You guys know I went camping this summer.
I have one thing to say about it.
Well, actually I have a lot to say about it. But I’ll start with this:
Camping is stupid.
I’m not saying people who camp are stupid. My husband, brother, dad, and father-in-law all enjoy camping.
I’m saying camping itself is stupid. There are reasons mankind’s housing evolved. Those reasons include – among others, I’m sure – keeping bugs off you while you’re not sleeping on the ground.
Listen. I do a lot of things that are stupid. I color my hair blonde when it’s already blonde. I order pizza when my fridge has all the ingredients I need to just make pizza. I believe in ghosts. I sleep with the lights on.
It’s just that camping is a stupid thing I didn’t enjoy. At all.
To be fair, I volunteered to do it. I’d never camped in a tent. A camper, yes, which I’m here to tell you is no better than a tent.
And I went with Don, which means I knew I’d be safe, I knew I’d be cared for, I had someone to (erroneously) blame for my misery, and I knew I could write about it later and he’d still come home.
Don didn’t disappoint. He was wonderful. He packed my tea and a cooler with Entenmann’s chocolate-frosted donuts. He knew the lack of a nightly lava cake would make me insufferable.
Lava cakes are heated in a microwave. Believe it or not, there are no microwaves when you’re camping. I couldn’t even find a street light.
Don even packed an egg crate to layer beneath my sleeping bag and a special camping pillow – both purchased for this trip and for my comfort.
Between you and me, I’m the princess and the ground is the pea. I’m pretty sure there is nothing you can place between me and the ground that makes sleeping on it more comfortable.
Except, you know, a house.
Despite Don’s attendance to my creature comforts, the wheels fell off the cart right away. As Don set up the tent, I noticed a fly on his ankle.
That fly was basically Paul Revere, heralding the arrival of the British. Gnats, mosquitoes, and yes, more flies would follow that ankle fly in the hours to come. The swarm grew thicker the longer we went without bathing, because in addition to lacking microwaves camping also lacks showers.
I marveled at Don’s nonchalance over his ankle fly. He didn’t even notice it. You have an insect crawling on your body, and you don’t notice? It eats poop! Do you know how contaminated you are right now?
I pulled out my phone to text our kids – I for sure wasn’t useful in assembling the tent – but camping doesn’t have cell towers. It was like the inverse of the game “We’re Going on a Picnic.” But instead of remembering what each player is bringing on the picnic, I tried to forget each comfort I was lacking.
Now, there’s a lot of walking with camping. I’m not opposed to walking, but I thought there would be a lot of hiking, which is different from walking. I can wear anything to walk. To hike, I need special clothes.
I thought I’d be hiking. I purchased special clothes.
I bought hiking sneakers, which utterly failed to protect me from a stick impaling my foot. I’ll probably die from some weird upstate New York grass amoeba sometime next year.
I also purchased hiking pants which, to be honest, I mostly bought because they remind me of Star Trek. Anything that reminds me of Star Trek while camping is a comfort.
It was Saturday when the sky opened up, as if the universe shared my despair. Muddy creeks sprang up everywhere near the campgrounds. And that’s the next thing I learned about camping.
Once it rains, you’re wet until you get somewhere with a roof and four walls. Don’t fight it. LeAnn Rimes said you can’t fight the moonlight. Well, moisture while camping is just as formidable.
And let me tell you something else about camping. It forces you to think. A lot. Without time on your phone, in a shower, or standing in front of a microwave, you can do little but think. And when you’re thinking, you learn what kind of person you are.
Besides being one who ends sentences with prepositions, I’m not a person with a lot of inner strength. With my creature comforts suspended, I realized how many crutches I actually have. I always think of myself as self-reliant. But I’m only self-reliant if I have Starbucks, caffeine, lava cakes, and Star Trek on which to lean.
Fixed that preposition problem.
I’m also a terrible parent. People were camping with kids. Little kids. Big kids. Kids in utero. I have never taken my kids camping, and as such have now raised people who don’t camp. I’m not sure that was the right way to go. But they don’t like Star Trek either, so at least I’m an equal opportunity failure.
When Sunday morning rolled around, I was anxious to get away. From the primitive conditions. From the rain. From myself.
I had spent most of Saturday night alone as the rain poured outside. Don, in his element, was socializing. Socializing! Apparently, camping turns us into an 80s body-swap comedy – he’s outgoing and happy, I’m grumpy and reclusive.
I had given up on resting comfortably since nothing was dry. I slept in my wet jeans, shirt, and socks. I never bothered to take off Don’s windbreaker or my vampire-killer sneakers.
When I heard the first vehicle pulling away at dawn on Sunday, I started packing up. That was when I learned another thing about camping.
Leaving a campground is like escaping Gilead – every time you think you’re scot-free, something stops you. Disposing of your trash. Making sure you left no trace. Saying goodbye to friends.
I didn’t even eat. I just left, like camping was a bad one-night stand.
Twenty minutes down the road – twenty minutes! That’s how close we were to civilization?! – we found a café. Don asked if we should wait the ten minutes until it was due to open, or continue on and find something down the road.
There was literally nothing that could have pulled me from that café. I was fearful of leaving four walls, a functioning bathroom, caffeine, chocolate, and – yes – a microwave, as if I’d never again find such comforts if I let them out of my sight.
This café, in addition to lifesaving chocolate, also sold mugs and other Joanna Gaines-esque tchotchkes. It was like my reward for surviving camping.
I used the bathroom, with a real toilet that flushed and running water to wash my hands and a mirror to check my sorry, sorry state.
I ordered a breakfast sandwich, bubbling with cheese and bacon. And a hot tea to chase away Saturday’s chill – I was still in my wet clothes – and buoy my spirits with caffeine.
As we drove the five hours home, Don slept off Saturday’s socializing. But I thought.
Again with the thinking.
I wasn’t proud of myself. I hadn’t truly achieved anything. With an experience where I could choose to embrace the difficult or cower from it, I’d cowered. That’s not who I thought I was.
And I’m back to being a person who ends sentences with prepositions.
This realization leaves me with just one choice.
I need to do it again.
Bring on the rain. Bring on the impaling sticks. Bring on the snake that managed to find me during the one outdoorsy thing I did that weekend.
I will strap on my big boy Star Trek hiking pants. I will do better.
Because I don’t think I can really do any worse.