The Journey of Camping by Ernest Lancaster
Our author Ernest Lancaster is sharing his travelling experiences with us today. Enjoy reading!
THE JOURNEY OF CAMPING
When most people think of travel, they envision lodging from five-star hotels to bed and breakfasts to Airbnb’s. Those drawn more to natural attractions than fabricated entertainment often camp their way across the country or the world.
It takes hearty souls to camp in tents or even drag RV’s or pop-up campers all over creation. There is a reason for the saying: My idea of roughing it is black and white TV at a Holiday Inn.
And it takes the most rugged adventurers to seek out camping opportunities away from crowds and civilization. This entails seeking out locations in remote settings at off-season times, or even backpacking, where hikers carry on their backs all they will need to eat and shelter overnight or for months-long adventures.
Freeing oneself from material distractions and reducing the way of life to bare essentials, even temporarily, can result in the most rewarding payoffs. Peace of mind can come from experiencing the world on its terms, instead of riding the roller coaster of mankind’s endless pursuit to tame and bend nature to its profit.
Escaping the perpetual clatter of traffic, television, radio, Internet, aircraft, trains and on and on, clears the mind, like a cleansing stream. Venturing outside contemporary life’s bubble paints a new perspective on what it means to be human.
And it sheds light on how ancients could invent the wheel, the plow, the compass, pulleys and levers, sailboats, gunpowder, paper, written language, astronomy, mathematics, philosophy, democracy and bronze and iron. I venture to say if early societies suffered the non-stop distractions of modern man, the great innovations of the past might not have occurred.
Story telling probably has occurred for as long as man could speak. But only in the last hundred years have we been bombarded with tales of all kinds in formats difficult to avoid, mostly in the name of selling us products.
Life is a journey. Dare to occasionally travel the less beaten path. Taste the freedom of breaking the shackles of screens and speakers. Let your mind explore its own path, not one of someone else’s making.
Necessity is the mother of invention. The urge to rediscover the natural world inspired camping. And it allows us the opportunity to refresh our souls.
THE JINX
By Ernest Lancaster
Series: Memphis M.O. Book 1
Fiery Seas Publishing
July 24, 2018
Suspense
Disaster strikes and innocents die as police sniper Rick Munro is plagued by a first-call jinx. As his career takes off, he must overcome his rookie mistakes, and keep his team members safe.
When Munro returns to TACT as a newly promoted lieutenant, the jinx torments him still. He must contend with team members’ rival agendas around every turn. Munro finds himself in a battle he can’t escape as corruption and death unfold around him.
Who can he trust? Will Munro break the streak or will it destroy everything he believes in?
Ernest Lancaster retired from the Memphis Police Department as a captain after serving as a cop for thirty-three years.
In the early seventies Lancaster spent two years walking a night beat in downtown Memphis, when The Peabody and Beale Street lay boarded up and crumbling and the center city became a dystopian ghost town after dark. He patrolled in ward cars, trooped for three days through a sea of pilgrims to Elvis’s funeral, edited the Memphis Police Association’s newspaper and acted as the association’s vice-president. For twenty-six years he held positions on the TACT Squad.
Lancaster now resides with his wife and Yorkie in the Smoky Mountains, where they love to hike and camp.
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