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Show MAY Norte legs a (And On May free no, you 15, won 1996, can get you breakfast. t have to wear a Litmus ride your bike to work and \) — Simply show your helmet anytime between 7 and Yam at any Salt Lake City location, and get a free drink with bagel and spread. (And you thought only benefited all that the Love Test Take Your Heartthrob Camping to Find True Grit mini-skirt.) get a free breakfast at Einstein Bros. Bagels. 1996 |, ing time with nothing but a tent separating you from sundry critters, there is a certain fear factor. This, of course, By Randy Hanskat et's say between girl or guy. leg-work environment.) you're reading this inthoughts about a certain After trying to decipher can be used to your advantage, especially “@M guy camping. IN THE CENTER OF SALT LAKE CITY Ah camping, that odd striving of modern day society to turn off the modems, the faxes, and the 83 TV channels and replace them with pit toilets, sand in your sleeping bag, and Dinty Moore stew. Maybe it’s a throwback to the days of Lewis & Clark and wagon trains. Who cares? All I know is there is no better test of the potential of a future spouse. Less sage people will tell you travel is the ultimate test of a relationship. Rubbish. Camping is the true litmus test. Let me explain: First off, this is not about backpacking. Backpacking seems like a noble enough adventure, but freezedried yak meat isn’t my idea of living. This is about car camping in National Forest or State Park sites. By utilizing your gasoline propelled hunk of metal, you can get back to surprisingly remote places, yet still stow scads of booze, the grill, the Coleman Stove, and that most welcome item — the webbed lawn. chair. OK, let’s begin with the hygiene test. Everyone wants a mate who has the right combination of cleanliness without obsessiveness, a mate who doesn’t make friends with every mirror he or she passes. Five days of hiking in dusty 85 degree weather, coupled with five nights of sitting around in the midst of campfire smoke and sleeping on the ground should give you a good 1500 Kearns Boulevard Park City, Utah 84060 ‘ek, Network @ Park City = ‘MLS. _ Office 801-64-REMAX omedandopesed «=s«sFax «= 801-647-0023 can, then falling in; to a moose sauntering up the streambed next to which you are camping. Upon hearing these sounds the camping rookie is instantly crawling all over your body in the earnest effort to save her own. Of course, unbeknownst to her, this is also a safety aid for you. If those grainy old films weren't actually fake and the Yeti does happen to rip the tent open, he'll take whoever’s on top, namely your date. Sex is another fine testing protocol. First, for the girl to still find you attractive after immersing yourself in the above-mentioned camping hygiene morass, she truly must like you. (Or else she was the one who drank all the damn Jim Beam.) Second, there is little separating you from those campers a couple of sites over, just a thin layer of nylon. Sex here isn’t for the feint of heart. Should your date dive right in and pass this test with gusto, I recommend weighting your acceptibility test heavily in her favor. Call it extra credit. onversely, if this person doesn’t like camping, who needs the dolt?! If she can’t appreciate the sounds of the wind through the trees when it’s late and you're aloné by the fire, she probably is a Rush Limbaugh fan. If she doesn’t get a thrill cooking outdoors as the sun is setting, she probably thinks Jim Hansen never suffers from brain constipation. If she doesn’t realize a camping trip beats the living hell out of just about needs ’em! Let’s return to the 17th Century and bathe every week or two. Flush toilets? Bah, they’re for wimps. Give me a pit hasn't been emptied in about a decade. A dishwasher which sanitizes your silverware? Leave that to the hypochondriacs. Licking your fork after eating that gourmet macaroni & cheese and then wiping it with a paper towel is plenty clean, Pilgrim. For those unaccustomed to spend- PAGE 4 she any other vacation imagin- truly believes able, which Suite E-200 * P.O. Box 3202 the lid off a nearby garbage Weyerhauser is “the tree people.” BROKER / OWNER —_ enough And that’s just the beginning. For some reason, when camping we all lower our standards of what is clean JANE MATTHEWS 9 oi Jane Matthews smart vanity barometer. and healthy. Showers? Who Congratulations to the newest star at Remax Network @ Park City were zip together. If you are camping Be anywhere but the most disgustsing KOA, you will hear critter rumblings at least one or two nights on your trip. They can range from a raccoon pulling construction, your mind flits back to that person. You’ve seen each other a couple times, but you just can't tell if this is a good a bad ™ match or simply Woolery Chuck Love Connection trip. To answer that dilemma, I have one foolproof test — take the girl or AVGID THE MEGA STORE MESS if you to purchase sleeping bags which my rather inept sentence probably But I know your taste (especially since you are reading this piece of newsprint) is far better than that. Now that she has washed her hair under 33 degree water at the campground faucet; now world that she has delved into a where showers are few or nonexistent and Revlon is a dirty word; now that she has clenched her teeth in fear as that chipmunk munched your Fig Newtons on the picnic table at 4:13 a.m. — she has passed the true test of compatibility. Get thee to the altar, son. @ |