I feel off center due to the second day of a real life television show called “Russia Invades Ukraine.” Ukraine is a country separate from the dissolved Soviet Union since 1992 that has a history dating back to 32,000 BC. My empathetic nature forces me to worry to the point of sleeplessness.

Compounding my worry is pro-Putin/Russia aggression sentiment that centers around former President Trump’s praise for Putin’s aggression as smart and clever. How can entering another country to kill its citizens and destroy its infrastructure be termed clever?

Republicans leaders are silent or supportive in regard to Trump’s cavalier statement about killing humans. Senator McConnell of Kentucky, number 2 to Trump at 1, is limiting comment and criticizing the Biden administration’s efforts in imposing sanctions on Russia in concert with our NATO allies. Live, in real time, as Ukrainians die Republican leadership stands apart from NATO, our armed forces, and Biden.

Unthinkable until this point in my lifetime. The commander in chief should be be given a benefit of a doubt in regard to imposing sanctions and setting up a policy to thwart Putin–at least initially. That Republican partisans want to wound our leader at this critical time seems to be important to them than Putin’s invasion.

What worries me most is that QAnon, Republicans who purport to actually believe that Democrats kidnap children to eat them, and Fox news personalities such as Tucker Carlson continue to support the January 6, 2021, Trump-led insurrection that attacked the Capitol, terrorized lawmakers, and caused multiple deaths of police officers. Pair that support with indifference to a war of aggression in Ukraine and what does a person logically conclude? Against every instinct, my brain tells me that Republican supporters are capable of supporting a leader like Trump who could do to the United States what Putin is now doing to the Ukrainians.

President Biden is facing Putin’s invasion and the potential beginning of WW III by following treaty commitments, partnering with the 27 NATO countries, and consulting US diplomatic and military experts. He is an experienced old guy political leader who will work methodically and logically to prevent the doomsday that conservative Republican leaders are at best seemingly indifferent to. I hope Biden is successful and I hope that Trumpists do not decide to take over our country. Maybe, just maybe, Trumpists will fade and Republicans will step away from the world of cable news/internet craziness.

I have not been sleeping on the ground much these last two years due to COVID, but I anticipate tent camping my way out to New Mexico and Colorado soon. I like working my way across America via two-lane highways to see my daughter who lives in Colorado and to visit national parks and historic sites. I never tire of looking at farms and small towns. My home away from home is two-person REI tent that has been on the ground in 47 states.

I have spent cold nights in it but none colder than in April of 2014. By that stage of my camping across the country, I was wise enough to to always have two sleeping bags and a wool blanket but not wise enough to know that two bags and TWO wool blankets are a must.

I came up to Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park south of Denver in western Colorado via Montrose where I had visited a hot springs that my daughter Danielle knows about. Montrose and the hot spring were between five and six thousand feet and cold but not freezing the afternoon I drove up into Black Canyon of Gunnison National Park. I was pleasantly warm from soaking in swimming pool size spring of warm water.

I found myself to be one of three campers atop Black Canyon Mountain. Because I was about out of sunlight, I set up my tent and walked around the three campground loops a bit and turned in as dark and a snow shower settled in. To begin with, I removed one of my outer layers and zipped myself tight into my best mummy bag with my summer bag atop it. I slept fitfully at best adding layers during the night. Worry over snow and cold kept me awake.

What took me back most the next morning when I snapped the photo above was my water bottles: they were frozen almost solid. I used my camp stove to thaw water for coffee and enjoyed my solitude perched atop a sheer canyon mountain that allowed no more than an hour of sun to shine at its bottom.

I like the chance conversations that I fall into with people who like the places I spend my nights. I was on Loop A by myself but came upon a young man on Loop B who was camping in a Chevy Volt. His car led us into a good conversation. Being young and single, the young engineer from Austin took his company’s demise as an opportunity to do what he really wanted to do: drive around America for a month or two before settling into a new job.

My Avalon registered 17 degrees when I began poking around the park beyond the campground at nearly 9,000 feet in the sky.

Valley of the Fire State Park is in southeast Nevada near the Arizona line north of Las Vegas. I spent the hottest night of my camping career there on Tuesday, May 20, 2017.

I arrived at 3 P.M. according to my journal, early, and took the time to hike around wearing long sleeves and a broad brimmed hat. Of course, it was too hot to hike but I circled clumps of petrified trees protected by wire fencing. Petrified wood intrigues me. The light was bright white, red approaching the cliffs, and near night black against them.

Arriving early afforded me a chance to pick a shaded sight. I saw 110 degrees at the welcome center and knew that it was dangerously hot, though the dry Nevada heat is not as apparent as South Carolina humid heat. I remember feeling so alive that afternoon in the bright white light but stopped myself from walking after three miles or so. The payoff was a rare bathroom facility with a shower. Cold showers can be just right.

As per usual I retreated to my tent (sans fly) at soon as the sun dropped. I had a view of starlit sky and I saw it plenty because sleeping was difficult. I remember hauling cold water bottles from my cooler near midnight to douse myself with. My journal doesn’t show a temperature, but I guess it cooled to the 80s. I probably should have moved my tent away from the cliff face to escape some of the stored radiant heat and, perhaps, caught breeze in the open.

Sometimes when I have trouble sleeping at my favorite permanent camping site on Ragin Lane here in Rock Hill, I try to remember camping in a particular state at a particular time. These two nights are easy to summon.