Camping at Boca

I love the outdoors. Most of the pictures you'll see me put up here are of trees, lakes, clouds, and the like, because that's what I like to print and hang around my house. Several years ago, I started going up to a local collection of reservoirs with some guys from my church. I was still in college, and they were probably seniors in high school.

It became a matter of habit to visit Boca reservoir (the foreground of the above photo) every Labor Day weekend, and soon on Memorial Day weekend as well. The more popular of these reservoirs is Stampede, which is better for boats, in a more forested area, and has more campsites overall - so we picked the less popular of the two in hopes of avoiding the rush of people. Boca being favored by fishermen because it is more shallow, and has a long tapering north end where the river pours into it - such that it is hard to tell where lake ends and river begins.

Memorial Day Weekend, 2005. It was colder than usual, and foggy. Very foggy. The first night, I didn't even take the cot outside, for fear of exasperating a sore throat I had the first evening. The man who did (with face obscured to protect the innocent) reported being colder than he may have been his entire life. I did so the second night (with a probably superior sleeping bag) and slept just fine, though there was frost on the outside of my sleeping bag the following morning.

I, however, enjoyed the chance to take some pictures with my new camera. Fog tends to give a very strong feeling of isolation, as it cuts you off from the rest of the world, but it also has an ethereal quality that I really like, especially as it starts to evaporate as the sun grows stronger.

It is also a tradition to play Risk, and I brought Lord of the Rings Risk on this particlar outing. I'd win more often at Risk, but hesitate to attack girls, especially if they haven't played before. So I usually end up in a tit-for-tat slugfest against the other guy(s), and having killed ourselves, the girls (who were working together the whole time) end up conquering the world.


Memorial Day 2005 had one other significant aspect that I was unaware of at the time. For a couple of years on Memorial and Labor Day, among the group of friends who would go was a girl I had very strong feelings for. But I am shy, and apt to try to be careful in how I approach such topics. By Labor Day, I knew that something had to change, but I did not know how it would change. She was not there that particular weekend, and I stayed by the fire late, after everyone had gone to bed and the fire had long since turned to embers. "Everything will be different." I knew I had to say something, because I thought I would explode if I did not. I knew it was a risk, because I had no reason to suspect things would work out - only the fervent hope that they would. But whatever happened, I knew it would come before another camping holiday.


Life goes on, and things you wish you could freeze, moments you would sacrifice anything to keep from changing pass away often before you knew just what they really meant to you. For me, Boca will always represent simple meals of chili, chili, and more chili; picking up heavy rocks underwater for no other reason than to do it; a time to escape the worries of the world with good friends; epic battles on the Risk board; the chill of the morning as we rushed to church on Sunday (often with the necessary "washing up" in the church bathroom); and the one place where I felt truly comfortable interacting with a girl I eventually got up the nerve to call, only to be met with the wrong type of silence on the other end.

When I think of heaven, I think of Boca. I may be the only person in the world to do so, but it is true. A place of unencumbered peace, where dreams may yet come true, and the disappointments of life in the valley dare not approach. I fear going back again for fear of losing the Boca of my dreams.