Camping. Sort of.

I'll have to come up with a title for this post later. I have a few things on my mind...

I wonder if I should make my blog searchable. Maybe I shouldn't post about this. I've been spending today looking at some other blogs that people link to. I wonder if I am denying the world access to my wit and charm! But then I wonder if I'm getting arrogant again... But J@AAA is not making things any easier. Check out Niffer's Noshes. I set an RSS feed to my e-mail for it so I can have access to saving these recipes as she posts them. One of my goals in life is to have all my personal recipes in a customizable database, but I'm too particular. Maybe I should write my too particular Copper Pot and Salt Cellar Travels in Shopping/Hunting stories...

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This weekend, however, we'll be traveling again. This time we'll be camping. This will be an interesting experience for a number of reasons. It represents a blossoming area of our lives and a number of new beginnings.

We've been campers for a long time, which should come as a surprise to no one who knows me. I'm not especially girly girly. And I'm "notoriously cheap" (which in my world translates to "discriminating." I'm not cheap. I want good value for my dollar. I choose wisely.) Camping fits well for the "notoriously cheap", once a person actually invests in equipment. But for me to invest in good equipment, I'm going to be darn sure I get my money's worth. Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself a bit...

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When I was growing up, we never camped. We actually didn't go on many vacations in general. I can count them on one hand. I know some of the reasons why and I have a few theories, too. First, my dad travelled a LOT for his job. I don't think he really wanted to travel for his vacation. When he took vacation. Which is second, my dad was a bit of a workaholic so he just didn't really take a lot of vacation time. As it was, when he was home, we rarely went out to eat. Part of it was frugalness and I think part of it was that eating out wasn't a treat for him because he did it so often for work. And then, third, when he did travel, he got to go on "vacations" on his way to and from some of his business destinations abroad.

Side Note: Please don't think of any of this as complaining on my part. It's not at all. It just is how it was. When we did go on vacations, we saw some pretty cool places, my sister and I both went on our 8th grade class trips to Washington DC, I went to 4-H camp for 8 years and the reason I didn't go the 9th year was that I was living in Argentina as an AFS exchange student. I've been around. 

The other reason that I think or know we didn't camp was the interpersonal dynamics of my parents. My dad figured my mom wouldn't like camping. My mom figured that camping would be entirely too much work on her part having to cook and clean. So we didn't camp. As old semi-retired folks, my dad has a Rubicon and they go off camping in places that don't have flush toilets or showers and think they're having fun when the wind is practically ripping their tents apart in the middle of the desert, so obviously, they've found a mutual agreement about camping.

In high school, our church youth group hosted a few camping trips every summer and that's where I learned to enjoy camping. At the time I didn't realize that it was because someone ELSE was pitching my tent and someone ELSE was cooking my food and someone ELSE was cleaning up after cooking my food. I was just having a good time. We went to beaches covered with tar, we went to places that were covered in fog, we went to lakes where people got sunstroke and we were even rained on. And we had a good time.

When I met Daddy Doc, his parents went camping regularly and from the first summer we dated, I tagged along. Once again, someone ELSE was pitching my tent, someone ELSE was cooking my food and for the most part, someone ELSE was cleaning up after cooking my food. (Although I hope I helped a LITTLE bit. I know I helped cook.) We played Rummikub (which we called Tile Rummy.) We floated on rafts down streams. We saw snow in Mammoth in the summer, we went on the Durango Silverton Railroad, I got stung in the butt by a bee (ok, that story was funny,) and we had a good time.

The bee story: The bee got caught between the wall of a dining screen and my butt. I got stung. I was 17 and we'd been dating about 6 months or so. DD told his dad I'd been stung. His dad gave him a knife and said "Get the stinger out." DD told his dad, "Are you SURE?" His dad said "Yeah, why?" DD said: "It's in her BUTT." So this family friend (his mom wasn't there,) took me into a tent with a flashlight while I dropped trou and she looked for the stinger which she couldn't find. I did tell you that I put the K in Klassy, right?

As old married folk, we got our own tent and tagged along with DD's family for at few trips, but that was probably a bit of cheating. DD's parents by this point had a tent trailer. So while we now had to pitch our OWN tent, they brought all the food. We did more food prep and cleaning but we had the tent trailer to do it in, which is an entirely different animal all together. The hot water was THERE. And we didn't have to set up or clean up the tent trailer, even.

Then we had kids and everything changed...

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The crappy part about being responsible adults is that it's not nearly as inexpensive. There's a lot more responsibility involved, too. The packing lists get incredibly longer and the prep-time involved becomes incredibly longer, too!

The really great thing about being responsible adults is that we get to make the decisions. We get to decide where we want to go, what we want to eat, who we want to go with and what we want to do. 

The first time we went camping as a little family unit we had to do the investment. We bought tubs. We bought buckets to clean dishes. We bought special (cheap) flatwear utensils, plastic plates, bowls, cups, assorted kitchen tools, etc. We'd received a stove and a lantern as wedding gifts but we bought one or two more lanterns. We'd arranged an exchange with my dad for a tent. When he retired, he asked for a really cool but big tent. We gave him our "old" tent, he gave us a tent big enough for our then still growing family. We had sleeping bags and duffles of supplies - bungee cords, ropes, and tools.

As time moved on, we got one of those bags to put on top of the PerkyMomMobile for the stuff that wouldn't fit inside the van. We've added killer kitchen thingies. First it was a post that sticks in the ground to hold a lantern, roll of paper towels and with shelves for other stuff. This year for Father's Day we gave DD a super cool "kitchen" table that will hold the lantern, paper towels, a shelf for the stove and a workspace. Last year, DD became such a coffee addict that he bought a plastic French press because we just did NOT enjoy using our camping. percolator. Oh, and we've figured out that the queen sized air-mattress is way worth bringing along...

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While we have everything we need to go camping for a week or more, it's really a pain in my cute and perky but still oversized tushy to have to pack all that crap up for a two-night trip. And now that DD is the Head Honcho of Cub Scouts and the boys are getting older, there have been and will be a lot more two-night trips in our future.

Fortunately, I went on the two-nighter last summer and I've learned a thing or two...

1. Paper Plates and Plastic Utensils are our friends. Going Green is nice and all, but while we're not using electricity, the carbon footprint we're conserving is being redirected at paper and plastic goods. I am responsible enough to purchase recycled items when I can but consider this: I'm not wasting water or propane cleaning all those plates. 

2. The novelty of pancakes on the cast iron griddle is fading with the reality that you have to then wash the batter bowl and the plates and the utensils and the griddle when it's all over. So now we bring a lot more cereal along and call it good. Smart and Final sells the kind that comes in its own bowl, too. Although I think I'm going to take some hard-boiled eggs along for a little protein boost, too. 

3. People tease because they're jealous. Sorry, it's true. I think DaddyDoc is secretly proud. Men's minds work differently in this area than women's. When DD pulls out his super-duper-telescoping-and-rotating-marshmallow-roasters, the other Dads hassle him about all the camping crap he has and they say "Let us guess, you got that at REI, RIGHT?" But on the inside they're saying to themselves "Self, Google REI when you get home and get your butt over there for totally mega-cool marshmallow roasters. You can't let DaddyDoc show you up next year."

And so tomorrow evening we will embark on our first Campout as Head Honcho. There's a lot of pressure. When we camp as a family, we don't look for a resort campground. Cub Scouts need a resort to keep the kids entertained. At the last minute, a broken water line meant that 10-days out, we had to find a new campground. We picked one that someone highly recommended only to have several people come to us and complain that it wasn't a good place to go. It will be what it is. It's two nights. We will survive it. And it's less than an hour away from home so I can get my shower in a timely manner Sunday morning.

It's going to be dirty. I don't do well with dirty. That's the other problem with two-night camping with a group - it's harder to get away for a shower, especially when I'm supposed to be 'leading' a group of kidlets. Last year the other moms took their showers during the time that I was teaching my den how to sing "I'm a Tiger Cub!" But I have meatballs for the spaghetti, Dark Chocolate bars for the s'mores and plenty of diet Pepsi. It'll all be good.