My son had guilted me into backyard camping once before and he enjoyed it so much he’d been begging me to do it again ever since. Seriously, what is wrong with him? The last time we camped out, I’d set the tent up no problem in a spot in our yard that looked nice and flat. Turned out it was neither nice nor flat. I’d unknowingly oriented the tent so it was parallel with our backyard’s gradual downhill slope. Realizing too late I was in the uphill half of our tent, I spent the whole night trying not to roll over on him. Now that I think of it, I should have just let go and crushed him – he probably wouldn’t have thought camping was so great after that.

And I was naïve enough to think those nice puffy sleeping bags are enough to guarantee a comfortable night’s sleep. Apparently you also need some type of pad to sleep on so every blade of grass doesn’t become magnified to the size of a tree branch as your weight bears down on it all night long. Gravity can be a bitch. After that night I finally understood what that princess in The Princess and the Pea was complaining about. My son, on the other hand, despite having a lot less natural padding than I do, slept like a log. (Did I mention I think there’s something wrong with that kid?)

His heart was set on doing it again. But it was already fall and the nights were getting shorter. And colder. Winter would soon be here and that left me with three options: 1) Try to convince him that camping was now prohibited thanks to the federal government shutdown; 2) Invest in a seven-month supply of earplugs so I wouldn’t have to listen to him whine all winter long about not getting to go camping again this year; or 3) tell his father he owes my big on this one and just do it.

So we set the date on a Friday of a three-day weekend, giving me an extra day to recover and giving my husband a chance to take advantage of Columbus Day sales to try to make it up to me. I knew the key to any successful outdoor adventure is preparation, so we immediately set out to Target for supplies.  But we decided to get what was only absolutely necessary – popcorn, beef jerky (my son felt this was essential for camping authenticity) and a DVD to watch on my laptop. And the most important supply of all:

I think the people pictured on the box are smiling because they know, come nightfall, they’ll be heading inside to sleep on an actual bed.

Yes, the queen-size air mattress was crucial to camping success. I didn’t care that the box indicated the mattress dimensions were too big for our tent. I was determined to cram it into the tent then blow that sucker up until I was sure no part of me would ever touch the ground during the night.

We also made sure we had warm sleeping bags and warm clothes to wear because the temperature would be going down to 40 degrees that night. On the plus side, that would keep my chardonnay nicely chilled. Don’t judge, we all have our own survival techniques.

My son and I then settled in to watch the DVD. We’d chosen Epic because neither of us had seen it before. It’s a story about a woodland area very much like the one bordering our backyard and it’s filled with all these little creatures, some of whom are evil. A human gets pulled into their world and then has to battle these now-giant bugs and critters to survive.

Looking back, that probably wasn’t the best movie choice considering we were about to spend the night at the edge of woods that looked an awful lot like the woods in the movie. Sure enough, there were plenty of nightmares all night long. My son, on the other hand, slept just fine.

When the bad dreams weren’t making me toss and turn in my sleep, I tossed and turned while awake, listening to the night sounds around our little tent. Sounds like screeching tires, car alarms and sirens. It sounded more like urban jungle than tranquil forest. Or at least like one of the few remaining patches of suburbia that hadn’t been bulldozed for development.

Unfortunately, those sounds were eventually broken by the sound of coyotes howling. I was shocked to realize we have coyotes in the suburbs and had no idea why they were making all that noise. Maybe they were upset by American Eagle Outfitters’ “no returns without a receipt” policy over at the mall.

Morning took its sweet time in getting there. After several false starts trying to roll my body off the air mattress and onto the ground outside the tent (okay, so modeling grace and dignity for my children is not my strong suit), I hobbled inside to get warm.

I figured our little backyard adventure would satisfy the camping bug for a while, but my son wants to know when we can do it again. Would it be wrong to request a DNA test?

No, that’s not a scene from the movie Gravity. It’s a picture of our tent in our backyard at night. But our house might as well be as far away from our tent as Earth is to Sandra Bullock and George Clooney (who would be excellent casting choices if my life were made into a movie. I’ve been told if you squint from a distance of 50 yards, my smile is a little Clooney-esque). They say in space, no one can hear you scream. You can hear plenty of screaming in our backyard. Just ask the neighbors.

It doesn’t help that everything about it seems dated. Even the clothes look like they’re from the Johnson administration. The Andrew Johnson administration. Despite my best efforts, I’d inevitably abandon it in favor of a faster-paced activity. Like watching my fingernails grow.

Recently the Times Union rearranged its comics section and Mark Trail was given a special spot below the puzzles. With its presence nagging at me as I worked the Sudoku, I made a more concerted effort to read it. But the storyline was too boring. Even the Jumble, with answers like “snooze-fest,” “yawn” and “molasses” seemed to agree.

But it occurred to me the problem may be more than the slow pace. Mark and I, it turns out, have nothing in common. He loves seeking adventure in the great outdoors. I, on the other hand, believe if God had intended us to go out and experience nature, He never would have invented the Discovery Channel.

Then, while doing the cryptogram one day, I noticed something different about the strip. A man was bringing breakfast on a tray to a woman propped on pillows in bed. Now here’s a storyline I can relate to.

It turns out the man, Wes, was trying to convince the woman, Shelley, to go camping. Shelley tells him she doesn’t care for the outdoors. Either Wes is hard of hearing or else he’s fond of the celibate lifestyle because he insists she go camping anyway. Then he enlists Mark Trail and his wife, Cherry, to help. I’ll bet if they showed the next panel, Shelley would be trying to smother Wes with one of those pillows.

The next day’s strip shows a plane flying over mountains. Apparently Mark’s idea of a great camping spot is one that’s hours from the nearest first aid station. Or restroom. There’s a bear watching the tiny prop plane as it lands. I can’t help but notice it’s salivating like someone just rang the dinner bell. Good thing we can’t see inside the plane, because poor Shelley’s frantically searching the bottom of her purse for a stray Valium.

Shelley spends a lot of time at first complaining about being unable to use her cell phone. Which means room service is totally out of the question. Things quickly go downhill when, for some unknown reason, Wes and Mark fly off in the plane, leaving Shelley and Cherry alone at the campsite. At least Cherry has the decency to offer Shelley a drink. Unfortunately for Shelley, the drink turns out to be tea.

Then the plane crashes. Now, that is fun! The two men are forced to spend the night in the woods without food or shelter. A pack of wolves begins howling. It’s hard to believe Shelley would rather have stayed in the city than miss this. Wes is too injured to move. Given the luck they’re having, gangrene will soon set in. I’m sure they’ll all look back on this one day and have a good chuckle.

Another pack of wolves is howling near the women’s campsite. Shelley nervously calculates her chances of survival. Meanwhile, somewhere in the woods, Wes is calculating the size of the diamond he’s going to have to buy Shelley when they get home.

Soon, I’m tempted to forego the word search in favor of finding out what’s happening to Wes and Shelley. This week, the wolf pack chases two moose through the campsite. The moose knock a propane tank into the smoldering campfire. Suddenly there’s a huge explosion and everything is burning. Incredibly, Shelley still isn’t having a good time. Boy, talk about a stick in the mud.

Considering how hard the cartoonist is working to portray camping as a fun and safe activity, I can only wonder what Shelley will encounter next. Rattlesnakes? Avalanche? Sasquatch? I’ll have to keep reading to find out. Right after I do the crossword.

All that changed recently, however, at my book club meeting. The book we were discussing, State of Wonder by Ann Patchett, was set in the Amazon rainforest, so our hostess, Sheila, decided to serve refreshments in keeping with a Brazilian jungle theme. Now you’re probably thinking that we had bananas or mangos or even Brazil nuts. But you would be wrong. Sheila decided to go with something a bit more exotic and serve us something the Amazon has plenty of: insects.

Crickets, to be exact. Now I don’t know if there are actually crickets in the Amazon and I don’t feel like looking it up, but if there are you know they’re going to be some pumped-up-on-steroids type of cricket. The kind of cricket that would burrow into your inner ear and chirp endlessly until you jumped into piranha-infested waters just to end your misery.

The variety Sheila had were too small to be Amazonian crickets. Plus, they were dead so I was pretty sure their ear-burrowing days were over. They were actually called Crickettes and came in a small rectangular pack. Given their name and their packaging, I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to eat them or smoke them. Not surprisingly, they sat untouched until Sheila asked who was going to try one.

I don't know why I volunteered to try one, but alcohol may have been involved. Wait a minute. What am I saying? I was at book club - of course alcohol was involved! In my defense, we humans have a long history of consuming disgusting critters when we've been drinking. Don't believe me? Just ask the little worm at the bottom of a tequila bottle.

But I can’t blame just the alcohol. The box said the crickets were bacon cheddar flavored. I assume the flavor was added after the crickets’ demise because if living crickets are naturally coated with bacon cheesy yumminess I wouldn’t have waited so long to eat one. There was also the fact that no one else was brave enough to try one so this was the perfect opportunity to claim I’m the baddest ass mother on my cul-de-sac (and when I say mother I’m not using some gangsta slang. I mean an actual minivan-driving mother).

Truthfully, though, I wasn’t the only one to take the dare. Sheila’s 15-year-old son also volunteered. Since the judgment portion of boys’ brains aren’t fully formed until they’re 25, he had an excuse. I’m not a boy and I’m well-past 25, so I don’t know what my excuse was. Oh yeah, someone had just refilled my wine glass.

 Now, if you’re going to eat a cricket, here are a few pointers:

1.     Make sure it’s dead. Dead ones don’t put up much of a fuss.

2.      Whatever you do, don’t look at it. You’re not eating a frosted cupcake with sprinkles on top. Better to just pop the cricket in your mouth with yours eyes clamped shut.

3.     Don’t expect it to be delicious. Crickets have the consistency and taste of wood shavings. “But wait,” you say, “wood shavings don’t taste like bacon and cheese.” That’s right. And neither do crickets.

4.     Chew as little as possible. Otherwise you’ll end up like I did – with a cricket wing stuck to the roof of your mouth. And take it from me: no amount of dry heaving in your friend’s living room is going to dislodge it.

I did learn one important lesson, though. It turns out crickets are the perfect diet food. You really can eat just one.

  This is the "before" picture.

Trust me - you don't want to see the "after."

 I come from a long line of people who consider the phrase ”happy camper” to be an oxymoron. To put it simply, we Bitners are inside folk and I made sure to marry a man with similar proclivities. I assumed, then, that my husband and I would beget children who appreciated the value of memory foam pillows and indoor plumbing. I was wrong.

Recently my youngest has become fixated on the idea of camping outside. With me. In a tent. An item that, due to our love of the great indoors, we have conveniently neglected to own. Every time he brings up camping, I try to get him off the topic by offering him candy or turning the TV to Sponge Bob. Not a parenting technique I’m proud of, but one I was willing to resort to if it meant sleeping in my own bed. 

That is until the day my parental guilt took a direct hit from the Internet. I’d received an email announcing LL Bean was having a sale on all camping equipment.

            Malls I can do. They’re climate controlled, bear-free and the most dangerous part is looking for a parking space. Plus, the only equipment I needed was the piece of plastic in my wallet. So it was a no-brainer to head to Colonie Center for an adventure my nature-phobic DNA is better suited for: shopping.

            I was still on a buyer’s high when I returned home with my purchases – a tent, two sleeping bags and a self-inflating pillow. I only bought one pillow because I wasn’t sure it would work. If it did end up inflating, my son I would have to wrestle for it, but I was confident I could take him.

I also purchased a first aid kit and something called a Pocket Survival Pack. I bought the pack because it had seemed cocky to look at it in the store and then put it back like I didn’t need it. With my lack of camping know-how, I was in no position to tempt fate. I could picture rescuers one day discovering my lifeless body in the woods and lamenting, “If only she’d bought that pocket survival pack.” Besides, it was on sale.

            I decided I’d better figure out how to use the stuff while I was still safe and secure in my own home. It took me about ten minutes – no lie – to figure out how to open the survival pack, which turned out to be a simple zippered plastic pouch. This did not bode well for my chances in the wild.

            The first thing I noticed when I finally did get it open was that my pack was defective – no chocolate. Second thing I noticed was it was full of cool stuff I hoped I would never have to use – like a rescue whistle, signal mirror and waterproof fire starter.

Then I came across fishing line and fish hooks. I searched in vain in the pouch for the little tiny fisherman that will use them. Good Lord, I’m never going to survive if I have to catch my own food. There was also a scalpel blade, which, if I used it for slitting my wrists, would be a faster way to go than starving to death. There was even a pencil and notepaper.  Although it says you can use the paper when it’s wet, I’ll try to remember to write my farewell note before using the scalpel.

            Then I checked out the bonus lifesaving instructions. The first instruction said: Don’t Panic! Too late. Especially if I was reading it while stuck on the side of some mountain. Come to think of it, instead of a zippered plastic pouch, the whole thing should come in a brown paper bag so I’ll have something to breathe into to stave off the inevitable panic attack.

 With any luck, this retail excursion will be enough and just owning the gear will satisfy my son’s desire to go camping. And maybe if I stick the stuff in a closet, we can forget all about it. At least until the Visa bill arrives.

I try to spend as much time as possible inside because, well, it means I’m not outside. Outside is where it’s cold or hot or wet or dark or buggy or … you get the idea. And some of my favorite activities are best done inside. Like sleeping, eating watching TV, playing computer games, reading and, of course, drinking, which is a very versatile activity because it can be done in combination with the others. Except for maybe sleeping, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried.

 Staying inside has the added advantage of not requiring any fancy equipment like snowshoes or grappling hooks or pfd’s (not to be confused with pdf’s). All I need to be happy is some good food, some wine, a remote, my laptop and books. Lots of books.

Books allow me to experience the world without ever having to leave my comfy chair. And certain books, Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Into the Wild come to mind, clearly validate my decision to avoid nature as much as possible.

I also love magazines because, as much as I like to read, and I like it even better if the stuff I’m reading has pictures to go with it. Not to mention that reading magazines doesn’t take a lot of time, which frees me up to do as much eating, drinking and sleeping as possible. And with so many different magazine titles, there’s sure to be one to suit all tastes and interests.

I have my favorites. Food and Wine, naturally, is at the top of the list. House, House & Home, House Beautiful and TV Guide all appeal to my chosen lifestyle. The phobia collector in me appreciates Prevention, while Self appeals to my narcissistic side.

You have to be careful, though. Clean Eating is not about finishing off the leftover pizza in your refrigerator to make room for the cake. And Do It Yourself is not a handbook for parents looking for ways to get children to do more around the house. I’d subscribe to Wine Spectator if it weren’t for the “Spectator” part, which implies it’s about watching other people drink, thereby missing the whole point.

Recently, though, I came across a magazine that gave me chills just looking at it. It’s called Outside and its tagline is “Live Bravely.” Needless to say, I’m not a subscriber. But there was something about the in-your-face danger of its attractive cover that drew me to it, even though I knew it wasn’t right for me, much like the way men are drawn to the Kardashians.

I was intrigued by the cover story that promised to tell me how to endure my worst-case scenario. But the title “Could You Survive?” was written in a typeface so large and bold that it was clear the editors doubted my abilities without ever having met me. Okay, they may have a point.

It turns out, though, their idea of a worst-case scenario (avalanches and shark attacks) differed wildly from my idea of a worst-case scenario (a low battery warning on my iPhone during a power outage or finding out the DVR is full when I go to record the new season of Boardwalk Empire).

The article then goes on to give 27 tips that can save your life. Well, here’s a tip for those smug Outside writers who are so busy living bravely they don’t know when to stop: that’s 26 more tips than you need. The number one tip that can save your life is: Stay home. (Okay, supposedly most deaths occur in the home, but wouldn’t you rather slip in the bathtub than get mauled by a grizzly?)

As I continued to leaf through the magazine with articles about fitness routines and adventure vacations, not to mention ads for mountain bikes, GPS systems and hiking gear, I began to feel like a lazy lump of flesh who wasn’t worth the expenditure of energy my muscles required to hold the magazine much less the effort of the writers to write it. It was almost enough to make me want to pick up the latest issue of Travel and Leisure – which would be the perfect antidote if it weren’t for the “Travel” part.

Back when phone booths outnumbered tanning booths and Mad Men’s Don Draper was still faithful to his wife, thousands of Howard Johnson’s Restaurants dotted U.S. roadways. But nothing, except the presidential campaign season, lasts forever. The HoJo’s at Northway Exit 19 in Queensbury was leveled earlier this year and the HoJo’s at Exit 21 in Lake George, one of three remaining in the country, has a for sale sign in its window. With the demise of that piece of Americana goes a bit of my own personal history.

I got my first job at the Exit 19 Howard Johnson’s as a fountain girl. That probably sounds like I was a glamorous starlet in an elaborate Busby Berkeley musical. But fountain girl is really just code for “willing to spend eight hours a day up to my armpits in hot fudge for less than minimum wage.”

As fountain girl, I was required to wear clunky white shoes that looked like they belonged to a nurse at a clown hospital. I also wore a uniform made of military-grade polyester originally designed by NASA as part of a trampoline to deflect space junk. It was burnt orange. You know, the same color as many 1970s refrigerators, and about as figure flattering.

There were plenty of good things about that job, though.  I learned a lot, like bon jour is French for “I’m not going to tip you.” I tried to help others learn things, too. For instance, fellow fountain girl Rachel Ray would probably still be toiling in relative anonymity if I hadn’t taught her everything I know about being relentlessly perky. And my husband and I had our first date at the Musket Room, the Lake George HoJo’s bar.  It was an event that became the inspiration for the often overlooked Captain & Tennille hit song “Musket Love,” a paean to both young romance and the Second Amendment.

 So I was sad to think that something that had been so influential in my life was quickly disappearing from the American landscape. That is until I discovered that the now-defunct Howard Johnson’s in Plattsburgh had been recreated in a recent episode of Mad Men. Never having seen the series, I watched the clip online, excited about the possibility that the notoriety could launch a HoJo’s revival.

I also wanted to do a little fact checking, knowing that the show has a reputation for its painstaking attention to detail and historical accuracy.

Conical shaped scoops of ice cream – check.

Conical shaped bras on the waitresses – check.

Orange roof – check.

Orange sherbet ordered by Don Draper  – hold the phone.

I don’t remember any orange sherbet.  Convinced I’d found an error, I called my sister, Lynne, who’d followed in my enormous white footsteps as a fountain girl, to verify.

We both had regularly augmented our meager paychecks by sampling lots of “free” ice cream. We couldn’t help it; it’s in our DNA.  In fact, the Bitner Family coat of arms contains the image of a freezer chest. Lynne assured me that HoJo’s did indeed have orange sherbet, as well as lemon, raspberry and lime. I’d blocked that entirely from my memory, probably because the fruity names sounded vaguely healthy.

While watching the actors eat their sherbet, however, I did notice one glaring mistake. People who looked like that never ate at Howard Johnson’s. People like that never even drove past Howard Johnson’s. Because I can assure you that if I’d ever waited on customers who looked like Jon Hamm’s Don Draper, I would have pledged all my tips for a thousand years to buy enough HoJo’s stock to keep the place open. 

It’s too early to say whether the Mad Men spotlight will be enough to turn things around for Howard Johnson’s. So you should head to one of the remaining restaurants in Lake George or in Lake Placid while you still can. Because it looks as though HoJo’s is going the way of three-martini lunches. And I, for one, will miss them both. 

Thankfully, I don’t write romance. I write mysteries, so it’s a given that at least one of the characters will end up dead. And because shooting someone with a gun is much more expedient than waiting for a character to die of natural causes, it makes sense that I should know something about guns and how they work.

So when I saw the opportunity to visit a pistol range while at Sleuthfest – a conference for mystery writers in Orlando, Florida – I signed up. Now, I hoped, I’d be able to infuse my killing scenes with more drama, passion and excitement than any sex scene I wrote would ever be able to achieve. Plus, as I discovered when I took a trap shooting class (See Pistol Packin’ Mama), I just like pumping things full of lead.

At the conference hotel I boarded a bus bound for the pistol range along with a group of middle-aged writer types who all looked about as dangerous as Jessica Fletcher and that Cabot Cove sheriff played by Tom Bosley. All, that is, except that pair of Texans, who probably not only knew how to shoot, but were no doubt packing their own heat. That’s why everyone let them have a whole section of the bus to themselves. Then we gave them our lunch money.

The bus took us deeper and deeper into the heart of Orlando until there was nothing but pawn shops, check cashing joints and strip clubs. “Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Disney anymore.” If there were any hidden Mickeys around, I didn’t want to see them.

Upon entering the pistol range, we were confronted with a large sign that stated: “No live ammunition allowed beyond this point.” I immediately felt right at home because I have an embroidered sampler with that exact quote hanging in my front entryway.

We were ushered into a small classroom where Tim, the instructor handed us each a questionnaire to fill out. It had the typical questions that you’d expect, like “How many felonies have you committed?” and “Have you ever been caught?” I think more useful questions – at least in my situation – would be “How freaked out are you right now?” and “ Do stressful situations make you want to shoot everyone around you?”

I answered all the questions then signed that all-important waiver. You know, the one that says if I shoot myself or if someone else shoots me, either accidentally or intentionally, it’s my own damned fault because I signed the waiver.  Tim then gave us a brief safety talk, including good advice like don’t look down the barrel of a gun when you’re trying to figure out why it didn’t go off, which sounded exactly like something I would do. None of this was doing anything to calm my jittery nerves. So I was an excellent candidate for handling a loaded firearm.

We each had the chance to fire a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver, chambered for a .38 to lessen the recoil, and a 9mm Glock semi-automatic. If that makes me sound like I know what I’m talking about, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you right after I get done shooting its lights out.

When it was my turn to go in the room where they do the shooting, I took my target, a blue silhouette of a man with a bull’s-eye on his chest, with me. There was nary a mark on the man, and I was afraid he’d look the same way when I was done with him. I pinned the target to a garage door opener contraption and the instructor sent it out about 30 feet, but it might as well have been 100.

Then the instructor gave me 10 bullets and told me to load them in the magazine. We’d been told that the only people who refer to a magazine as a “clip” are novices and people whose parents are first cousins. Apparently, this imprecision of language is a sore spot with gun enthusiasts, and people who say “clip” when they mean “magazine” deserve to be shot. And gun folk really don’t like it when you call a magazine “the bullet-holding thingy.”

Inserting bullets into the magazine turned out to be harder than I thought. If I ever have to reload during a shoot out, I’ll end up dead. But at least, as my lifeblood flows out of me, I can take solace in knowing that it was my inability to reload a magazine – and not a clip – that led to my untimely death.

I started with the Glock and managed, just barely, to hit the target. If the blue target man had a mouth, he’d probably have been smirking. Once I’d fired five rounds, the instructor had me shoot the next five rounds with the hammer cocked (there’s your sex scene – happy now?), which was much easier. Each time I pulled the trigger, my aim became better and better. Who’s laughing now, blue target man?

When I finished firing both the Glock and the .357 Magnum, I left the shooting range with my shot-up target and waited for the others to finish. I was feeling pretty good at this point because A) I was still alive, and B) my target looked respectable for a first-timer. The only people who’d done better were people who’d done some shooting before and people who spend a lot of time playing video games.

As they say on late night infomercials, “But wait, there’s more.” If we wanted to, we could fire a .44 Magnum, aka the Dirty Harry gun. Ten of us volunteered, including me. We each were allowed to shoot five rounds and this time we were allowed to aim for the head. I know what you’re thinking, “Did she fire six shots, or only five?” Well, to tell you the truth, in all the excitement I kinda lost track myself. But I can tell you that the blue target man ended up not feeling too lucky. Punk.

If you squint, I do sort of look like Clint Eastwood. 

One of my pet peeves about nature is, well, all that nature. Especially when that nature is in the form of untamed wildlife. Bears? Terrifying. Coyotes? Ditto. Bobcats? We’re talking nightmare material. Aggressive squirrels? Don’t get me started. 

Although one of my hobbies is collecting phobias, I prefer collecting them at home where I can worry and fret in the relative safety of my family room. But now that I think of it, it’s been a while since I cleaned beneath the sofa cushions. Hey, who cued the music from Jaws?

So imagine my surprise – and terror –when I was sitting on said sofa the other night, minding my own business, while my husband was watching a show on the Geographic Nature of Discovery Planet channel.  I wasn’t really paying attention because even shows about nature raise my blood pressure to a level that can be alleviated only by eating a bowl of ice cream. Since my pants were already feeling a bit snug, I focused on worrying about other animal-related issues instead.  Like whether dust bunnies harbor Lyme disease-carrying ticks and how some little lizard knows I’m paying too much for my car insurance.

My ears perked up, though, when I realized the show’s narrator was talking about Lake George. I’ve been swimming in Lake George for years and I have the black and white photos taken with a Brownie camera to prove it. “How nice that they’re featuring ‘The Queen of American Lakes,’” I thought. But something in the narrator’s voice told me this was no Chamber of Commerce fluff piece. After all, this is the network that takes every opportunity to remind us that we’re all just one wrong turn away from being something else’s dinner. So what was the subject of the show: killer zebra mussels? Asian clams gone bad?

Turns out, they were talking about hippos. Now they had my full attention. I was eager to get a look at the confused hippo that had made a wrong turn at the equator and ended up in Lake George’s chilly waters. So I did what I usually do when I want to get a better look at something – I grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

To my horror, the accompanying footage made it clear that the narrator wasn’t talking about one hippo, but hundreds of them. Enough hippos to make the Minne-Ha-Ha paddle for its life.

I already have enough trouble getting up the nerve to swim in Lake George – especially where the water’s deep (okay – you can stop playing the Jaws music). My imagination gives me plenty to be afraid of, even when I try to convince myself that a super croc would rather eat a jet ski than a swimmer like me. Now I was going to have to contend with hippos, too.  Something told me it was going to take more than a kayak paddle to fight them off.

And then, as so often happens in my stories, things got worse. Turns out all the hippos are dying. Not from natural causes, or because the water in Lake George is too damn cold, but from anthrax. That’s right. ANTHRAX! Does the EPA, DEC, APA, LGA, and ADK know about this? (I left out WTF, but I’m sure you were already thinking that).

Just as I was about to cancel my summer vacation plans for the next 100 years, a map appears on the screen. They were talking about Lake George, Uganda not Lake George, NY. Never mind. I’m going to get some ice cream.

            Still, there is a possibility I could become stranded on a cold Adirondack night – like if my car breaks down on the way home from a Winter Clearance Sale at the Lake George outlets. The thought of having to rely on the heat generated by an over-swiped credit card chills me to the toes of my buy-a-pair-get-a-pair-half-off shoes. So I signed up for a winter survival skills workshop through Becoming an Outdoors Woman (BOW). I figured at the very least I’d learn how to make a shelter out of shopping bags.

Sonny & Sheila Young, certified Adirondack guides based in Saranac Lake, NY, were the instructors. We started the afternoon inside a warm classroom. Considering it was 0° F outside, I assumed we’d stay inside and talk about survival skills in theory. I was wrong.  We were told that after a discussion of necessary supplies and what to do if you unexpectedly have to spend the night in the woods (in the woods? What would I be doing there?), we would go outside and put what we learned into practice.

Sonny asked us what is the most important key to surviving in the winter. I fought the urge to say, “an adequate supply of cabernet.” Which was smart because an unofficial survival tip is don’t tick off the guy who knows how to get you back home. It turns out, the key to winter survival is preparation. We were given a list of the things you should take with you when going outside in the winter – a map, compass, something to help start a fire, extra clothes, and a first aid kit. There was not one mention of brownies, which made me question whether they really were experts. But according to Sonny, people can go quite a while without food. That was news to me because I was already planning what I was going to have for dinner.

            Then they took us out into the woods, gave us all flint strikers, and told us each to start a fire. Everyone took off through the trees to gather things they thought would burn. Unfortunately most things don’t look flammable when they’re covered with snow. Dying a cold and lonely death out there became a distinct possibility despite the fact that buildings were visible through the trees.

            Finally I’d collected enough bark, twigs and sticks to try lighting it with the flint striker. I got plenty of sparks, but none of them took. Then I remembered they’d also given us two matches. I looked around. Everyone was still using the macho striker method but no one had managed to get a fire started. I wondered if using the matches would be considered cheating. Since I was getting colder by the minute, I figured the only one I’d be cheating was Death.

I found a rock under a tree, took one of my matches and struck it against the rock. The match flickered and then went out. Not surprising since I was standing three feet away from my tinder pile at the time. (Note to BOW: consider offering a workshop entitled Survival Skills for People Too Stupid to Live) I would have cried, but my tears were frozen in their ducts.

            I tried the second match, this time leaning over my little pile of tinder, but for some reason it wouldn’t light. I went back to using the striker. All of this had to be done without gloves, so my fingers were turning numb. “It would be nice to warm them by a fire, “ I thought, and then I remembered, “Oh, yeah, I can’t start one!” The irony was as bitter as the wind chill.

Others in the group were getting their fires started. Soon I’d be the only fireless one. I’d seen enough nature shows to know what happens to the weakest in the herd. I took a deep breath, telling myself not to panic and to remain positive. Then I looked down at my pathetic pile of icy twigs and was positive I was going to die.

 There’s an old saying among outdoors people – actually I’m just making this up, but there should be – that you need to save your hide before your pride. So I took that to heart and lit a piece of birch bark in someone else’s fire and used it to start my own. Not exactly kosher, I know, but fortunately there wasn’t a rabbi around to issue a citation.

            I learned a lot of things in that class. First, don’t get stuck in the woods in the middle of winter. Second, if you do get stuck, bring lots of matches. Third, make sure you’re with someone who can start the fire for you. And finally, I don’t care what the experts say; I’m bringing brownies.

Here I am with the fire I (kind of) started.Please disregard all signs of civilization in the background.