Man-Camping, for the uninitiated, is just how it sounds: Men camping with their buddies, doing things that they can't or won't do when the girlfriends, wives or children are around.

This can include playing cards for huge (imaginary) sums, staying up very late, eating indiscriminately, saying naughty words and not bathing.

Last weekend, I was reunited with a few pals who I used to hang around with before I was married.

In those days, we would play poker and ride our motorcycles around and sometimes misbehave.

After twenty-five years I figured I could still enjoy hanging out with the guys, but I had no intention of getting into the misbehavior part.

A few months before the trip, I bought an old dirt bike and fixed it up.

I figured Mrs. Anthony would chafe at the idea of me having fun without her, but surprisingly, she just said, "Have fun, be good, and wear your sunscreen."

I loaded my bike and camp chairs, cooler and gas stove into the Old Van and hit the road for the other side of Chinook Pass and a place called Kaner Flat; a well-known man-camping destination.

I even remembered the sunscreen, but as I pulled into the campground, I tried to forget about being good.

Being good and man-camping just don't go well together.

There is some caveman in every man and the tradition of sitting under the stars with your fellow Neanderthals while you stare into a campfire is so ingrained in male DNA that, to go without it for long borders on cruelty.

Late that afternoon, four more cavemen showed up and the festivities got under way in earnest.

Tony broke out the bacon-wrapped filet mignons, Jeff had a cooler full of every libation that is appropriate (and a couple that were not), and Randy began to heap wood onto the fire until the campers next door thought we were having some sort of pagan ritual.

No man camping weekend is complete without dropping some food in the dirt and eating it after vain attempts to brush it off.

This happened with the steaks; Marshmallows are another matter however and those that hit the ground quickly became "misslemallows."

Three days after I returned, I still have some in my hair.

After a night of bad jokes and the singing of ribald songs, we saddled up the bikes and rode off like cowboys on metal horses.

The trails in the Wenatchee woods are designed and maintained just for this purpose and you find out just how badly you're out of shape after just a few minutes of wrestling your steed over the loose rocks and large roots.

Way up in the hills and just off the trail, there are clearings where you can see the surrounding mountains and ponder your smallness.

You feel a smidgeon of steel in your bones for the difficulty of your climb and for the even milder threat of not making it back home.

Modern dirt bikes are marvels of engineering and seldom break down.

Sweating like a fat man on a motorbike, I followed my pal Greg to a side trail while the rest of the group headed back to camp.

Greg is a good rider and I could hardly keep pace with him through the tight, root-covered path, and before I knew it we were already back near the campsite.

The last dip in the trail took us through a small creek and just as Greg and I splashed through, we saw a Forest Service truck and an official looking ranger waving us over to where she was parked.

The Ranger Lady puffed herself up and said, "Boys, crossin' the stream is IL-Leagal and I'm gonna have to give YOU both a ticket."

Greg was pretty miffed, and argued with her, but she stayed on message, saying, "You're lucky it weren't the DNR that caught you...that'd be $1500!"

We took our citations and after she left we hit the trail again, riding over a nearby bridge, but I when I got home I looked up the law Ranger Lady had sited and it seems like there were so many potential infractions that a person could hardly pitch a tent in a National Forest without being written up.

Fortunately, the little sign Greg taped to the back her truck while she wasn't looking helped (Kiss Me, I'm a Ranger).

We were able to chalk it all up to the full experience of man-camping, including a little misbehavior.