Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The joy of camping


Camping – the mere word conjures up bucolic images of loons, canoes and the theme song for Hinterland Who's Who. After enduring the brain-shrinkage from the Muskoka Novel Marathon and a rather stressful period at work, I was looking forward to a pastoral week of summer slacking in Algonquin Park.

If you've ever been camping, you know the short period between packing-driving-setting-up and taking-down-driving-unpacking is rather peaceful, lovely and exceedingly short. It's those bracketed ends of slave labour that do you in. 

For me it's laundry-laundry-laundry in the days leading up to the camping trip because gawd knows there's enough icky camping laundry afterwards without adding moldering week-old underwear. I always do laundry leading up to any big event. Trips, parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, tornadoes nuclear armageddon – I do laundry in advance. A whole town full of zombies approaching my front door to tear out my gizzard? I'd be telling them to hold off until the rinse cycle.

Shopping for camping is crazy. I don't know why this is but we always eat far better during camping trips than at any other time of the year. Maybe it's to make up for sleeping on a thin slab of foam and walking 40 miles to the loo. Yup, if I'm going to wash dishes in a plastic tub full of ice water and do without a bath for a week then I'm going to eat steak and cheesecake every night! Woo HOO! Let the righteous win! Let the arteries harden! Bring on the blessed bacon! 

By the way, the high cost of steak and Jiffy-Pop is hard to justify to the bank manager when you're whinging and writhing on her office floor arranging a second mortgage to pay for it all.

When you've bought every last pound of bacon, bag of ice, sack of Doritoes and package of Twizzlers in the store you bring it all home and stuff it in the car. That and clothes, rum, pillows, rum, blankets, rum, sleeping bags, rum and pool noodles. Whatever you do, don't forget the rum. 

The packing is an all day fiesta of carrying crap. By the time everything is loaded, you're toast. Burnt toast. And all you can think of, as you're driving to the park, with two kids fighting in the back seat and repeating "Are we there yet?" in a Marathon Man litany of pain worse than that endured during root canals sans freezing, is how, when you finally arrive, you have to get out of the vehicle and help your husband back a 21-foot trailer into an 18-foot campsite. I kid you not, this is the number one reason for divorce.

Suffice it to say, all I wanted to do after we got to the park and set up was nothing. A big blob of zilch. Dave sensed this (funny how massive amounts of whining in his ear sharpens his mind-reading skills) and set up the hammock for me. What a wonderful man he is. I crawled into the hammock and squiggled into the most comfortable position and watched puffy clouds float across an azure sky. Ahhhh, camping ....

That's when the hammock failed. WHOMPF. I landed unceremoniously butt-first in the dirt. I stared up at the puffy clouds and I swear they were mocking me. I started crying, big, ugly, mucous-endowed bawling while I felt around my butt to see if my hip was broken. 

That's when I noticed the lady in the next  campsite staring at me. 

I pulled my hand away from my derriere and tried to act nonchalant.

"You saw that, did you?" I asked, a goobery plop of something gross hanging off my quivering bottom lip.

"Sorry, yes I did," she said. Then, whatever societal politeness she had been clinging to let go and a honking projectile bray of laughter spewed out of her cavernous, lipsticked mouth.

My utter mortification was complete. I closed my eyes and lay there like a well-trussed slug.

My butt still hurts. I didn't go near Killer Hammock for the rest of the week. Dave insists it wasn't my beatific buttocks that crashed the hammock; the ratchet strap slid through an eye loop or something.Yeah, whatever. This kind of thing never happens to skinny women.

The hammock wasn't my only ordeal. Two days later we were on a canoe trip along Sunday Creek (which should be called Bog of Death) and not once, but twice, I sank into the harrowing depths of a leech-encrusted abyss of muddy squelchiness. The first time, with one misplaced step, I went right up to my crotch. Pulling my leg out was like giving birth. I've been having nightmares about vacuum suction ever since. I've washed my formerly white socks three times since then, in bleach, and they still look like men's black dress socks.

The second time I just stayed there.  

A week later, here I am,  feeling much like a weiner in a Pillsbury crescent roll, watching puffy clouds (and turkey vultures) go sailing by. 

I really do find camping relaxing ... don't you?


40 comments:

  1. Umm... tell me about the joys of camping again? I think I missed it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ok, so first you work like a slave, then you hurt your hiney....

      Delete
  2. OMG I am laughing soooo hard!!! You are a wonderful writer and very self depracating. See, this is why my idea of camping is no mini fridge in the hotel room. Hope your bum/hip feels better but I think your ego & dignity got more bruised....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh no, my arse DEFINITELY hurts more than my dignity... my dignity died AGES ago....
      :)

      Delete
  3. Sounds like you had a blast. Bahahaha! I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you. Well, the little snorts in between may actually be directed at you...BUT, you can laugh at me next week because we'll be camping at the Grand Canyon. (I have a cabin booked just in case I see a spider) Thanks for the laugh, my friend. :-)

    ps. Just ditch the socks.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wanna see photos, Shannon!!!!! Camping at the Grand Canyon? That sounds like a camping dream to me!

      ps. yeah, socks are history...

      Delete
  4. Oh Cathy.....hubs, daughter and myself used to go camping for a week at a time with only what would fit into the hatch of an AMC Gremlin (and that included the tents). You had a trailer? Wow!! What luxury.
    By the way, I fell off of the couch early this morning but there was no one around to witness my shame. Glad you made it home safe and sound.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ok, ok, ok - so Dave and I are such dedicated (idiotic) campers that we have an entire selection of camping modes to choose from. We started out with a tent then graduated to a tent trailer because of too many rainy days with the kids. Then one day, in a moment of either clarity or idiocy, we bought a house trailer and got rid of the tent trailer. We. LOVE. The. Trailer. It's the best thing for camping in the shoulder seasons and it's great for taking kids. Even in the worst weather we have a dry place to play games and sit around the table. However, Dave and I still do go tent camping several times a year. It just depends on where we're going and who we're going with. (Gremlins... hahahahaha ... I remember those cars!!!!)

      Delete
  5. I'm sorry, Cathy, but I did feel a smile rise with the hammock-failure incident! ;-p

    I can identify with the pre- and post-holiday washing though! Well, I would LIKE to identify with it - currently I can't use my washing machine as it vents into the waste-pipe from the kitchen sink; that would be the wastepipe that sheared off the bottom of the sink on Saturday morning.....! Still waiting for a plumber to arrive and replace the whole thing! And talking of camping - it feels like that, having to wash the dishes in a bowl and remember NOT to tip the used water down the sink....!

    Glad to have you back, though Cathy - missed your cheery smile! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Omigawd, you have PLUMBING woes???? That is so much more blog-worthy than camping woes!!! (I'm not smiling, honestly, ;))

      Delete
  6. Oh, lordy, this made me both laugh and cringe. I've been there! We swam in a leech-infested lake, and once took a hike, only to be crawling with ticks afterwards (and lost as well). When I was a kid, my mother fell into a lake when she had one foot on the canoe and the other on the dock. I tried to squelch my laughter, but it looked so darn funny. Camping can be awesome, but it is hard work too.
    Catherine Stine’s Idea City

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would have totally laughed at my mother. Like laughed out loud, unable to breathe laughing at my mother!!!!
      Oh, ticks and leeches are my worst nightmares... ugh, ugh, ugh... but mothers falling in lakes? HILARIOUS!

      Delete
  7. having a crap in the long grass, fighting off gnats,worried about bears, sore feet, wet socks, no ON TAP hot water,,,,,, give me the WALDOLF ASTORIA anytime xxxx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh no, we just PEED in the long grass - the crapping was done in the woods, dear John!!! (as in, "Does a bear shit in the woods???")

      Delete
  8. See, I will never "graduate" from the idea of the cabin. Never. Not at this age, at any rate.
    I hope you had... fun?

    Just to check, you still willing to do a short review for me for Amazon?

    ReplyDelete
  9. Hahahaha! I love your descriptions. You're such a good writer. Dress socks... sexy. ;) And... root canals, child birth, leeches and bad butts. Um, maybe sitting in front of my computer all day isn't so bad, after all. Good job I can live vicariously through you! :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "such a good writer"... (cheque is in the mail, Carrie!!!! Thanks!)

      Delete
  10. Didn't you know, bog muck is also used as black dye. It was an experiment. You know you have to eat all that stuff camping because there's no way to cook anything else. It's all legit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I totally believe that bog muck is used as black dye. I'm gonna use it on my hair and see what it does to my roots.

      Delete
  11. Oh dear! I usually love camping, but yes sometimes it can be a challenge. SOO much to pack and plan for, and there's always something you forget. Also, Ouch!!! :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. YES! We always forget something too. Unfortunately we usually remember to pack our children.

      Delete
  12. I use to do it the hard way, but now prefer an RV.
    the Ol'Buzzard

    ReplyDelete
  13. Ah yes the memories of the rain pelting down on our pup tent on our second ever camping trip made our tent collapse. It was an old one that had rotted at the centre.
    Yup the prep is trying. Never tried the trailer style and likely now never will.
    Canoeing is hard work if your doing a whole trip by canoe. Did that once and loved it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Canoeing is hard work but it's so rewarding, isn't it? Sorry about the collapsed pup tent, but I'm sure you've laughed about it in the years since!

      Delete
  14. Ahhh, Camping. and hammock! That is such a magic word. Though not so much when it dumps you on your hiney. It just wouldn't be a camping trip without some stingy/muddy/horriffic story to tell when you returned.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm sure you had the same experiences in Ireland????????? (Not!) Welcome back, dear Laurita!

      Delete
  15. And this tale reinforces my undying hatred for camping. Hope your hip is feeling better. :)
    You should come over to my Summer Splash blog hop and tell me why you should be a character in my next book. :)

    ReplyDelete
  16. These, are all the reasons why I don't camp. Other than the good food, nothing about camping sounds appealing to me. Hate it.

    ReplyDelete
  17. I can't do it anymore, Cathy, so the next time you're slamming the ground with your butt (ever notice how it's always hard ground right where you fall?) or you're fighting for your boot (or your pants) in the muck, look south and yell, "Damn you Austan!" cuz you're doing it for me. :) I think that's the longest sentence I've ever written.

    ReplyDelete
  18. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Nothing to do with the size of the person in the hammock, I'm here to tell you. At our house, folks of all shapes and sizes have been known to make a wrong move: reaching for a book, binoculars, or a g&t, only to have he hammock simply flip over. Whonk. From relaxing rockabye to thud on the hard, cold ground . . . come to think of it, we've performed the same kind of trick trying to get up from our old f**t recliners. Lean out, and whonk, it flips over, and there you are on the cold, hard floor . . .

    ReplyDelete
  20. Next year, hit Yosemite, set the family up in a remote campsite, tell them you'll be back in awhile and go check into the Ahwanhee lodge. Run a bubble bath.

    ReplyDelete
  21. That's interesting, I always eat far worse when traveling or staying away from home than at any other time. Part of it is the convenience, and part is the temporary enabling ("It's just this weekend..."). I go abroad tomorrow. I can't wait to eat a greasy burger.

    ReplyDelete
  22. You are a riot! So sorry that your hammock collapsed, but the neighbor lady, and now the rest of us, will never forget. Her big mouth with pink lipstick, lol.

    Camping is a lot of work, but the kids really do appreciate it.

    Kathy M.

    ReplyDelete
  23. I once canoed and camped in Algonquin Park. It was lovely. We didn't have a hammock though....

    ReplyDelete
  24. I camped with my family every summer at Lake of Two Rivers in Algonquin Park for years as a kid. My memories are of always being thirsty. My sister and I peed the bed and were not allowed to drink after 7:00 PM. I can still smell that canvas tourist tent! I guess that is why I always go to bed with a glass of water. I love Algonquin Park

    ReplyDelete
  25. ROFL! This makes me want to pack up my tent and head for the woods. :-D

    ReplyDelete

How's it going, eh? It's SO good to hear from you. Tell me every darn thing...