Sunday, June 28, 2015

#1463 camping

I did not go camping as a kid. My dad didn't camp and neither did my mom, so it wasn't something they passed on to me. We liked to be outdoors. Yellowstone Park was one of our favorite places, but the closest we came to "roughing it" was staying at the rustic cabins at Yellowstone Lake if the deluxe cabins weren't available.

When I started going out with MT all those many years ago, he was an avid rock climber and we would go camping at the City of Rocks once or twice a month in the summer. He had a little two-person tent that we had to crawl into. We slept in sleeping bags on top of  Therma-rest pads. We'd usually be out for at least two nights. It was kind of fun, not my favorite thing, but I wanted to do what MT liked.

As we got older and started working, we didn't camp as often, but we still camped. On our honeymoon, we slept in a tent at or near Yosemite Park at least two nights.

After T was born and we were working a lot, we didn't camp much at all, except at the family reunion. I decided that the two man tent was not going to cut it for our family and we bought a bigger tent that we could walk into. It has three "rooms": two rooms for sleeping and a middle area for our stuff. Along with the tent, we also purchased an air mattress. Better. I'm too old to sleep on the ground!

I haven't been camping for a few years. During family reunion weekend, we usually try to find a motel close to where the reunion is being held. If we can't find one, we camp.

The family reunion was held this weekend. Since we were preoccupied with the Hawaii trip, so we didn't make a reservation in Island Park, so we had to camp. T didn't come with us, so we just set up one room in the tent. We might not have got the air mattress filled to an optimum level because sometimes it was like we were in a taco with the sides of the mattress curled up on either side of us, but we weren't on the ground. It was warm in Island Park this weekend, so it was nice sleeping. Not that I slept well, of course - what made that branch snap?

But this morning was so glorious! The sky was clear, the air was cool and smelled deliciously of pine. It was quiet around the camp area as everyone was just starting to wake up. I could hear birds chirping away. I opened my eyes and saw this:


Pretty awesome!

As I  woke up and started moving around, I was thinking about how nice it was to wake up outside and how I felt about camping. I thought, "This isn't bad. Maybe we should do more of this."

Then MT came out and said, "Oh my God. I'm glad we just decided to camp one night. I'm old and I like sleeping in a bed. This is okay once a year, but I think I'm over this."

I'm okay with that, too.

1 comment:

Kteach said...

I've never gone camping, can't say I miss it :)