Author: Steve

 

I forgot to mention the part about the participants carrying cameras.  They carry several each.  Part of the deal is they have to film everything they’re doing.  It never shows on screen, but I think support crews come to exchange camera data cards and batteries regularly.  As the weeks go by, the survivors get regular medical checkups as well.  Finding adequate food seems to be the biggest hurdle for most in this adventure.  It’s not uncommon for people to get pulled from the game by the medical team before they’re ready to go because they’ve lost too much weight to continue safely.  I also forgot to mention that all episodes of the show are available streaming on HULU.  The first season is a little patchy, but it gets better after that, as the participants get better.

 

Watching this show takes me first back to the boy scouts (in the 1950s, learning to live off the land), then to the later backpacking days.  I never tried to live off the land like these people (leave-no-trace camping is generally more appropriate now), but I did carry everything I needed into the wilderness to live alone for a few days at a time in the Colorado high country and be completely self-sufficient hiking back and forth over the Continental Divide.  Now I suddenly miss that and feel the pull.  Matt is storing my old backpack.  Maybe I need to pick that up from him, assemble the rest of my gear, and make another hike over Pawnee Pass.

 

But back to food.  A lot of small animals, and occasionally big ones, are harmed in the production of this show.  I’m a little squeamish about that part.  I know this is where our food comes from, most of us eat animals, but killing animals for entertainment is a little off-putting.  Killing animals as a food source for people that are otherwise starving; completely understandable.  So where does this leave me?  It leaves me enthralled with the concept of being left alone and having to find my own way to fire, water, and shelter; but I think I want to be the survivor who brings their own freeze-dried meals and lives as one with the bunny rabbits and squirrels.  🙂

 

 

Lazy dog days of summer.  A driveabout to Port Mansfield.  It’s only an hour away.

 

Route to Port Mansfield

 

There isn’t really any reason to be in Port Mansfield unless you’re going fishing (which we weren’t). 

 

Port Mansfield

 

It’s right on the Laguna Madre for shallow water fishing.  It’s also directly in line with the dredged channel, Mansfield Pass through Padre Island.

 

Mansfield Pass

 

Going through Mansfield Pass opens up the entire Gulf of Mexico for deep water fishing.

 

Pelican Cove Bar and Grill for Black Drum at lunch.

 

OMG good.

 

A stop at the new fishing pier

 

…and waterside trails.

 

 

A drive through town to locate the white-tailed deer that are always here somewhere.

 

 

 

 

 

And that pretty much wraps it up!

 

An excellent day.

 

 

I wished out loud that we could watch a program like Survivor, but with a little more focus on survival than game play.  Our wish came true.  Actually, it was already true, but we just found out about it.  Survivor gets network television.  The program “Alone” gets the History Channel.  Alone doesn’t use teams so much, only once so far, so we don’t get the team dynamic, but no problem.  It does put capable survivalists out in the wilderness to get by with no outside assistance.  Ten people.  Each gets to bring a few basic survival tools and a tarp.  Each one is left alone with a satellite phone to tap-out when they’ve had enough.  No contact with the outside world.  No contact with each other.  The one that lasts the longest wins.  The only way you know when you win is when they come out to tell you.

 

It’s great to see how these wilderness-capable people do.  They build things.  They invent things.  Some fight the wilderness to survive.  Some embrace the wilderness to survive.  Some figure out fire, water, shelter, and food, but not all do.  You might think the ones with the best wilderness skills would automatically win by lasting longest; they might, but not necessarily.   “If you don’t have air, you don’t care that you don’t have water.  If you don’t have water, you don’t care that you don’t have food.”  Once you get all the basics though, then what?  Then the head games really start.  When you’re not worried about surviving another day, you can start to wonder how long to you really want to live a survival existence indefinitely alone.

 

Certainly bingeworthy.  A big “thank you” to the several people who suggested it to us.

 

 

Climate change is accelerating.  We’re so slow to deal with it, and it has so much momentum, it could pass a tipping point while we’re still procrastinating and go into a spiral we can’t stop.  What if we screw the planet up so much it becomes uninhabitable?  It’s game over.  End of story.  Right?

 

Well, it depends.  It depends on how important we think human beings are.  The earth formed about 4.5 billion years ago.  Life on earth started maybe 3.5 billion years ago.  The first animals, 800 million years ago.  The first mammals, 178 million years ago.  First primates, 60 million years.  Early humans 2.5 million years.  Modern humans, maybe 350,000 years ago.

 

If we compress the history of life on earth, and express it as one calendar year, the earth took shape on January 1^st.  Life appeared on March 22^nd.  The first animals October 27^th.  the first mammals December 16^th.  First primates December 26^th.  Early humans on December 31^st at about 7pm.  Modern humans at 11:30 on the last day of the year.  That’s how significant we are to life on earth or life in general.

 

Sure, from our perspective, we matter, but that’s a human-centric look.  From an earth-centric perspective, we’re just a minor blip.  An annoyance.  If the planet has to endure a temporary fever to rid itself of an infection, it’s seen a lot worse than that.  Then, it’s got another 7.5 billion years or so before it gets engulfed by the sun.  For the earth, the game has just begun.

 

 

 

Love those little street tacos.  A bit of beef with shredded cabbage, tomatoes, sauteed onions, a squirt of hot sauce and a squeeze of lime, wrapped up in a tiny soft corn tortilla.  We get them in Mexico; six for five dollars.  Mouth is watering again as I describe them.

 

Makes a filling lunch.  All fresh ingredients.  Why would these little things make me sleepy?  It never fails.  It takes about an hour to walk back across the bridge, clear the border, and drive home; just in time for my involuntary nap.  No coke.  No beer.  Just tacos.  There is nothing unusual in them.  Why would this combination of ingredients put me to sleep?