Del Valle (7)

Hallelujah!! Camping at last! I believe, besides the COVID lockdown times, this has been the longest we have gone with no camping since our maiden voyage in 2015. It has been a challenge, to be sure. If you had asked, “Are you ok?” during these past two months, there would have been times I would have truthfully answered, “No. I am not ok.” But not all the time. We’ve done our best to do fun things on the weekends, like local hiking, and having friends over, and that has kept us afloat. But I have learned beyond any doubt that camping is a very important piece of my overall mental health. Without it, I am “fine,” but not really “here.” And I am keenly aware that I don’t really have any place complaining. We are safe, and healthy, and our home is nice and in tact. No real emergencies, like I know others are dealing with. Nothing to whine about. It’s just that the joy is a lot harder to find.

I’ve done lots of thinking about this, and it all bears a striking similarity to calorie counting and losing weight. Living years of excess and overindulgence with food was a hard habit to shake. It was really hard in the beginning, and it brought up all kinds of negative emotions. On the other side of sixty pounds down, it has become a lifestyle change that is now generally pretty easy to maintain, which gives me hope. Same can be said for living beyond our means financially. Richard was making a lot of money, so we became completely unconscious of our spending habits. Everything went on the credit card, and over the past year, we were not able to pay it off each month. There was always a low level of anxiety in the background, because we knew subconsciously it wasn’t sustainable. That didn’t change the behavior though. It took the shock of Richard losing his job to jolt us out of the mindless habits and get a handle on money. We are now in our period of adjustment, and it’s bound to come with some depression.

We now have budgets and apps and spreadsheets and all that. And we’re learning what we can get away with and what we can’t. It’s tight, but livable. But man, I never really paid that much attention to how much camping reservations cost. And gas to tow. We’ve been living super fat, and the universe is telling us it’s time to go on a money diet. But we did make budget approved plans for this weekend, and the anticipation has been carrying me.

But boy, the universe did not make it easy to get out the door. We both got head colds on Thursday. Also, we’ve done such a good job not driving the Acura to save gas, that when I went to move it off the driveway, the battery was dead. And the cat wasn’t eating all his food for a couple days. We were really considering not going. But it was too late to cancel for a refund, so the new Money Me took over and pushed us out the door. (P.S. the cat is fine. We think he is just “supplementing” with murder.)

The lift in our spirits was immediate. We had the best time. We were coughing, and sneezing, and going through tons of Kleenex, and had so much fun. There is something about camping that I don’t think can be replicated by anything else. It’s partly the change in scenery. Even if you’ve been to the same place before, it’s just new stuff for your eyes to look at. It keeps your brain present and awake. There are no other thoughts bouncing around, no self talk, no doom scrolling, no worrying about politics or jobs, or anything. Just pure moment to moment awareness of what is in front of you. And, we connect in that tiny 90 square ft space. We chat and reflect and talk about silly things. We sleep better camping than anywhere else.

If we had been home, we would have rested up. Instead, we rode our bikes over to the super cute town of Livermore on Saturday. It’s about ten miles from the campground, with a big climb up and over the hills that surround Lake Del Valle. We gave ourselves a mission of getting to Uncle Yu’s Chinese restaurant. We have one in Lafayette and we know their hot and sour soup is the best thing when you’re sick. I would never think to make a trip to hang out in Livermore, but it has lots of fun restaurants and a nice downtown, with little squares with fountains and outdoor cafes. After soup, we went to a five star rated gelato place called Verace. It was excellent, but I regret not getting the Ferrero Rocher flavor. I’ll need a do over on that.

We rode back leisurely in gorgeous weather. And then we napped. I made a fun dinner on the grill of open face baguette sandwiches with steak, mushrooms, in a sweet and tangy sauce, all smothered with melted cheese. This paired with roasted carrots in a smoky spice seasoning. It was awesome.

Before turning in for the night, I had a spontaneous idea to drive to the top of the road and see if we could spot the Atlas Comet. We missed the Northern Lights last week, and we haven’t really tried to spot the comet. We’ve just been too “meh” about everything to put in the effort. But out in Dory, we’re all about the just do it. We found a whole bunch of people parked up on the side of the road at an overlook, some with camping chairs, some with telescopes, so we knew we were in the right place. The telescope people drove out from Tracy to get a good view and they knew where and when to look for it. It took a while after sunset before it was dark enough to see, but slowly, slowly the long blurry tail appeared in the sky. It was easier to see through binoculars, or from the iPhone camera than with the naked eye. But eventually, we could even make it out. Comets are super cool.

We wrapped the weekend by watching the new “Alien” movie on the projector. It’s pretty good. But also pretty tense. I had to rewatch several episodes of Ted Lasso to come down from that before I could sleep.

I have taken a lot of things for granted, camping being one of them. I have a far better appreciation now. It’s like when you are used to mindlessly eating cheesy poofs, and then you learn that you have to portion control them. So when you have a single serving bag, every cheesy poof is more delicious. Maybe I can be ok with portion controlled camping. I don’t think I need to go out every single weekend. Maybe once or twice a month is enough. And maybe if we learn to count the pennies, the way I learned to count the calories, we can earn the big trip splurges without all the background anxiety. I know it’s a process, and change is always hardest in the beginning. In any case, right now, I am ok. I’m good. It’s going to be all right.

Total miles: 42.3, 1 hour 40 min, 16.5 mpg. Site 49 no hookups. Some solar. NO cell service until you get to the top of the climb out of the park. Great dump; free. Cute and fun campground store open until 8pm.