Head for the hills

So a couple times each summer my group of friends decide they want to pretend to be butch and go camping. We used to go down to Travis' cabin about two hours drive south of Denver, but he's now married to his boyfriend and so we rarely see him. His cabin had electricity but no running water or bathrooms. Some of my friends thought that was roughing it. Lol.

However, the past few years I've been able to convert most of them over to real camping. Tent and sleeping bag camping. My friend David found this great camping site about 45 mins out of Denver that works out perfectly. Plenty of parking for our large group, tons of shade and space for all the tents, a nice little stream, a great view with trails and mountains to climb close by. But mostly its great because it's secluded from other campers. The world has come a long way... but the last thing a large group of gay people up in the mountains need is to run into some self righteous hillbilly on a crusade to cleanse the world. And you know those bastards don't stay in Colorado Springs like they should.

So anywho, this last July we set up a trip for a Friday through Sunday weekend. People come up as they can. It's a big group, so I decide to take Friday and Saturday off so I can go up earlier than everyone and have a bit of time to myself. So I get up there Friday morning and get my stuff set up then start gathering wood. While I'm out gathering wood I hear music. Immediately my gaydar goes off. I don't think it was the type of music completely. Or the fact that there was music at all. Straight people play music too. But the combination of the two, the time of day and the fact that it was up in the middle of nowhere with no electric outlets... I felt pretty safe in my assumption.

So I finish gathering wood and decide I'll be brave and see if I can discover the source. So I clean up (at this point I was single and well... you just never know, gotta look my best) and head down the street with Rome. Sure enough, Rome goes wandering off to this campground and finds no less than three pug dogs and two guys playing croquet. Call me crazy, but I don't think gaydar is needed at this point. If those two weren't gay it would be the shock of my life. So I wandered in and made some new friends. Played a round of croquet with them (and lost) and sat around chatting. A cute married couple of 7 years enjoying a nice weekend away from Denver. Who can blame them right.

So I'm back at my own camping spot, a large portion of the group has shown up and set up their tents. It's now dark, we've got our fire going as well as our own music. Someone hears some music that isn't ours and they assume its my friends from earlier that I had told them about. I had my doubts. The music was louder and more club/dance music. Didn't think it was the two guys style really. But what do I know, I only met them for a couple hours. So about 15 of us decide to take a hike down the road to meet the these guys from the other camp.

Along the way we're passing this camp with a few girls, one girl swinging around some glowsticks, and what gay guy can resist that. Besides, the chance that at least one of them was lesbian is pretty high, and in case of any danger you always want the nearest lesbian around to save you. So we invade these peoples camp briefly. They were nice enough, but women don't hold our attention long.

Not to be deterred, the music was getting louder and we were getting closer. It was a long walk though. Surprising how far the music carried in the mountain air. I think we walked about a mile or two from out camp before discovering the source. And it was most definitely not my new found friends. This had been much further down the road and there was a lot more people.

So, my friends are by and large regular guys. You wouldn't look at them and immediately think ~ you're gay. Some of them get a bit more flamboyant with a little alcohol, or reflected when they are around other more flamboyant guys. But really, who doesn't pick up a little slang and accent in a foreign country. But of course there has to be the token queen with his high pitched, nasally voice prancing around that gives the rest of us away. And now-a-days the kids are coming out in elementary school without a fear in the world. Mathew Shepherd type stuff only happens in small towns and back woods right? Even if that were the case, they failed to notice that we are now in the back woods. So I'm a little apprehensive as we wander into this party, wishing I had vocalized my idea of binding and gagging the kid before he gets us killed.

It was all warm welcomes and come and stay a while type stuff. A small party knows its destined to die without good numbers. So they saw us as lighter fluid for the fire. And they had the stuff they needed for a good party. They had mixer tables all set up with the dj playing the music, they even had a big screen and projector that I assume they would play music videos should the party really get going, and generators to run it all.

It couldn't have been 3 minutes before princess dumbass gives us away. I hear one guy say to his friends "dude, I think all of those guys are gay". So the fear factor is getting up there. I'm looking for my best exit strategy should things turn ugly... a good boulder to duck behind. I figure it should be easy to vanish since they would probably go after the squealing queen first. Two things happen as it becomes apparent to all of them about all of us. First, the party guys group up away from the rest of us. I'm sure they were afraid they would catch something. Second, the party girls gravitate to us. Women love gay guys. Especially in a club/bar/rave situation. We're safe, fun, cute, cuddly. We're like puppies with dicks.

So one of the more intoxicated party guys comes over and is like "dude, you guys are stealing all our chicks." Which isn't exactly true since we don't really want them. But perception is everything and this is our clue that it is time to make our excuses and get out. The women here were not lesbians and therefore could not save us. And the glowstick girls were too far away to hear our screams. The party girls were begging us to stay but thankfully it wasn't just me that saw the peril in taking that path. So we started the long hike back to our own camp. The girls promised they were expecting a lot more people the next night and asking us to come back. Girls do love puppies.

On our way back we ran into my croquet friends from earlier that day. They were headed toward the music but we gave them fair warning. They had some straight friends that had joined their group, but they also had the three pug dogs with glowstick collars. They had no more chance at blending in than we did. Our second encounter on the way back to camp was the sheriff. Apparently there were some complaints about the noise from the party camp. Of course princess dumbass is all about telling him how we heard the music from our camp a couple miles away and how they are partying it up. At the same time the rest of us are trying to down play it so they don't get in trouble. Saying they are just having a bachelorette party and its a small group. I wanted to pinch the kids nose and watch his head explode. The last thing we need is the party guys thinking we ratted them out after stealing their girls. Not that that was much of a danger, but its still good karma to not make someone else's night worse when its entirely possible that some of our guys could get busted for some of the stuff they were doing.

Later on that night my croquet friends stopped in to meet the rest of us. Apparently they were close by when the sheriff got to the party. All he did was have them turn the music down a bit. Either they stashed the hash fast enough or the copper wasn't too worried about the rocky mountain high.

The next night we all sat around listening to the music and chatting. We had about 30 people in camping chairs around the big bonfire. I mentioned at the beginning that we like the spot cause its away from other campers. The parking is right off the road so any newcomers can't miss all the cars with HRC stickers. You have to walk down the hill, cross the small stream, and then back up the hill on the other side before you get to the tents and then beyond that is the campfire. On the other side of the road is a steep little part where the road has been cut from the side of the hill before you get to the hill part that is a fairly inclined itself. Not exactly a good place to camp. However, someone decided it was the last place they could camp. It was the weekend after the 4th of July weekend to try and miss the crowds, but apparently that still a big camping weekend. Luckily David came up earlier in the week and put a tent and a pink streamer to claim the site. Subtle right? These people must have missed the pink streamer and HRC stickers since it was after dark.

Some bright individual decides they are going to flash their flashlight toward the other camp. The other camp flashes back. Pretty soon both camps are calling out to the other. Feeling adventurous a Louise and Clarkette Expedition is sent out. Sure enough, they come back with some very nice, but white trash to the extreme campers. Couple skinny white guys with wife beaters and nearly empty bottles of the cheapest alcohol they say is fit for human consumption and the women that go for that kind of thing. They went around the circle and introduced themselves. Zach, the only one I remember and the focus of the remaining comedy made it all the way around once and not realizing it kept on going. If we didn't let him know that he had already introduced himself to everybody he probably would have kept going all night and not known better.

He was stumbling all over the place. And of course he decides he wants to be the center of attention, as many drunks do, and starts dancing around between our big circle and the fire. Jumping it a few times. After some time it began to dawn on them that this wasn't the typical campsite. He says "you guys mind if i ask you all a question?...." then shouts "who likes pussy?" Dead silence. The girls with us were all straight, the guys all gay. Of course we burst into hysterical laughter about 10 seconds later. We outnumbered them 6 to 1 so we weren't to worried. They were cool though. Zach decided to put on a show for us and take his shirt off while he danced (i use the term loosely) to the music. He offered to show us more and only princess dumbass was eager while the rest of us talked him out of it.

He was falling all over the place and was more of a liability than anything, so we suggested it was time to go and a couple of our more muscular guys escorted them back to their camps. The last thing we needed was him falling in the fire and having to somehow get him help. As they were walking away Zach decides to put on one more show and as he's walking away down the path he drops his pants and moons everyone spanking his own ass. Of course he couldn't walk straight with his pants on, so of course he stumbles and plows face first into the bushes with his pants around his ankles. You can't pay for that kind of entertainment. As we were loading up the next morning they stopped by and he apologized for everything.

And that was our great adventures. Another weekend is scheduled for August :)