Reading (and being idiots) at Camp

Please trust, dearest darlings, that I am in no way trying to convince any of you to camp. I can barely convince myself to camp. Half the reason I camp is to get funny blog stories about stuff that was not that funny while it was happening. 

Okay, this was very funny while it was happening, though. When we got back to camp, about four of us (not me) got to work tarping the campsite where dinner was supposed to take place that night. The rest of us (including me) stood around gawking and eating chips. Our campsite was directly across the road from the dinner campsite, and gradually a line of chairs was set up in front of our site, and another line of chairs set up in the dinner site facing the other line. 

 

This was the perfect set-up both for heckling the tarpers, and each other, and then interacting with anyone who drove or walked by on the road. Some people looked scared. More people looked charmed. When people walked by and asked where the water tap was, we all pointed and chorused 'there' like Stepford children. Then we applauded the woman who got water. And the park employee who came around weed-whacking around the campsite posts. Then the kids playing football. They all seemed to appreciate the validation (yes, we are obnoxious assholes as a group, but we mean well). 

Pictures of group dinner at Mark and Collette's - short rib chili, corn and bread that was supposed to be homemade over the fire but ended up being sourdough from Loblaws. 

I asked everyone to send car selfies while driving back to camp. 

This one was the winner:

Dumping the water out of the tent, or, oh no! The tent is eating Jared!

Tony's bespoke drink on his dinner night was concocted after he had a dream about making a drink out of carrot water. It was dark rum with carrot, clove, cinnamon and nutmeg and simple syrup and lemon juice, called the "What's Up, Doc" and it was delicious. 

The ridiculously big campfire circle we have now. 

The Books of Camping

 Vivian: Fantastic Land by Mike Bockoven. Haven't read it.

Jacob: Dunkirk to Belsen: The Soldiers' Own Dramatic Stories by John Sadler. Haven't read it. 

Ben and Melanie (who, since our last camping trip, got engaged!): Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and Morning Star by Pierce Brown. Haven't read them, but I also had an Adrian Tchaikovsky book.

Collette: Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett. Haven't read it, have had it on hold with the library forever, I think they've lost their copy. 

Logan: Classic Tales of Horror (on brand). Have read some. 

Jordan: Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if You're Life Depended on it by Chris Voss. Haven't read it, hadn't really paid attention to the title before now, and now I might be a little scared of Jordan. 

Jared: Dammit, I can't remember - Predator Something?. It is crucial for me to be able to take the title FROM THE PHOTO, Jared!

Margot: Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune. Haven't read it. 

Alina: Holding Reins by Paisley Hope (I initially read 'Hope' as 'Whore', that type really fades into the background too much). Haven't read it. 

Me: Tender by Sofia Samatar (short stories - amazing, although one smashed my heart into little pieces and then crushed up the pieces in a blender and poured them down the garbage disposal) and Elder Race by Adrian Tchaikovsky (bought in San Francisco because Steph recommended it and my eye fell on it the minute I entered the bookstore. I loved it - thoughtful and melancholy. 

Relax, You're Two Tents

Camping is an objectively nutty thing to do, I know, I KNOW, I fully agree. Let's pack a bunch of shit in the car and drive away from our lovely, carefully-chosen, hard-won house (so wall-ish and roof-having!) so that we may set up a ridiculous sham of a living-place and then spend the next few days doing all the stuff we normally do except at much greater inconvenience. 

I spent YEARS also saying I was just not a camper. I'm still not entirely sure how the change came about. Well, I guess I do kind of know. Chiefly, I had kids, and I would take the kids and hang out with our camping friends and then retreat to a hotel room at night. The kids loved camping, and the getting to the hotel room became such a pain in the ass that we decided we might as well try actual camping. My husband is practically a professional camper, having spent years camp counselling and canoe tripping as a teenager, so in all honesty I don't do the majority of the work either. And I love my friends, and my friends, for some reason, love camping.

At this point in my life, I spend a probably excessive amount of time trying to achieve a balance between "it's good to challenge yourself sometimes" and "I'm too old for this shit", the same way I try not to surround myself with people exactly like me (because I think I shouldn't be in a bubble and I should be aware of other viewpoints and experiences) but also realize that at some point I need to extricate myself for some relationships because, well, I'm too old for this shit. 

I am very nearly too old for this camping shit, probably. And yet, and yet....I know I need to be pushed out of my comfort zone periodically because my comfort zone, she is not big. 

There is something very gratifying about producing a meal for twenty and having it go well, and then not having to make dinner for the rest of the trip. 

There is something satisfying about getting up and making two sandwiches for the beach bag and going to the beach with nineteen of your closest friends and their children.

Chips eaten while camping don't count. 

Snack photo gallery

I have a double-height air mattress now, which makes it possible to get up in the morning (or the middle of the night to pee) without completely abandoning all pretense of dignity.

There is something really special about a campfire.

Photo credit Matthew's girlfriend Jessica, whose last name I forget

When I get home I REALLY appreciate flush toilets and showers being less than 500 meters away.

The campground we've gone to for the past decade is three hours away, but has the most spectacular beach in the province. It's always hard to get enough sites, but we've always managed somehow. This year they closed an entire campground to upgrade the facilities, and since everybody's kids want to come now, we practically NEED an entire campground. So we were temporarily flummoxed, until Margot suggested a provincial Park an hour and a half away - the beach wasn't as nice, but we could get a bunch of sites really close together (usually impossible at Sandbanks) and all sites were electrical, which is pure luxury. 

We did miss the beach, but everything else was pretty much as nice or nicer. I was perhaps disproportionately enchanted by the water taps, which, at Sandbanks, are set in sand which quickly becomes mud, and you have to put your container on the ground and then bend down to pick it up (and water is HEAVY). Here there was a lovely wooden platform, and it was all set in gravel. I was ridiculously delighted every time I got water. 

A thing of freaking beauty, if you ask me

The comfort stations were nicer and cleaner, and the toilets were automatic flush, which is so smart, because at most places people don't want to touch the flush handle so they use their feet and it damaged the mechanism (I know, I KNOW, people are savages, but this is the obvious solution). It's almost like Sandbanks knows everyone wants their beach, and they slack on everything else as a result. 

The fact that we were only ninety minutes from home was also extremely beneficial when, on Sunday, it became clear that waiting out the rain was no longer a viable option. We chucked everything that wasn't a tent in our cars, drove home, had our group dinner at Mark and Collette's, showered, slept in our own beds, then headed back the next day. We went in the morning, which seemed questionable to me because it was supposed to keep raining until 8 p.m., but you know, I love my friends, it's good to be uncomfortable sometimes, etc. etc. As it turned out, the rain stopped right as we got there. We dumped the water out of the tents and threw them open to the sun, dried out the air mattresses on top of our car, had a great day and great campfire, and a perfect beach day the next day. Sometimes blind faith is rewarded? 

A Camping Journey in Three Facebook Posts

I was a Buddhist for ten damned minutes

 Me as I head down my street walking Lucy and seeing house cleaners coming out of one of my neighbour's houses: "I really need to remember more often that many other people have lives that are so much harder than mine on a day-to-day basis, never mind when extra challenges happen (disclaimer: I am fully aware that it's possible that people who clean houses for a living are perfectly content with their lot). I need to practice more radical acceptance, realize that most bad things that happen to me are, at best, minor inconveniences, and keep perspective and be more grateful."

Me as we're about two-thirds through our route and it starts raining and I don't have an umbrella (not because I forgot but because I DECIDED IT WOULDN'T BE NECESSARY, even though I KNEW rain was in the forecast) and I try to get Lucy to speed up a bit, and because I'm distracted I don't realize that she is trying to poop, and the leash is stuck ACROSS HER BUTT and let's just say this was a very sub-optimal occasion on which to have that happen, and THEN I further realize that we are on the scrupulously-maintained, ultra-picturesque lawn maintained by an older man I see working on it and I REALLY TRY not to let Lucy walk on it at all, much less perform bodily functions on it, so now I'm walking home getting wet, holding a defiled leash, feeling guilty, with a really cranky dog: "Everything sucks and I hate my stupid life."

Perfectly sanguine about the whole thing