Are You Sure Rambo Did It This Way?
I grew up in the 1980s and like many boys of my generation, I wanted a Rambo knife.
If you are not familiar with this terminology, it refers to the knock-off of the knife used by the movie character John Rambo played by Sylvester Stallone.
The Rambo franchise is one of my favorite movie franchises.
When I’m not camping, I love watching TV and movies. My wife and I bonded over our love of visual entertainment.
Our first date was at a movie and I proposed during a commercial TV break.
There is more to that story for a future email.
And here we are in 2022 and if you get into outdoor survival, people start referring to you as Rambo.
Which is a bit odd because he wasn’t an outdoor survival person.
In the first movie, he was basically traveling across the country when he was forced into action by a jerk.
In the next two movies, he was forced by the government to go fight bad guys.
In the fourth movie, he is forced to go rescue people who he told to not go down the river.
And in the final movie, he brings the fight to his home.
The final movie has me wanting to write about why bugging out when SHTF happens is probably the worst idea.
But that too is for the future.
What I really wanted to talk about is the time I nearly had to fight off a raccoon with my Swiss Army knife.
We were camping at MIneral Wells State Park. I had rented a shelter site because we all wanted to be close to the water and that was the site available.
It made things nicer for us when it rained for 4 hours and we got hang out in the shelter together.
Plus all I had to do was throw my cot down on the floor and I was set up.
On the opposite side of the shelter were our coolers.
When I went to bed Saturday night, my buddy put a dirty plate on top of our coolers. And a raccoon managed to get through the open door.
I rolled over on my cot and when I did, I started the raccoon that had come to lick the plate clean.
He ran out of the room as I shined a flashlight around the shelter.
The raccoon poked his head around the door to see if I was still inside.
I yelled at the critter and he ran off.
I then searched the room to make sure there were no other creatures in the shelter with me, though I’m not sure what I was going to do in my bare feet armed only with a Swiss Army knife.
I discovered that to actually keep the door closed, you had to lock the door. Which made me feel ridiculous but I was able to go back to sleep.
My friend Susan said, at least it wasn’t a bear.
Speaking of bears,
If you are scared of camping in bear territory then you should take my “Camping With Bears” course.
I’m Mark Wilcox and I once backpacked 100 miles in 90 days. After 25 years in IT, I wanted more adventure in my life. I want to inspire you to add more adventure too.
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