1994 | Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
My son has been a fine camping companion for all of our years together. He learned early on that he was not required to bathe every day when we were out on the road and up on the trails. Our Guy Rule was that we had to stop regularly near water to dip the dust off, places not always obvious in the bright and dry Southwest. Alex was an early and avid reader and grew into a sharp navigator, poring over maps and camp rosters to find remote spots likely for water at cooler elevations.
One year, Alex was booked to fly back from Salt Lake City to rejoin his mother so that I could drive on to the coast to lead my annual summer workshop near Cape Blanco. I suggested that we could stay in Provo so that he could sleep in a bed and have a proper shower before his flight the next day. What I heard then was, “I refuse to stay in a motel!”
He went into his camp guide and found us a perfect Forest Service site high in the nearby Wasatch Range, with a vigorous trout stream and a generous pile of split and seasoned firewood, with no neighbors for miles. We learned some of the language of that stream as we drifted off that night, and a little more of it as we awakened.
Nowhere near driving age yet, Alex also spent time in the cab as our expedition naturalist. I remember that we acquired a copy of “The Poisonous Denizens of the Desert” and that he had devoured its pages. A few years later, we met scorpions in our camp. I asked Alex what he could remember from his earlier reading, and he reported that the smaller, translucent ones were the most poisonous. I asked if their sting would be fatal. Always on the case, he replied, “Only if they get you in the neck.”