On Camping

The great outdoors.  Is there anything else so wonderful?  The fresh air, the scenery, the feelings of long-sought isolation and being able to unwind in the serenity of nature.  

Am I waxing a tad too poetic?  For some, camping is the great escape.  The greatest summer activity ever.  For others, it's uncomfortable.  It's inconvenient.  It often means lack of cell service which can induce minor to full-fledged panic.  For some people.  I am not one of them.  

I love to camp.  Most of the time three nights is enough to last me until I'm ready to pack it up and go home, but overall camping is just plain wonderful.  Obviously all the reasons listed above make it the perfect mini vacation, but there is also a different mindset that comes with camping, and I'm not necessarily referring to feeling at one with nature.  

For instance, camping seems to evoke a feeling of timelessness.  Or better, the idea that the hours of the day don't really seem to matter.  When you're camping, it rarely ever matters what time it is so long as there is still light in the sky.  At night it's the same principle.  As long as the fire is still burning it doesn't really matter how late (or early) it might be.  Hours fade into each other and you can drift from one activity to the next without having to look at your watch or worry about having to be somewhere at a certain time.  You are camping.  You are exactly where you need to be and the time of day has absolutely no significance.  This is one of my favorite things about being away from clocks and computers and other devices intent on broadcasting the hours and telling me when and where I need to be at certain places.  I love not having to be anywhere and being able to exist without knowing the status of the hours and minutes.   Even when you are camping at a particular location that happens to have cell service or might be closely adjacent to civilization, there is still this feeling of isolation, of being away from it all.  I think this feeling ties in the with the timelessness and is perhaps my most favorite part of pitching a tent for a few days and pumping up the air mattress. 

Kind of on the same notion as the object of time, you wanna know something that goes great with camping?  Alcohol.  You wanna know what's fun to do as you're sitting around a roaring campfire?  Drink alcohol.  Now don't get all judgey wudgey on me but let's face it: camping and drinking make wonderful bedfellows. And it's almost like the rules of acceptable drinking times (if there is such a thing) go right out the window.  Hey, you're camping, you're not looking at the clock, if you want to crack open a beer at 11 a.m. that is your prerogative.  How are you going to know, anyway?  Time does not exist when camping (see paragraph above).  Most of the time I come home for camping trips totally burnt out on drinking.  Usually I tell myself it will be a long time before I once again feel the desire to indulge, let alone over-indulge.  Then the next weekend of camping rolls around and....well....it's hard to walk away from that big cooler with all those pretty bottles.  

Many of today's well-kept campgrounds offer guests the use of showers and flush toilets.  Quite the modern amenities and also much appreciated (especially the toilets).  I think it's great to have access to toilets and showers while you are "roughing it" in the great outdoors, but for me, I've never been a big fan of showering while camping.  Now, that being said, I'm a big fan of showers in general, sometimes taking two a day.  I love being clean and bath products are one of my compulsive shopping weaknesses.  But when I'm camping, I figure why bother?  With all the camp smoke, sleeping on the ground, and hiking through the woods the opportunities to get dirty are going to outnumber my chances of staying clean, so I just give in and commit myself to less than squeaky clean existence.  Most of the time swimming in the lake is as close as I get to bathing while camping and quite frankly, I love it.  Anytime I get the chance to dress casual (or downright scrubby) and not worry about putting on makeup is a gold start day in my book. 

Perhaps one of the funniest things about camping, in my opinion, is how we all seem to suddenly think that our food intake is about five times the size of what it is on a normal day.  Seriously kids, probably one of the only things I dislike about camping is the grocery shopping trip the night before leaving.  It is often very expensive and you usually end up bringing most of that food home with you because, shock and surprise, you did not eat everything.  So when you return home with all those leftover hamburger patties and hot dogs and it's all you've been eating for three days, the idea that you have to continue eating these delectable meat concoctions because you have so many leftover just doesn't sit well, or make them any easier to eat.  Now when camping with a group it's natural to assume that most food will be shared, which I think leads us to believe we should buy more of everything.  Sometimes this works out, sometimes you're left with three Ziploc bags full of watermelon slices and a giant bag of kettle corn flavored popcorn.  Just saying.

Love it or hate it, there are elements of the camping lifestyle that we all yearn for and need to indulge from time to time.  And the only downside of camping, from my personal experience, is getting home and realizing all the crap you piled in the back of the pickup has to be washed, emptied out, put away, reorganized, or all of the above.  Modern day camping kind of gives a new meaning to the term "over-packing".  Just saying.