Camping Is Hell
Since Covid has prevented us all from traveling, everyone in Canada has been left with camping as one of the few summer options. Don’t get me wrong, I love getting into the forest and I go for nature walks almost every day, but you couldn’t get me to go camping now unless you offered me a glamping trip that was totally set up by other people, including the cooking part. Granted, I am older now and I have some back pain, which is very boring, so you’re definitely not going to find me sleeping on the ground. I know there are some very comfy air mattresses available, but I just don’t want to sit there for thirty minutes with the electric pump plugged into my car outlet blowing the damn thing up.
Also, I just can’t erase from my mind the last family camping trip we took with our kids when they were younger. It was a total disaster. We loaded the bicycles onto the new rack we bought and headed out to the nearest provincial park. Half-way down the long and winding road, we heard a strange rubbing sound. We pulled over and realized that the metal bar of the bike rack had bent under the weight of the three bikes and they were now dragging on the road. My husband and the kids had to ride the last two kilometres into the campsite with me driving the car.
When we got there, we began setting up our brand new family sized tent. Our second mistake was not doing a trial run at home in the back yard, but we lived in a complex surrounded by concrete paths and no back yard so our options were limited. The tent was an absolute beast, with so many odd corners and poles that it took us forever and a lot of swearing to erect it. By then it was getting dark.
We finally sat down for a much needed beer and the kids were amused in the tent with their flashlights and Pokemon DS games. Ten minutes passed and a little pick-up truck stopped at our site. It was the park ranger, who seemed like a nice enough guy, until he told us that our tent was sitting slightly too far to the left of the pad and was covering some endangered species of moss and it would have to be moved. I started to cry. Chris told him we would comply and thank goodness he left. Chris comforted me and told me we’d move it in the morning.
When the kids woke up full of piss and vinegar, we sent them on their bikes to get a bundle of firewood from the bin we had seen driving in. They came back an hour later after we had freaked out and gone looking for them in the car, thinking they were abducted. Apparently, they had just been riding around in circles and couldn’t find our site. Luckily, we had a little stove, so we were able to make some really bad coffee and a nice greasy breakfast.
After trying to scrub out the greasy pan with ice cold water, we spent another thirty minutes with the car running to blow up our little inflatable plastic two-man zodiac. We all headed down to the lake for a swim and the kids paddled around in the boat. Finally, we could relax for a bit. Ten minutes later, Chris noticed the kids had floated out past the buoy markers and were headed to deep water. He had to run in and swim quite far to haul them back in for a good scolding. Our daughter started crying and our son was mad that we didn’t trust him. Perfect.
That night we got eaten alive by mosquitos even after applying the goop. The kids did enjoy making smores, until our daughter got molten hot marshmallow stuck to her fingers and started wailing again. I poured cold water on it and then some ointment and she was off to bed. We were so exhausted we drank a glass of wine and crashed too.
In the middle of the night it started to rain. So, Sunday morning we gave up, packed up all the wet dirty gear into the car and went home. Then began the three-hour task of cleaning and stowing everything away, doing four loads of laundry and getting the kids to shower and make lunches for school the next day. We swore we would never camp again and we have kept to our promise.
So, if you love to camp, I do not understand you. To me it’s just hard work with little reward. I wish you all well on your time in the wilderness. I will drive to the lake for a swim and then go home to my comfy bed and my hot shower, thank you very much.