Road Side Chef Please

The occasional sound of a car passing by, dim light breaking the crest of your eye lids, that slightly too warm for sleep sensation; it had to be the morning. It's inevitable that humans are programmed for routine. Even if you pack your things and gear up for the van life, you'll eventually develop some sort of procedure. That's at least what I found out from living on the road for 50 days. For my comrades and I, It was as close to the simple life as you can get. The morning sun would heat the rooftop tent past the perfect sleeping temperature (which we all know is 68 degrees) then one or two people would crawl out of the treehouse-on-wheels depending on our sleeping arrangement. Now it was time to get the breakfast boiling in our Biolite Stove; we'd normally start with the road life delicacy coffee or tea with a scoop of protein. After many days of strenuous backpacking, It's a wondrous feeling sipping hot coffee on a cool morning while looking out over a new mountain view each day. Next up on the menu was freeze dried eggs from our favorite backcountry food supplier MountainHouse. Today's view was of world famous Medicine Lake but before we could even settle in, tour buses began showing up to unload groups by the dozen.

This procedure worked like clockwork, each group would walk up to the informational docks, the guide would give his spiel and then they would be on there way. Fortunately, since I watched this happen multiple times I'll never forget the interesting backstory of why the native people named it Medicine Lake in the first place. The explanation goes something like this. The lake is filled each year by an underground river system that carries mountain run off to and from the lake. What's crazy is, if you walk along the lakes edge you'll start to hear a draining noise. If you follow it to the source, you'll eventually find the ducts and actually be able to see the lake draining before your eyes. So fortunately the guides had there hands full as this posed some interested questions. Not only this but I noticed something else was catching the tourists attention. It was our tent!

I caught on quick to their excitement and after hearing a few people talk about our setup I started a little game. Every time a bus would show up I'd press a button on my trusty wireless remote to make the tent go up and down. The reactions were priceless, and to my surprise most of the people commented on how they'd never seen anything like it. My attention seeking behavior quickly turned in a full blown Q&A and we ended up getting a lot of great questions about who we were and what we were doing there. Our secluded backcountry meal time had now turned into a meeting of the tribes where we shared laughs with people from all over the world.

It must had been the third or fourth bus, when a large Asian family unloaded. I of course had my finger on the trigger ready to play my game and stoke up some new conversation. By this time we were in the middle of breakfast and we were getting really close to needing a second batch of coffee. I went to find some more sticks for our gas-less stove when unexpectedly a short older lady from the tour group jumped behind our picnic table (backpackers kitchen) and began helping us with the fire. With a smile across her face and the occasional laugher from the group she was with, she ran all over the place grabbing little sticks, blocking the wind, and even stirring the coffee for us. I tried my best to introduce myself and get her name but the language barrier was clear.

We didn't exchange one understood word that day but we exchanged something more than that, human kindness, compassion, and fluidity. Throughout all of the time I've spent traveling, hiking, and being apart of the wilderness, this is a common theme. People are more open, friendly, and apt to put themselves out there. It could be because these people were clearly on vacation but even if they were this is a lesson we can take with us everywhere. The seriousness at which people live their life is at astoundingly high levels. We need more people with the ability to laugh at themselves, be goofy, and participate in the reality that presents itself. Who knows, you might not even need to say a word to have an impact.