36. Why Camp?

Trying to figure out the point of camping.

You strip your life down on a certain level. Some people take their whole life with them and park it in a giant rv. I am not sure why. I have seen people have rvs parked next to a house exactly the same size as their rv. This isn’t a strip down I guess as much as just moving things to somewhere else.

Some people camp in the woods with a tent, no electricity, cook on the fire, no gadgets. That is how we camped growing up. You live a certain way amidst the bugs and weather. It is uncomfortable I think. And I hate bugs.

I visited my family while they camped probably last time when I was 20. When I was 40 we got a little T@B camper. Around Memorial Day all the neighbors were hauling all their giant rvs out of storage and I was muttering about why do they no longer have campers like my grandparents had. Dave started interneting for no reason just like “is this like your grampa’s” etc.. And then he discovered the new T@Bs which look modern like an ipod but have similar features as my grandparent’s camper. We bought one.

But then we had to camp.

Nostalgia
I guess camping was nostalgia for me. Maybe it was pretty much the last thing I did with my family before I moved away. I was the type that didn’t want to move out. I was pushed. My little brother was 6 and my sister was 8. Five siblings all together. We were close. I didn’t really want to go. I loved college when I got into it but it sure wasn’t my choice. I just wanted to go locally.

Year 1
So camping. Why do it? I really don’t like bugs and little crawling things. I don’t like being uncomfortable. I like showering. It’s good. Yet here we are year 3. 1st year we took short jaunts to local state parks. Some beautiful scenery but it was shocking to be around so many people. So close. After Allegany we were pretty sure showering mattered. After Letchworth we were very sure we didn’t like loud people hollering at their kids and/or blasting Cheryl Crow Greatest Hits. Whatever happened to the good old camping etiquette? Kind of quiet and nature respecting. Etc.

Year 2
So last year we tried a non electric campground in the Adirondacks beyond the popular places. We knew from somebody that they had just put in good showers. So that was a far drive and beautiful. Was tough though because Jonny was sick and that was scary. It was so remote that you couldn’t get chicken or whiskey nearby. The whiskey, we heard there was a guy that if you went and chatted with him you might be able to get some. And on the weekend the horrible people showed up. Loud, peeling limbs off the trees for fires, leaving headlights on, obnoxious people my age. Self-centered jackasses.

Year 3
So this year, I thought of the idea of trying a closer place. We drove to several state parks in the area. Most are basically rv parking lots. I thought, try near my family as we never see them. So we did find the best place we had ever found, Lakeside Beach State Park. It’s amazingly cared for. And has electricity, which just makes life easier. We still cooked over the fire but had little indoor lights and our little fridge works better on electricity. We can also charge our iphones. We actually had cell phone service, which was nice. We did not have to drive forever. And chicken and whiskey and my family were near. We did visit with them too. But still..

Why camp? We stripped down our life to our cell phone our little cozy camper/tent setup. Our camper is so tiny, we can’t all fit in it to sleep. It has a tent add-on. We know how to be protected from the elements now. The first camping trips were struggles of how to live with horrible weather and how to live in that setting. But now we had it down. The weather on this trip was never rough. It rained but that is our favorite part. We stayed 6 days/5 nights. SO why camp?

By the last day, we were all cranky-ish and wanting to go home. So I just kept wondering why are we doing this? We don’t like discomfort or bugs. One lady said she feels closer to God when she is out there. Can’t imagine that is why we do it.

Home
When we got home, there were hundreds of phone messages, a trauma we missed, the cats both had problems: one a skin infection and the other is being tested for possible kidney problems, the chumby wasn’t working on it’s internet network, so I fixed that but wrecked my normal computer’s network.. When that happened I realized why it is good to strip down sometimes. Our dishwasher was full of clean dishes so we stacked our dirty dishes. That would never happen while camping.

We baby step through life when we camp. Now we build a fire. Now we cook. Now we eat. Now we clean. Time to eat again.. That never happens here. There is too much to do to ever be caught up..

Plus, when we are camping, we really like it when it rains.

7/29/08