Camping with the President (kinda)

Mmm... vicodin brain. Camping was awesome when we eventually found a place to camp. My original plan of camping in the Catoctin Mountain National Park failed miserably when we arrived to find the entrance blocked off. Well, before that, I stopped at a little fishing pond and bought a couple ears of corn out of the back of a man's truck. As we got to talking ("Are you all from the city?" he asked by way of introduction), I learned that the President was up in the park for the 4th of July weekend. "If he's up there, they're not gonna be letting anybody near there." Not entirely sure if the man was off his rocker or we had stumbled upon a crazy random coincidence, I kept driving to the park, only to discover that he was right. Barricade.

As we drove out of town, T said, "I'm starting to put two and two together." "What do you mean?" says dense I. "I think that was Camp David." And, um, he was right.

So we kept going until we found an even cooler campground. And Sasha and Malia surely missed out, because this campground had tree houses! (Plus they didn't care we had a dog, plus they didn't have a no alcohol policy, plus we couldn't see any of our neighbors!) We're pretty sure the camp owners just wandered off the Appalachian Trail one day 20 years ago and decided to never come down off the hill. Check it out, this place is awesome! If you're ever camping in Maryland, I recommend it.

Anyway, fast forward three days and my back is absolutely punishing me. I'm not sure if it's from the camping, or from the sleeping in the car on the drive home from my parents. But it feels like someone has been punching me repeatedly with a fist and stabbing me with a knife at the same time, in the exact same spot in my middle back. So against the advice of my medical advisor (T) I just took a vicodin pill that expired in August 2008 from back when I had to get my molars out (or was it when I had to get that colonoscopy after I passed out unexpectedly in a Richmond diner...bizarre medical history). And my head feels nice and fuzzy, an entirely placebic effect, I'm sure, but one that I'm happy to kick back and enjoy. I'm just going to ignore the irony that I just turned 29 and immediately started having back problems.