Camping Dreams

It's -25 in Ottawa and I'm daydreaming about camping this summer. Not hanging out in a travel trailer, but camping in a good old fashioned tent. I know. Crazy, eh? Chris and I talk all the time about buying a trailer. How much more convenient camping could be... If we're in a tent what do we do if it rains? Where do we pack all the required gear? All we have is a minivan. If we had a trailer all that stuff could be stowed and ready in a moment's notice. Then again, as far as tenting is concerned, Chris gets home Friday night jumps out of his car into my van and off we go. For gear we take two totes (clothes and miscellaneous), two tents (sleeping and eating), mattresses, camp stove and bedding. That's it. That's all. Thane and a buddy can load the van in half an hour. When we get to the site I take the kids off to play and Chris sets up. He's a pro. An hour and a half later we're sitting at the campfire.

Last summer we spent five weekends camping. And for our holiday's we set off to the Maritimes for a two week camping trip. Our first two weekend excursions went OK but needed some tweaking. There were a few pieces of gear left behind. The kids weren't used to sleeping in a tent so the little ones were scared. Ava has a toilet phobia. Thanks to an auto flush at the airport that did it's thing before she had her bum off the seat she now asks, "Is this a home toilet or a  'flush-me-down' toilet?" Neither Honey. These toilets don't flush. They're called outhouses. "They stink". Oh yes they do. But by the third trip we pretty much had  tenting (including outhouse etiquette) down to a science.

So what appeals to me most about tenting? I would have to say sleeping. Not that you get much sleep. It's the quality of the sleep you get. Sleeping in a tent with it's flaps up is like all night yoga. All that fresh air just pours into your lungs for hours. It's just cleansing. And after a day in the sun swimming, and hiking, playing catch, making campfires, eating food cooked outdoors you are the best kind of tired you can be. Your body and mind are so decompressed, as you sit by the campfire, you start to feel like you belong with the nature around you. Which, of course, you do. And in that peaceful place the darker it gets the more stars heaven reveals. All you hear is the crackling of the fire, loon calls echoing off the still lake, and the occasional sighs of your sleeping children.

So you sit, hypnotized by the campfire, thinking there is no place on earth you'd rather be. And just at the moment you start to doze off, a skunk with a fetish for grilled salmon, skitters under your favorite soccer-mom lawn chair. And you fly into that tent so fast you catch your yoga pants in the zipper, leaving the pants behind, in favour of the protection of your 10 year old Canadian Tire sleeping bag . Around that same campfire, at breakfast the next morning you tell the kids what happened and you all laugh until your sides ache. Someday I'll tell them I abandoned their father to fend for himself. He refused to leave the liquor to Pepe Le Pew. Seriously, have you ever seen an inebriated skunk? Never. Why Chris took the chance I'll never know. Cape Breton Scotch must be worth fightin' for.

So I love our old tent, and all the stories it can tell. You never know. We might upgrade to a bigger one this year. Buy a trailer? I don't think so. There are too many adventures left to be had in a tent. After all we have to see if we can survive the rain. And I've heard some of those fancy camping rigs have 'flush-me-down' toilets. That's just more than this family can handle.