Now my friend Mike who sometimes goes by the name Adrian is a good guy but sometimes I have to wonder about his judgement. I killed myself laughing when he came out of his tent looking for the stove so he could make his morning coffee wearing pajamas with the little legs tucked into his socks. And don't tell me he wore his cycling jacket to bed too! No wonder he couldn't keep up with my pace - the guy's got 50 pounds of crap packed into his over-sized panniers. You should see what he uses to dry himself off with - a bath towel the size of an area rug! The thing must add 10 pounds to his load when it's wet - which is most of the time since it never really dries. And then it ends up soaking whatever it comes into contact with. Like when he pulled out the expensive map that he bought at Map Town. He no sooner opened it up fully when one soggy crease after another gave way - making a pile of colourfully shredded waste that had to be thrown into the camp's recycle bin. Of course that meant that he had to keep asking me for my dry, well laminated map whenever he needed to check where we were at any given moment which was every ten minutes - or so it seemed.
I mean look at the above photo I took with my Canon Sureshot which I keep securely stowed in it's Lowepack camera bag on my handlebars - unlike the ziplock bag Mike uses that he has to dig out of his panniers every time we stop to take a picture which is every five minutes. Look at how crisp that map is - how with one snap of the wrist it neatly unfolds. How it doesn't buckle at a crucial location. Never gets wet. Doesn't turn into recyclable waste with each use.
My guts hurt enough from laughing at all Mike's gaffes so don't get me started on what he uses to eat from. His origami bowl and cup. It wouldn't be so bad if the guy could remember which way to fold the blasted things when he needs to use them. I don't know how much vital camp fuel I've wasted while the hot water cools while he makes a vain attempt to construct the mug which doubles as a measuring cup so that we can pour the precise amount of boiling water into the bag which will eventually become our main course for supper. But I have to say that measuring cup came in handy one year when we camped in Grand Forks and inadvertantly set up our tents on top of the sprinkler system and were woken up at 1:15 to a tropical water storm that flooded our campsite. Having left his origami measuring cup on the picnic table the night before, (let's call him Madrian) was able to proudly announce that 2 1/2 inches of water fell on our campsite during the cyclone that surrounded our tents for the 20 minutes of pressurized hell that camping on an irrigation system entails.
I had to cool my jets for a couple of hours while his gear dried in the humid morning air since his tent is so small, he had to leave his panniers outside his tent. My tent holds me and all my gear with lots of room to spare and while I get changed, you won't see my tent wobbling and flopping like a Mexican Jumping Bean like Madrian's does every time he makes the slightest move. But you can't blame the guy for needing a small tent when you consider the amount of crapola he has to transport with every pedal turn. I mean look at the guy's sleeping bag - it's......
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