The Gear Closet

I spent last night doing few thing. There was HALO. There was some bike riding. There was some eating of wings (spicy ranch, you are a saucy mistress). Then there was the cleaning of my apartments equivalent of the garage, a 6’x5′ closet sandwiched between the kitchen and the bathroom. The goal of this domestic adventure, was to excavate enough old gear (to be relocated to a storage unit) to allow the accommodation of one of the three bikes currently inhabiting the apartment (the other two live in the dining room. really).

For me this was quite a trip down memory lane, as I’ve been collecting camping and climbing gear for almost two decades now, we uncovered a few treasures of questionable value.

• The coleman backpacking stove that leaked fuel at the supply-line juncture. Nothing will keep you on your toes while cooking a camping breakfast like a small fusion reactor’s worth of flames over a puddle of kerosene. Safety first kids.
• My very first camelback, or rather the remnants of the pieces of my version of my very first camleback: some PVC Tubing a sonic straw and a pump vendor water bottle that my dad grabbed me from a pump meeting (he attends his share of pump meetings). Why waste money when you can build your own.
• Climbing gear. Lots and lots of climbing gear. Seriously, you’d think I was about to tackle Cerro Torre. Sadly though, as my fingers get sore from typing now days, that’s been relegating to the storage unit, with the caveat that it goes at the front, just in case we need it for the zombie war.
• A truly alarming array of bike parts. My best guess is I could build at least two-and-a-half bikes simply from what’s still in my apartment. Again not the most useful use of storage facilities in a tiny living space, but handy for the zombie attack (given time, we could fashion wicked crossbows from derailleurs)  .
• A sizable stash of dehydrated backpacking food: We’ll file this one under not useful for anyone, anywhere, ever. You could use it in a pinch if you were trying to re-enter the Earth’s atmosphere and needed a back up heat-shield, but that’s about it.

Anyway, it’s was a bit of nostalgia for me to see all this strewn across the floor. Gone are the days when I was sure i’d spend most of my year sleeping in my car, bouncing around the various wild an beautiful places the continent has to offer. I’m sure 18-year-old me is a little pissed at the thirty-year-old-version who likes a glass/bottle of wine, works in an office, and if given a preference will generally sleep in a bed (although my mutant powers of being able to sleep anywhere are still strong). I’d don’t climb anymore, my Kayak hasn’t touched water in two years, and I haven’t been on a backpacking trip in quite a long while. Things change though, priorities shift. But at the end of the day, I’m certain that 18-year-old me would be pretty impressed with the coolness of my life, vagabond or no.

Also makes you wonder what 40-year old me is thinking right now.  Probably something along the lines of  ‘man, that kid was really smart to be so prepared for these zombies.’