Part 2: The Escape
After reading Florence Williams’ The 3-Day Effect,[1] I wanted to experiment on my friends (like you do) and see what benefits we experienced on our upcoming Memorial Day camping trip. Our little group had an amazing weekend in the mountains of Virginia, completely without cell service, from Friday afternoon to Monday morning. The campsite was beautiful – the site was secluded, about half an hour from the highway, past a tiny town that appeared to consist of two gas stations, a Dollar General, and a church. Our camping area was a gravel pad big enough for our five tents, a long picnic table, room to sit, and a fire pit, as well as paved parking for exactly four cars.
While I am always in favor of roughing it (think cast iron skillet in the coals), Christian is the king of “glamping” (glamorous camping). My Camry was packed full of kitchen implements, boxes of dry goods, a cooler full of nice cheese and fresh veggies, and a propane-powered collapsible grill. We also brought a 10×10 pop-up tent to cover the kitchen area, which we didn’t need because there was no rain until bedtime on the third night.
Oh, and did I mention the queen size air mattress? As we packed up the car, I wondered if I would even achieve a Three-Day Effect with all of these modern accessories. I figured that despite the increased ease of camping through these creature comforts, we would still be immersed in nature and removed from the bustle of our daily lives, and there would have to be some benefit in that.
NB: since I did not specifically ask everyone for permission to name or quote them, I will refer to my friends below by their first initials.
Friday, late:
The nine of us (plus Cora the dog) made it down to the site, despite having no cell service the last half hour or so (basically once we left the highway). I was in great mental shape to begin with, as we were able to stop for lunch at one of our favorite burrito places on our drive south through Morgantown. Christian was happy that we had enough time to set up the tent while it was still light out. All was right with the world, and we had two-plus days of camping ahead of us.
Everyone had arrived by evening. We set up camp, sat around the fire, and made hot dogs and s’mores. Several of my friends asked about the thee-day effect and what I was going to be looking for while we were camping. We knew that we wouldn’t be there for a full 72 hours, but 65 is in the ballpark. My understanding from the book is that there isn’t an instantaneous change at hour 72, but rather there is a slow progression of improvement from day to day, with 72 hours being the point of greatest benefit, after which there may be – at worst – no significant change or – at best – diminishing returns.
It was incredible to sit around the fire and watch the stars come out. The stars were stunningly beautiful – even sitting by the fire we could see more than we usually do at home. Without cell phones, we all interacted with each other, and it felt great just to have a conversation with no distractions. I went to bed early, which is unusual for me because of my chronic FOMO (fear of missing out), but I was simply incapable of staying awake after it got dark.
Saturday, early:
Three of us were up with the sun on Saturday morning. We made coffee and tea on the camp stove as we enjoyed a slow return to the conscious world. I wrote “It is so green and quiet,” feeling incredibly calm, unhurried, and unworried already.
Once we were all up and sitting around with eggs and bacon, I asked how the group was doing. Almost everyone said they were very tired, but very happy to be there. Apparently no one slept well. Many people woke up a lot during the night, and someone snores. The general consensus was that the biggest struggle overnight is deciding whether to get up to go to the bathroom or to try to hold it until morning. We learned that in every couple, there is someone who will share a toothbrush, and someone who won’t.
After we were up and ready to go, we went hiking along the Appalachian Trail – my first time there. It was something I’ve wanted to do, in pieces if not all in one go. We had a short hike but saw a waterfall, a frog, and a lot of beautiful flowers. I’m not sure if I had ever even seen mountain laurel in person before (but I admitted that I recognized it as the Spoonwood Brewing logo – I’m such a city girl.) During the hike we talked about books we’ve read or wanted to read. I remembered that A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is on my list – a story of his hike along the AT. [2]
Stopping for a rest and a snack, several people commented on how they instinctively reached for their phones. K and D especially said they didn’t like their addiction and wished they didn’t have to have phones. I thought it felt incredibly freeing to not be connected constantly. Even if we were in a place where we had signal but chose not to use it, I think it would have felt different.
Our day took a turn when we found a dog on the trail. A through-hiker from London encountered him and turned around to try and find someone who could help or at least had cell signal. She gave this dehydrated and distressed dog her water, which makes her an angel in my book. She happened upon us just as we were standing at a crossroads deciding whether to do a longer loop or take a shorter route back to camp. There were several cases of “dumb luck” on the part of this dog, Jimmy, that brought him to us, not the least of which being that our camp was two miles away, and we had dog food and supplies because Cora was along. We replenished the hiker’s water, relieved her of Jimmy, and three of us headed back to camp with him.
It was kismet to find Jimmy on the trail; it was a comedy of errors to get him home.
Jimmy’s phone and address were on his collar, and the campsite host had a satellite phone, but that was where our luck ended. The campsite host couldn’t get a signal for the satellite phone, and once he did, there was no answer. I went with M to drive Jimmy to the address on his collar and missed Jimmy’s owner by minutes. Meanwhile, the owner stopped by the campsite after encountering our angel/hiker and hearing from her where we were staying. M and I left a note at the house and returned to camp with Jimmy. Christian decided to drive to the other side of the mountain to get a cell signal and try to call the number again. Just after he left, the campsite host came by to say the owner was on his way. There was no way to contact Christian to tell him to come back.
M pointed out that all of these missed connections, all of the confusion could have been avoided if we had cell service. That thought was not lost on me.
Saturday, late:
Dinner was a taco bar, enjoyed around the fire after Jimmy’s owner showed up. After eating, we played an adult-themed brain-teaser game. If I had been thinking ahead, I would have brought something along to have the group do every night and measured the results. Clearly that didn’t happen, and all I was capable of doing was interviewing my friends and taking notes throughout the weekend.
The object of the game was to list three items in a given category in under five seconds. That turned out to be a difficult task for everyone assembled, except for D, who was on fire with the answers. Because of the difficulty, we didn’t really play but rather let everyone call out answers as a group. Even with all of us working together, sometimes it took more than five seconds to come up with three answers.
As it got dark, we put the cards away. Several people commented that they hadn’t looked at their phones since the hike when we had used them to take pictures. It seemed that many of us were more present, moving more slowly and intentionally. D said she was “happy-tired” after the strenuous hike. Over good dinner and good beer, sitting around the fire, I asked everyone how they felt. In general, the group said they felt good, like they needed the break. Someone chimed in, thrilled that “we still have one more full day of this!”
We had two discussion questions posed over the evening that warrant further consideration:
1: T gets a benefit from running both in the city and in nature. The benefit she notices is better in nature, but how much of that benefit is from nature, and how much is from running?
2: I wondered how the Jimmy adventure changed our experience. Are we feeling different for having a specific quest and accomplishing a good deed vs. just having a day of unstructured downtime?
Side Study:
One thing I did not expect to see was a change in our animal companion Cora. Our friends’ rescue dog [3] is incredibly timid and shy at home, but when camping she becomes another dog entirely. She was excited and leading the charge up all of the mountain trails, waiting for us to catch up. Her parents confirmed that this is typical behavior for her whenever they go camping – Cora’s inner wolf comes out as soon as she’s back in nature. This change is instantaneous and does not require 72 hours. I was able to confirm this claim first-hand during our hike, when this tiny dog took off into the woods after a fully-grown doe.
We had enough revelations during our three days that one blog post was not enough to summarize everything. The second half of our trip and other epiphanies will be detailed in the third and final installment next week.
Thanks for reading!
[1] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41970691-the-3-day-effect
[2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9791.A_Walk_in_the_Woods
[3] The animal sanctuary where my friends got Cora: https://alchemyacres.org/
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