Camping

 [Note: I started this post back in June, and was going to add to it following the camping trip we were supposed to take this weekend.  Then Gemma threw up on Thursday morning and on into the afternoon and on into the night.  So we cancelled the trip.  She woke up feeling all better.  No one else caught her bug.  And I am left without anything to add from a late-summer camping trip.]

 

 

Back in the day, Dad and his best friend, Mr. Thallemer, would take their kids camping in Wisconsin every summer. There were a few iron clad rules for these trips that Dad never called "rules." Yet, every summer, this is how things happened:

  

1. A kid had to be 6 years old before she could go on the camping trip.

2. We camped in Wisconsin. Usually Devil's Lake. But only in Wisconsin.

3. We left on a Tuesday morning and broke camp to come home on Thursday morning. I'm not sure why we only camped mid-week, but it almost certainly had something to do with a) avoiding traffic and b) avoiding crowds.

4. Wives/Moms were neither invited nor permitted to come. If I had been the wife/Mom in question, this would have suited me just fine and I'd have looked forward to those 3 days and 2 nights as the best mid-week of the year. But I learned later that the actual wife/Mom in question of our family did not like "rule" #4.  So she claims.  I don't really believe her.

5. We used a tent.  I don't remember the idea of using a pop-up or camper even being considered. 

Dad had a vast 7-sleeper that he'd bought on sale as a floor model from Sears years before I was born.  Compared to anything you'd find today at Sportsman's Warehouse, it was Old School.  Heavy steele poles.  Metal stakes, not plastic.  No rain fly to speak of.  And it was, of course, made out of canvass. 

This was charming in some ways.  Canvass is quaint.  But it was also bad news for whomever was sleeping on the ends of the bag line-up, because those people invariably rolled against the tent at night, and touching canvass with body heat makes the canvass expand, so any, say, rain, from a humid summer night in Wisconsin would soak right through.

This tent was red, white and blue.  We called it "Old Glory," as in, upon coming back to the sight after swimming at the lake: "There's Old Glory. . ."

6. The two Dads did not care about the nutritional value of the trip. We would grocery shop at a Piggly Wiggly right before checking into the camp ground, and we would generally buy the same stuff every year: Jarred pasta sauce, pasta, individual boxes of cereal, hot dogs, peanut butter, bread, marshmallows, generic brand cans of soda and, of course--

7. BEER.

 

Beer was a rule unto itself. The cooler was never to be empty of it. Anytime after 12:00 CST was a fine time to start drinking it. And the two Dads hardly cared what we kids were up to so long as they had a lawn chair to sit in and a cold one popped open.

 

Beer even dictated the selection of our campsite upon check-in during the majority of summers when we found ourselves at Devil's Lake. Site 116, they had discovered by happy accident, was located on the edge of the camp ground. 43 steps through the woods brought us to the road that bordered the grounds. And across that ground stood a tavern.

 

These were good camping trips. The purpose of them was simple back then: We went camping because that was the thing Dad did with us every summer. He was fun to be around during those three days. And now that I know what it means for a man to go to work every day to provide for his family, I understand why.

 

It never occured to me to get analytical about camping until we moved to Colorado and tried an overnight trip two years ago, when Joshua was just shy of 2 years old.

That night, having just changed his diaper, I sat down to watch our two children, now hopped up on sugar from the s'mores, goofing around perilously close to the flames. Joshua's marshmallow caught on fire, and instead of blowing it out as all campers know to do, he started waving it around like a caveman with his first torch ablaze. Bryan disarmed Joshua just before he made contact with our (flammable) tent and I thought, for the first time in my life, "Why do people camp?"

 

No answer presented itself that night.  Only more objections.  Like the toilet situation.  It has been years since I've been able to go the whole night without a potty break.  I woke up that night and was cold and so hurried out of my sleeping bag, knowing I had a 50 yard walk in the darkness to get to the vault toilet, only to then remember that I had to put on shoes first. . .  Argh!  Why do people camp????

We decided after that trip to wait until the next summer before trying again.  Then the whole cancer thing was a very handy excuse to put it off another year.  Then, this June, it was time for another attempt.

We went with 3 other families we are good friends with.  In all, there were 11 children that weekend, ages 3 through 12--and the older kids are all so terrific with the little ones.  They run together like a very harmonious and responsible pack of wolves.  Our camp sites were all together, in a secluded cul-de-sac on the edge of the State grounds.  We felt like we had the forest to ourselves.

These families all came with camper trailers.  And while our kids were pretty impressed at the little houses-on-wheels, they also really liked sleeping in a tent.

From the moment the kids hopped out of the car, they were in the woods.  There was a nice playground with modern equipment up the road from our site, but the kids had no interest in it.  What is a jungle gym compared to a forest?

Gemma, Josh and Bryan were part of the expedition that hiked 1.5 miles uphill to a lake for fishing.  (And then 1.5 miles back, and both kids walked the whole way!)  I remained behind to enjoy the solitude.  Upon their return, Joshua announced to me that he had caught 2 fish.  The first wasn't big enough to keep.  The second one escaped while Jimmy, one of the Dads, was cleaning it.

Joshua's explanation of this second one:  "He ran away while he was getting a bath."


We had great fires.  Great worship (one of the Dads brought his guitar) and great conversation. 

Not great toilets.  Not great sleeping.  But a great time, yes. 


During those few hours to myself, I considered potential rules as measured against the old:

1. A kids needs to be out of diapers, but age 6 is not necessary.

2. Colorado was a lot better for camping than Wisconsin because we have no insects or humidity to contend with.  But I am open to camping all over the West.

3. The days we camp don't matter so long as we can avoid traffic wherever we are headed, as we were able to do this weekend.  But as we wouldn't be able to do if we ever tried to use I-70 (and have to go through Denver) on a Friday.

4. Wives/Moms definitely welcome.  Though I fully support Bryan if he ever announces he wants to leave me home alone.

5. We are tent campers through and through. I looked over at our nylon tent and noticed for the first time that it, too, is red, white and blue.  It's our new Old Glory!

6. Nutritional value of the trip? I gotta say, I packed fruit and veggies and good protein and dairy not for the sake of nutrition itself, but because a crummy diet puts my kids in a crummy mood. They behave a lot better when they eat well.


7. Beer?  I laughed as I thought back to the camping trips of my youth.  And then realized--I'm not making this up--that I was sitting there in Meuller State Park at site #116. 
 
Why do people camp?  It's something different.  A change of pace.  A simpler life for a few days.  A chance to be a step or two closer to nature, and to enjoy seeing your kids get lost in it. 
 
Maybe, above all, there's the realization that if you can make your home in the middle of a forest with a couple poles and some nylon and a few bags of groceries, then everything you've left behind could burn up and you'd still be sitting around the campfire with your husband and kids and know that what you value most is next to you and ready to cuddle into a 4-sleeper against the cold, inky darkness of a Colorado night.