Roan Hesse

Learned a big lesson this weekend: not all cans of beans are made equally. This past weekend, some friends and I went to Death Valley Nat’l park for Halloween, just to explore and see some cool stuff. We camped Friday – Sunday, and as someone who had been camping dozens of times throughout my childhood, this would be simple.

One thing I had learned from my dad during all those camping trips as a kid was a better way to prepare breakfast. At the end of the night, after the fire has gone out, you stick a can of beans over the coals so that by the time you wake up in the morning, you have hot (or at least warm) food to eat first thing – no need to wait for a fire to start or for the coals to get hot enough again. So that’s exactly what we did: I put two cans of beans in the fire (one regular Busch can and another brand that didn’t have bacon, for the vegetarian in our group).

Settling down on our first night was rough. Death Valley is essentially a sun-bleached valley, mostly made up of rocks, sand, and dirt, with the occasional vegetation that had either been browned by the sun or scorched to death. It was hard to get comfortable since I had seemingly chosen the hardest patch of earth to prop my tent up on, and the $9 half-inch foam pad I decided to get from Walmart didn’t do much to relieve my pressure points or joints from the hardened dirt.

As I finally was able to get comfortable by lying face down on all my packed clothes, I took note of just how quiet the desert really was. You could really only here wind, and the occasional car beep as people shut things down & locked up for the night.

As I began to drift to sleep, however, an immense explosion rang out, echoing throughout the valley. A rain of what I assumed was dirt came down upon my tent, immediately alarming me due to its apparent proximity. My heart was racing at this point too, adrenaline coursing with my veins and pulling me out of the uncomfortable sleep I was about to doze off into.

I was sat up now, intently listening to any other sounds to try and figure out what just happened. I assumed this may had been a halloween prank or something, figuring that somebody had thrown an M-80 or other explosive into the dirt field in which my tent was next to. After a minute or so of not hearing anything, I heard my friends’ tent unzip as they made their way out to our fire pit. And at that moment, I realized what had happened.

My friend came to my tent, beckoning me to come help them clean up a can of beans that had erupted, scattering overcooked bits of navy beans in a 30 foot radius around our campsite, some making it into our neighbors as well. I started to feel pretty bad too since our neighbors, who’s tent was about the same distance as mine, most likely receive the worst of the disaster. They had their whole tent open, cover off and everything to watch the sky at night. I can only imagine what they must have felt after hearing that loud of a bang followed by bits of beans and sauce rained upon their uncovered tent.

We began to clean up, and the extent of the destruction became apparent: our picnic table which was once clean (besides the dirt & weathering it had) but now had bits of beans and sauce painted over it completely. The fire pit, ground zero for the detonation, had expelled most of the ash & charcoal over our chairs (which also had beans on them). My favorite hat, which I had left out, went from white and red turned to orange and red. We did the best we could picking up the bigger chunks that were visible in the minimal lighting we had, already exhausted and half asleep.

Somehow, despite making our presence and abundance of food known to the rest of the valley, we didn’t attract any coyotes. In the morning, we woke up to a flock of birds doing the work for us, consuming the remnants of last night’s catastrophe. We did end up leaving the other can of Busch’s beans in the pit, but out of fear of a repeat scenario, decided to move them away from the majority of the coals.

Lessons to be learned? If a can of beans had a pop-top or peel-back lid, it’s probably not the best idea to put it over 700°F coals. 🙂