I saw plenty of photos over the July 4 holiday of folks camping. Charcuteries were big this year (we used to call them “meat and cheese trays”) and cookouts seemed mandatory. Folks swam, kids fished, adults drank.
It looked like fun – with one exception: I can’t stand camping.
Oh, sure, I’ve seen the Kardashians glamping in some remote place and I’m sure that’s do-able. But the “pitch a tent and start a fire” kind of camping doesn’t appeal to me in the least. I’ve tried it several times without positive results.
I’ve fallen like the woman on the Life Alert commercials. I’ve been devoured by mosquitoes. I’ve had close encounters with snakes on the way to the, um, toilet. No thank you.
As a child, I was constantly urged to go camp. My parents thought church camp, music camp, you-name-it camp would be good for me.
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I begged them not to send me. If they needed to get me to behave, they just threatened a week in camp. For my sister, it was heaven.
She, by the way, WORKED at a summer camp and thought it was the best thing ever. Even if they handed out winning Powerball tickets, I don’t think I could get that enthused.
For starters, I can’t swim. I’m also not good with unbearable heat or three days of rain. I can plunk with the best of them but when folks start talking about hiking, cooking on a camp stove, or “roughing it,” I’m out.
Given the choice between staying outside with hungry bears or lounging by the pool at a Holiday Inn, you know what you’d choose. I’m not so far off on this one.
And yet, my parents insisted.
For years, we’d pack a cooler with the express purpose of picnicking along the way. We’d crack that thing once or twice, then start looking for a place that served pie. Before the potato salad even turned, we were out of the picnic business and onto other things.
We tried the tenting concept as well but, as dad would say, “The #$%@ thing won’t stay up.” While he and mom were willing to stay in sleeping bags outside the remains of the tent, my sister and I shared the car.
To sate our fishing desires, we went to a place in the Black Hills called Trout Haven. You dropped a line in a pool of water and, in seconds, you had a fish on the hook. Efficient. Clean. Quick. (Of course, when dad discovered he had to pay for each fish caught AND someone to cook them, he was less than sold. The meal was more expensive than one at a four-star restaurant. And I don’t like fish.)
Hiking never agreed with mom. She never had appropriate shoes for a three-hour walk up a hill and, if there wasn’t a thermos of coffee, she really wasn’t interested. Often, she’d “watch the car” while the three of us made like Von Trapps.
By Day Three, we’d scour motel signs just to find a place to light. Never mind that Norman Bates ran the thing. If it had running water and a nearby restaurant, we were in.
Over the years, we stayed in places that had fistfights right out our front door and gunshots at the pool. No problem. As long as you turned up the air conditioning and the TV, you didn’t hear a thing.
In my vacation world, there’s no set-up, no tear-down, no cooking, no dousing fires, no scary stories around a campfire, no search for ticks.
And if you really feel like you need to have S’mores, you can always make them at a convenience store. Just make sure mom has a new cigarette lighter.
