I met up with my buddy Matt in Southern Illinois for our third annual camping trip the weekend before Labor Day. I'd picked the far south location because of its proximity to Cairo, Illinois--a once-gilded city I thought based on YouTube videos had become a ghost town. I was wrong. Cairo is alive and kicking. (Well done, Cairo.) Though it wasn't hard to see it had seen better days. The showstopper of the trip was a place called Garden of the Gods , part of the Shawnee Nationa

I've written about Starved Rock before ( here and here ). It's a beautiful state park 100 miles southwest of Chicago. I've gone hiking there several times this year. But last weekend, I grabbed my buddy Matt for a weekend camping adventure. We arrived on Friday and set up camp...fast. Matt is a long-time friend who I reconnected with a few years ago. Light-hearted and fun, he was the perfect co-conspirator to pull of this camping caper! We arrived on Friday afternoon, set u

As I’ve written before , I love to go camping—partly for its own sake but partly (probably mostly) because it was something Ken introduced me to. I’m not a deep woods camper, but a give me a beautiful state park and some friends, and I’ll pack up all my camping gear and head out. In spite of the fact I’ve lived next to Wisconsin for the better part of my life, I’ve only been there twice. (Except for my imaginary visits with Laverne & Shirley back in the day.) This marks th

In the quiet moments of the early morning while camping, I relish in the connection I feel with Ken . Usually the first one up, I take great pleasure in the ritual of making coffee and readying the stove for breakfast once the others have emerged from their tents, scattered around two adjacent camp sites. It was Ken who first taught me how to camp, so touching--using--the things we bought together have great meaning for me. I wonder if they always will. And I sometimes wond

Two years ago, I was saddened--bothered, even--when I found an old camping percolator and cups while trying to do some organizing in the old apartment. It had been a punch-in-gut reminder that I'd never camp with Ken  again. I'd never be able to enjoy the thing he introduced me to again with him--or without him, for that matter. The memories and the loss tugged at an already fractured heart, so. I tucked that percolator away near the rest of the camping supplies and didn't t