The morning routine

I find it amazing that people who are on “vacation” (here defined as a period during which one is not performing regular work duties) still insist on setting there alarms and waking up before the sun rises! Granted, it does take a considerable amount of energy to complete some of these routes, but I don’t believe it is necessary to pack up one’s tent at 5am when breakfast isn’t supposed to begin until 6:30am. Now this is all in good humour, since I admit that my way isn’t always the best way for everyone at all times… but I think some people on the tour are misinterpreting the Latin phrase carpe diem – personally, I believe that the day is best seized when the sun is up and the oatmeal is hot!

For the first few weeks I was waking up with the early crowd because I would get woken up by the aforementioned eager beavers. Now I have developed a little more strategy in my tent placement – I typically stake out an area and declare to anyone that attempts to set up next to me that, “this is designated as a late waking area”. Furthermore, I have progressed in my ability to drown out the early morning noise of others. More often than not there are a dozen or so that are already on the road by the time I get up – if for some reason I wake up and see more than 20-30 tents (out of the total 150) I roll over and continue sleeping.

Many people also seem to have a very systematic routine, and can swiftly and efficiently get on the road. For me, I wouldn’t say that I have much of a routine – I make at least 5 trips to the gear truck, and often wander around aimlessly. I tried to survey a few people to see how they structure their morning, but then I realized that it’s just not worth it for me. I typically leave just before the sweep team closes the trailer (and on a few occasions I’ve had to go the day without certain items because the trailer had already been packed!) and then go out for coffee with my favourite ‘Slime-bucket’ who most people refer to as Billy D. (he’s our camp manager who rides a Harley Davidson). Even after all my dilly-dallying I’m still in the first 1/3 of people to arrive at camp – there wouldn’t really be much benefit to being the first into camp each day since then I’d always be unloading the gear truck and setting up the dinner line. And as much as I love helping out, i don't want to be doing that all summer long!
more random thoughts to come... because there are plenty of subjects that I could expound upon, and give my highly esteemed opinion.