The truth about camping

Here’s the truth about camping. You spend days packing everything you will need to set up your household in the wilderness in any weather. You labor to pack it all up in what amounts to fitting an elephant into a dog’s cage. You slog away at setting the whole darned thing up in the wilderness. Then after two days, you do the whole thing again in reverse. I suspect this is why my sisters-in-law are not going camping this year.

Don’t get me wrong I love camping. There is nothing better than sitting by that campfire gazing at the stars. I love singing by the campfire. I love hiking. I even love s’mores.

It’s the preparation that is a chore. Partly because you’re trying to do something very difficult: make sure your family is fed, dry and safe during your camping trip. So you have to bring clothes for all sorts of weather. You have to pack pots and pans and food galore.

For those of us who cook every day, the prospect of cooking in the wilderness is – um – not the best part of camping. Let’s face it, if we could do without the cooking of macaroni and cheese over a camp stove, we would do it.

I’m not freaked out by the bugs or the dirt. I can deal with the lumpy air mattress and sleeping outdoors. Usually we’re so exhausted that I manage to sleep anyway. It’s the wet clothes and the whole food thing that’s difficult.

What I truly enjoy is spending time with my kids and my family. This year, it’s all my brothers and all the cousins together. This means that I’m camping with 11 boys and no girls but hey, you do what you can to bond.

In past years, my kids talk about the camping trip as the highlight of their summer. It doesn’t matter that we’ve spent weeks at the Shore or traveled to amusement parks or had trips to the city. It’s the camping that delights them.

Last year, we camped at Assateague Island in Virginia. It’s a beautiful place where horses roam free and where they are, in fact, so free that they broke into our tent and ruined the netting on our tent’s front door.

Nevertheless, as we sat together watching the stars and trying to do some singing without the benefit of a guitar, my son Will looked up at me and said, “This is the best day of my life.”

When you hear that, then you forget all about how hard it was to pack and what a pain it was to set up the tent and to schlep all that food in its pool of melting ice. You only remember that your children were supremely happy camping. And so were you.

Of course, just as the memories of how painful childbirth is come back when you're ready to give birth again, so too do you remember what a pain it is to get ready for camping when you're packing up again. But just like childbirth again, it's too late because you're already committed and there's no turning back. You just have to take it on faith that the memories you create this year will make it all worthwhile once again.

* * Illustration from Bing Images and yosemitevalleycampers.org