On a Saturday about a month ago, Joy, Kyle, Marcia, Stephanie, and I got in a minivan (courtesy of Zipcar) and drove to Yosemite. We took pretty much the whole day getting there, enjoyed a leisurely breakfast, picked up groceries, and stopped occasionally on the way to take pictures. By the time we got to our heated canvas tent cabin at Camp Curry, it was dark.

Upon discovering that cooking inside the tents was off limits—on account of the bears—we “went out for dinner” (for a national park, there are a surprising number of places to choose from). After some made-to-order, buffet-style fare, we called it a night. But before we went to bed, we broke the no-eating-in-the-tent rule and had a few beers.

Of course I made the same mistake of drinking too much on a full stomach right before bed, and sometime in the middle of the night my bladder woke up, begging for mercy. I tried to ignore it, fearing all the hungry bears I’d meet on the long icy walk between our tent and the communal bathhouse, but it was no use. I threw on some clothes in the dark and braved the freezing temperatures for my bladder. Next time: stadium buddy.