I stitched together digitally)
It was a real lake, to my eyes, but it was not a real mountain range. If mountain ranges were people on a beach, the Ozarks would be the 90 pound weaklings that get sand kicked in their face. I mean, "mountains?" Anyway, they were pretty enough, especially to someone like me who has only seen green things for the past few years of his life, and even then not that much because I live in a giant, crowded city.

The right way to backpack is to sleep out in hammocks at night. That's right, hammocks. Heber's backpack magically turned into padding and I had a roll of foam that I slept on. My hammock was the close one with the bug netting.

Hammocks are pretty comfortable, for a few minutes anyway. Actually, what I was really missing was a pillow. I wonder why I never thought to bring one? Anyway comfort wasn't really the problem. Heber and I both have nasty sleeping problems. In his case he wakes up at noises that are barely audible to normal human ears. In my case, it takes several hours of tossing and turning to get to sleep. Not really a good combination, in retrospect. Heber slept for short bursts between when I was rolling around and stuff. I slept between 3:30 and 5 (on accident).

Actually I'll tell you the real reason I didn't sleep much that night: paranoia. That's right, even with full knowledge that the most dangerous animals in the Ozarks are probably muskrats, I sat around all night listening to the trees dropping acorns and imagining a bear sniffing around our campsite. I kept telling myself that there are zero scary things in the dang Ozarks, but it turns out that I'm not as rational at that time of night as I am at other times. So anyway, there it is. I'm afraid of the dark.

Actually, I sleep in earplugs every night so I don't hear Ashley's breathing or the traffic outside. I wonder why I didn't think to take them on the trip.

Anyway, hiking is not really about the sleeping. We cooked on an alcohol stove that weighed about as much as my toenail clippings. We saw about 5000 mountain bikers freaking out because they didn't expect hikers on their bike race. We searched in vain for wild tarantulas that we could capture and bring home to keep as pets (hope springs eternal on that one). I came home with some wicked blisters and a wierd limp (that was the Ozark's way of saying that I'M actually the 90 pound weakling on the beach). I'm definitely the pansy in the family, despite the fact that I weigh about 40 pounds more.

Patient Ashley was at home getting to know her new in laws (she is adjusting so well to being a Farnsworth) and was waiting eagerly for me to return and save her from yet more compulsive games of word challenge.
Oh, and we saw some longhorn cows!