Escape to the lakeside

PELTIER CREEK -- As a child, one of my most memorable adventures came when my grandfolks introduced us kids to camping.

They had erected a tent beside Silver Lake, one of the thousands of glacial lakes that dot the Dakotas. They took us for an afternoon of fishing, then we retired to a lakeside fish supper.

I remember the citronella candles warding off the worst of the mosquitoes, the intense brilliance of the stars moving silently overhead, being tucked into our blankets and spending the night listening to coyotes, owls and other mysterious sounds of the dark.

Afterward, my highest goal in life was to own a sheepherder's wagon, a canvas-roofed bunkhouse on wheels, my home away from home complete with icebox, stove and poker table.

No cold, marble-towered palace could compare to the cozy comforts that a sheep wagon contained. It offered the highest form of living, especially freedom from school marms and principals and truant officers. Camping as a lifestyle must be rewarding -- why else would so many hobos and bums in their makeshift tents be hanging around the stockyards in those days?

Camping still holds a mysterious appeal. Perhaps it's just our attempt to return to the simpler way of life of our forefathers or an excuse to watch a sunset and the passage of the heavens or a way to shuck the pressure of day-to-day living.

Maybe it's in our blood, part of our genes inherited from our forefathers, those wanderers of desert and plains.

The day was getting late when we arrived alongside Currie Lake, where we hoped to get in a little fishing before continuing on the return to North Carolina, in our annual attempt to escape the approaching winter. The weather looked promising enough.

Before setting up the tent, we had started a campfire.

Earlier, we had put a rack of ribs to marinating in a mix of molasses and tomato ketchup, a bit of onion and garlic and maybe a hint of pepper. To prepare a rack of ribs requires special treatment. Build a deep bed of hardwood coals, for barbecuing ribs is something that's not to be rushed. Green wood only smolders, creating smoke and creosote.

The goal is a nice steady, dry heat, cooking from a couple of hours to more, at a medium temperature. Chefs recommend 215 degrees as ideal, but I never remember to bring a thermometer. To barbecue is to marinate, baste, turn frequently, baste some more and turn some more.

The results proved to be of the gods, crusty dark outside, sweet and tender inside.

Then there is the dessert. Nothing's more easing to the mind after a full meal than waters reflecting red-bellied clouds riding the horizon, fish jumping, the drip of a canoe paddle, slightest whirr of line followed by the plop of a lure, new stars magically appearing undimmed by civilization, the silence of sleeping forest.

Never found my sheep wagon. Still looking.

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