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?