Much Ado About Hunting

Last week Ben spent the majority of the week preparing for a hunting trip to Maine. This involves buying lots of specialized equipment, and washing all the cloth items in special UV and whatever busting soaps. Look what happens to our power rack during hunting season. I have to make him move things in order to do pull ups or I can just use it as an excuse not to do pull ups.

Not only is he hunting, he's combining it with camping. In Maine. In November. The up side for him is that he got to shop for fancy camping equipment as well as fancy hunting equipment. He and Sam had a test dinner of dehydrated beef stroganoff cooked over his new lightweight stove in the backyard while I was in PA. (Verdict: Food was much better than expected; Sam was nonplussed by the process.) He set up his one-man tent (not to be confused with the Tentosaurous or his two-man tent) in the backyard as well, just to complete the effect.

Ben set off for Maine on Sunday morning and set up camp in an isolated area. He reported that he was colder than expected which means that had I been there, I'd have been a human ice cube. He hunted all day Monday; saw lots of moose and grouse but no deer so he decided to pack up camp, hike back to the truck, drive south to a new area, hike back out to the woods, and set up camp once again. He started the process at about 5pm, you know, when it was dark.

He called me at 6 to tell me what he was doing. He called me back at 6:15 to tell me that when he pulled over to call me, he got a flat tire. When he went to change the tire, he discovered he had no spare, that the tire and the mechanism holding it under the truck were both gone gone gone.

I went into crazy hunter wife mode...the woods must be filled with rednecks who resent out of state hunters so they were sabotaging his truck, slashing tires and stealing spares. Yeah, that's the ticket. Cue banjo music here...

Ben assured me that wasn't the case but how in the world do you lose a spare tire from under a truck and not even notice?

Did you know that AAA can help you even when you're in the middle of nowhere (they can even find you if you lock your keys in the car at the top of the Appalachian Gap but I wouldn't know that from experience or anything and no, my mom can't tell you anything about it and neither can Ben) in Maine?

Ben was rescued and ended up spending the night in whatever town he's in. The good news? The motel is only $35/night. The bad news? It's just what you'd expect for $35/night.

He's got four new tires (in theory they were all very worn) and the rim for spare should be in by noon. Oh, I guess that means he's actually got five new tires.

At any rate, his camping/hunting extravaganza has been derailed. He is now contemplating the weather (rain tomorrow afternoon, night, and all day Thursday, possible snow on Friday) and trying to decide if he should just come home.

Care to make bets?

Update: Ben looked up a friend of his who is also hunting up in Maine and was invited to tag along with them so he's planning to stay up there, likely NOT camping. In Maine. In November.