the great outdoors

My good friend, Jenn, who is about to embark on a camping weekend with her kids (ages 2 and 4) inspired this post about camping. Second to only sleeping (or swim lessons or babysitters) as a favorite topic on a moms message board to which I belong. Where to camp. What to bring. Camping with infants and toddlers. Car camping. Backpack camping. It's as though all the cool kids are doing it. I love the idea of camping - campfire, stars, sleeping in a tent. I grew up camping. Canada, BWCA, tents, canoe portaging, bear ropes, the whole shebang, however, then it was my dad and stepmom that did most ALL the heavy lifting. I was just along for the ride. Heck, I even backpacked through Montana in college with a crazy PhD student sleeping outside, paddling a canoe in a straight line across a lake trying to take measurements of the lake bottom, and using a piezometer to take water samples. But even then, crazy PhD student did all the work - kept me fed, safe from bears, etc.   

These days, it's a grand production just to get us all in the car and not forget the diaper bag , a change of clothes, and a couple packages of goldfish crackers. Packing up for an entire weekend (or longer) for the wilderness, where running water and a convenience store may or not may not be readily accessible is really out of the question. This is not to say that we did not try this once. Read here for the recap. The next time, we opted for the great indoors here. After which, I declared what Gus had been thinking all along, but was just indulging my desire to do things that all families appear to do, that we were not camping people. 

I do love the great outdoors and a good campfire, and I've been known to eat s'mores for breakfast. But what I love even more? Being able to retire comfortably in a cabin (or I could probably even do a yurt), or a house on a beach, sleep in a bed, and take a hot shower in the morning. There is nothing about sleeping on the ground that is particularly appealing to me these days. I do enjoy the thought of a cozy tent and a sleeping bag, but about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning when I wake up and half to go to the bathroom, getting unzipped from both a bag and a tent and hoofing it to whatever is being used for a "bathroom," the magic is really lost for me.

So, I hereby proclaim, that unless we lose our minds we will probably not be tent camping anytime in the near future. I would definitely do a camper or a pop-up camper, but as it were we don't seem to actually really enjoy camping enough to warrant the preparation or the cost of purchasing a camper. We are just not very good campers. I accept that. I am good at many things, but sleeping on the ground is not one of them. Although, if anyone is offering to take us on a camping trip, plan meals, pitch the tent, etc. I could be convinced. We'll provide the beer.

the one and only time this giant tent
has been used.