The "C" Word

Image via Wikipedia

The C word for the day is Camping. Eww, gross, what were YOU thinking I meant?

Anyway. Let me go ahead and paint the picture, because that's what I do best.

When I first met my husband, I quickly learned that he was a Mountain Man. He sported flannel shirts & a goatee, could build his own fire from scratch, owned rock climbing shoes (is this how one refers to them?), owned outdoorsy backpacks and hiking gear, had a R.E.I. club membership, the whole nine yards. Which is kind of hot in a mysterious getting-to-know-you type of way. He grew up in the wilderness of Evergreen, Colorado, and though sometimes I'm guilty of embellishing, this time I'm really not using the term "wilderness" loosely. Like, there were elk and bears and deer and wolves and unicorns (okay maybe that part was embellished) roaming his property on any given day, and his darling soon-to-be 80 year old father has the photos to prove it (HI HUGH!). Not only did he live in the wilderness, but he somehow still found the need, nay, the DESIRE to be a camping man in his free time. Which meant he would leave his own backyard wilderness just to hike into the wilderness of his local mountain. Funny, right? This perplexes me, because don't people usually crave the green grass on the other side? And by green grass, I mean urban life? Wouldn't it make sense for him to "vacation" by way of hiking into the city of Denver and do the touristy thing? With zero wilderness or picturesque objects in sight?

No, not this man. I swear he and Bear Grylls come from the same blood lines.

Anyway, I clearly remember the day very early on in our relationship when he asked me the big question: had I ever been camping before? Mostly I remember it because he asked with the most optimistically hopeful eyes I'd ever seen, and I immediately panicked. Have I ever been camping? Um, yes? YES! Of course! Who hasn't been camping? I mean, EVERYONE has gone camping at some point or another, right???

Hee hee. Hee.

Not so much.

Except if you count making tents out of blankets and chairs in the living room with your siblings and then sleeping there for the night. Because that kind of camping I've TOTALLY done, like a thousand times.

But I was pretty sure he meant a different kind of camping. Shoot.

I remember trying to read into the question, desperately trying to see if for him, this was a deal-breaker or not. Because I really liked this guy. A whole lot. In fact, I knew we were going to get married and have babies and a hyperactive dog once he could stop being a commitment-phobe, but what if my entire future happiness was dependent upon this one teeny little thing? Who would've guessed that camping would be so crucial to my future?

So I told him yes. Because the truth is, I've been camping half a time. As in .5. Or if fractions are your thing, 1/2.

The memory is a bit hazy, but I recall my parents packing us up in the 1976 Buick station wagon (a car that I still rocked in high school, practically making me the coolest girl on campus), making the trip to some sort of foreign campsite where my parents fumbled with setting up a tent and we all tried to act like we knew what we were doing, but really we were grumpy and miserable and confused. I recall a hefty dose of familial tension. At the time, my sister was just a baby, and she crawled over us all night long while we tried to sleep. I had a large, pointy boulder underneath my sweet little head for a pillow. Around the bedtime hour, we quickly learned of some nearby drunken campers who got a bit out of hand, so our nighttime lullaby was the sweet tune of belligerent drunks receiving a police escort out of the campgrounds. In the midst of this chaos, one of their cars ran over their "boombox" music player and smashed it to pieces. It was painfully loud and I think I heard them utter more 4 letter words than I'd ever heard in my sheltered life.

So....I haven't exactly had a burning desire to do THAT again.

Which is why I must be CRAZY for agreeing to go camping in about a month! WITH MY KIDS IN TOW. Not only am I clueless about how to prepare/what to expect when camping, I am now dragging my poor innocent children along with me. (Full disclosure: it's only for a weekend, and we are going with other families, and some of these people are practically professional campers. So that helps a little, but then again they aren't the ones responsible for packing up our entire life and fitting it into our car.) My only safety net was the confidence I had in Dan with his camping history & knowledge. However, when I mentioned this to him, he scoffed and said, "Babe, I know how to camp like a single guy. But I have no idea how to camp with kids as a family."

Super.

But because I'm a gal who believes in conquering one's fears (except if the fear involves snakes), I've decided to face this dead on and make note of my camping fears. Let's approach this in list format, shall we?

"Reasons I Am Terrified To Go Camping, Let Alone Go Camping With Children":

1. What if the smell of campfire and spilled beer never washes off my body & skin (and sleeping bag!)?
2. What if the wine runs dry?
3. How many times can a person really eat hot dogs for a meal???
4. Snakes. All types.
5. My children thrive in their routine. Routine of their own beds and their own 4 walls. What if my kids never go to sleep and this trip turns into a 48 hour rave, family style?
6. What the heck are we supposed to DO all day? Sit? Talk? Drink? I don't understand.
7. B.O. and armpit hair stubble. There, I said it.
8. They say camping is an excellent way to test a relationship. WHAT IF WE DON'T PASS THE TEST?
9. Bugs.
10. Battling the elements. I don't care much for battles in general, let alone battles that involve the elements.

That's all I've got for now, but I'm sure as the time draws closer, I'll have dozens more. If you have the answers to my fears or my questions, please comment and help a sister out. Seriously, it just might be my only hope for surviving. That and the stockpile of wine we'll be carting around.