Friday, October 12th – 9:45 PM

I am currently sitting in the glow of a battery-powered lantern, inside a tent that smells faintly of mildew and old pine needles. If you told me a week ago that I’d be spending my weekend in the middle of the Blackwood Wilderness without a single bar of LTE, I would have assumed I was being punished. Dad calls this ‘quality bonding time,’ but right now, it feels more like a survival challenge. The drive up here was three hours of Dad’s ‘Classic Rock’ playlist and my attempts to download as many podcasts as possible before the signal vanished into the ether.

Setting up the campsite was a comedy of errors. Dad insisted on using the ‘vintage’ canvas tent he’s had since college, which apparently requires a PhD in engineering to assemble. We spent forty-five minutes wrestling with aluminum poles that didn’t want to connect, and at one point, the whole structure collapsed on top of him. I couldn’t help it—I started laughing so hard I had to sit down on a log. Surprisingly, he laughed too. We eventually got it standing, though it looks a bit lopsided. For dinner, we had slightly charred hot dogs and beans from a can. It wasn’t exactly gourmet, but after the physical labor of building our ‘home’ for the weekend, it tasted better than it had any right to. Dad is already asleep, snoring loud enough to startle the local wildlife. I’m still wide awake, listening to the crickets and wondering how I’m going to survive two more days without social media.

Saturday, October 13th – 2:30 PM

I think I’ve reached a new level of primitive existence. I woke up at dawn because the sun decided to turn our tent into a convection oven. Instead of my usual iced coffee, Dad made what he calls ‘cowboy coffee’ in a percolator over the fire. It’s thick enough to paint a fence with, but it definitely did the trick of waking me up.

We spent the entire morning hiking the Ridge Trail. Normally, I’d be complaining about the elevation gain, but the silence out here is actually… heavy? In a good way. Without the constant pinging of my phone, my brain feels less cluttered. We stopped at a clearing overlooking the valley, and Dad started telling me stories about when he used to come here with Grandpa. He talked about a time they got lost for six hours and had to follow the sound of the river to find their way back. It’s weird seeing Dad as a kid who messed up and got into trouble, rather than just the guy who reminds me to do my math homework.

We found a small creek and spent about an hour trying to skip stones. Dad is a professional; he got one to skip seven times. My record is currently two, but I’m determined to beat him before we leave. There’s something strangely therapeutic about the rhythm of it. We didn’t talk about much, just the weather and the different types of moss on the rocks, but it didn't feel awkward. It felt easy.

Saturday, October 13th – 10:15 PM

The most unexpected thing happened this evening. After dinner, as we were sitting by the fire, it started to drizzle. Not a downpour, just a soft, misty rain that made the woods look like something out of a fantasy novel. Instead of retreating into the tent, Dad threw a tarp over our chairs, and we stayed out there.

We ended up having this really long conversation about the future. I told him how stressed I’ve been about high school next year and how I feel like I’m constantly falling behind everyone else. I expected him to give me a lecture about study habits or ‘grit,’ but he just listened. He told me that when he was my age, he felt the exact same way—like he was a background character in everyone else’s movie. He told me that life isn't a race, even if the internet makes it feel like one. It was the first time in a long time that I felt like he really understood me, not as a parent looking down, but as a person who’s been there. We roasted marshmallows until they were gooey messes, and for the first time in months, I didn't check the time once. The fire is dying down now, and the rain has stopped. The stars out here are ridiculous. You can’t see them like this back in the suburbs; there are so many that it’s almost overwhelming. It makes everything back home feel very small.

Sunday, October 14th – 4:00 PM

We’re back in the car now, heading toward civilization. My phone finally buzzed a few miles back, and suddenly I had forty-three unread messages and a mountain of notifications. I looked at them for a second, then put my phone facedown in the center console. I’m not ready to go back to all that noise just yet.

Packing up the campsite was much faster than setting it up. We’ve become a pretty efficient team. Dad even let me take charge of the stove this morning, and I managed to make pancakes that weren't entirely burnt. As we were walking back to the truck, Dad hugged me and said he really enjoyed the weekend. I told him I did too, and I actually meant it.

My legs are sore, my hair smells like woodsmoke, and I’m pretty sure I have three new mosquito bites on my ankles, but I feel… lighter. I realized that I spend so much time looking at a screen that I forget there’s a whole world that doesn’t require a charger or a password. Dad promised we could come back in the spring, and I’ve already decided that next time, I might just leave my phone at home on purpose. Well, maybe. One step at a time. For now, I’m just going to lean my head against the window and watch the trees go by until we hit the city lights.