I am from blackberry stained baseball caps, pickup trucks, and opportunity. From the piney woods to peaches and live oaks... and prickly pear. The setting sun, the next rise, and trips to the sale barn. Hot days bringing in the hay, and cold days putting it out again.  The Navasota River bottom… whitetails, the unrivaled comfort of fires … just the right size … at just the right time, where I first experienced that intoxicating taste of being trusted… what it means to be a man. The approval of a hero.  Ideas pondered during hours and hours on a tractor……

Base Camp is where we dream of the chase. The hunt. The adventure. The marvelous feat to accomplish.  It’s where we mend from the last time, sew up holes in our socks and shirts, gear up, and get ready to go again.  Base Camp is for celebrating, story telling, and remembering. It’s where the coffee is strong enough, but not too strong, and the fire’s just right.  It’s where the books are easy to find, the dog naps on the rug, and that old sweater (the one with the tear on the back from that durned droopy barbed wire on…