Sleep knits up the raveled sleeve of care, and since I sleep as badly as poor old Macbeth, I need to take every advantage I can get.
When I'm camping, I want a real pillow and a comfortable sleeping pad spread on a flat spot free of rocks and protruding roots. And I want the best sleeping bag possible, which, as everyone knows, means a bag lined with several ounces of the finest, fluffiest goose down you can sink a tired body into.
The problem is, I don't own a down sleeping bag, never have, so what I know about the subject comes mostly from second-hand sources. I've borrowed down bags a few times, and several of my friends own them and swear by their virtues, but I'll never be able to buy one myself until I overcome a couple of problems.
First, I can't forget the two days and nights a buddy and I passed camping in the rain in Glacier National Park and the fact that later, after we spent 12 hours in a Missoula motel with our gear draped over the furniture and the furnace turned up as high as it would go, my cheap bag of synthetic fill was as dry as week-old wedding cake and John's expensive down bag was a wadded wet mess that looked like it had just been yanked from the spin cycle of a washing machine. Also, I can't afford to spend $500 for a bag of feathers. I've got kids to feed and a new canoe to pay for. Tell the boss I need a raise.
But when I can afford it, I won't hesitate to hand over the money because I know that sleeping on down is the best way on earth to get a good night's sleep. Feathers and bedding have been blended in many ways, from Ben Franklin's featherbed to the eiderdown sleeping bags popular at the turn of the century to the latest goose-down bags with their shells of waterproof Dryloft (which makes Gore-Tex seem as waterproof as cheesecloth), and all of them make excellent places to sleep, for several reasons.
Down weighs considerably less than even the best synthetic fillers, is incredibly efficient at trapping air and thus insulating waterfowl and humans, compresses to a small package, and has a very long loft life (it stays fluffy for ages). Down also happens to be as light and soft as angel's breath. It's as gentle as a spring creek and as soothing as children's laughter. It's what sweet dreams are made of.
Dylan, the sales clerk down at our local outfitting shop, insists that if I invest (his word) $450 for the new North Face Foxfire/DL, my sleep will be so sound that every morning I'll wake up several minutes younger than I was when I went to sleep. He guarantees that four hours in the 700-fill Foxfire (an ounce of its down fluffs to fill 700 cubic inches of space, which is top grade) is more restful than eight hours in any other bag.
I'll sleep like a mountain, he says. My sleep will be so peaceful that I'll send harmonic waves of goodness to troubled regions all over the world. I'll feel like I'm riding a featherbed downstream on a quiet river at night, the quarter moon cresting a ridge of cottonwoods, night creatures lined up on the banks cooing lullabies.
"What if it rains?" I ask.
"Dude," Dylan says, horror on his face. "Never, never, never get the bag wet. I'm totally serious. It takes like an eternity to dry it out."
Copyright (c) 1996 Jerry Dennis. All rights reserved.