The Adventures of Camping

When my husband and I first met, we bonded quickly over camping stories from our youth. We both came from families that traveled in R.V.s and fished. His family had the luxury of a motor home while mine had a small camper and a tent. Looking back, I only remembered the fun and the freedom. Every summer, our camping trips provided us with enough funny stories and wonderful memories to last us through the dreary fall and winter of the Pacific Northwest. I never considered the amount of work camping actually is. I never realized the stress and disasters that befall adults while camping out.

So, when my husband and I embarked on our first camping and fishing trip, we never once considered the disasters. We were only filled with excitement. My best friend and her boyfriend were coming with us. We piled together our camping supplies, a few new items along with whatever we could find in our parents garages. I pictured a romantic weekend. Beers and wine coolers by the fire, watching the stars dance across the sky, making love in the tent, enjoying the cool breeze on our faces as we took the aluminum boat across the lake and delicious meals over the fire.

A few days before we left, my best friend calls me with bad news. She broke up with her boyfriend but she would still like to come on the camping trip. Right away, I knew we couldn’t expect her to be in a tent by herself. Our dream of a private tent disappeared but we were still excited. We packed our vehicles to the brim and left for Eastern Washington.

We get to our campsite around midday, dump our gear and stake our dog’s leashes to the ground. As we are working, an older woman staying in an expensive motor home at the neighboring campsite, walks over. She starts observing our collection of old camping equipment.  

“You’re camping with that stuff?” She says.

“Yep.” We tell her without elaboration.

She starts looking over our dogs critically. “Your dogs should do fine here as long as you gave them advantage. You gave them advantage right? There are ticks in this area.”

“Thanks, we took care of it.” I tell her and then it dawns on me. I forgot to give the dogs their flea and tick medicine before I left. Oh well. We ignore the woman as she continues to comment on our campsite.  

We drive the boat to the launch and manage to back it in. I hold onto the rope with the boat floating lazily in the water as my husband parks the truck. My friend and I sit down on the warm dock, talking and giggling when my husband starts yelling at us and running full speed towards us. I look up at him with my arms in the air. He reaches us and dives into the boat.

“It’s sinking!” He yells.

I realize then that the boat is half full of water. Our motor is submerged and everything is wet. We forgot to make sure the boat plug was plugged in and I was talking away, not even noticing that it was sinking. We then proceed to get into one of our very first big fights. Trudging back to the campsite while we let our fishing gear dry out, we set up. It takes us clear until dark, all the while giving each other the silent treatment and listening to the lady next door call out pointers to us as she and her husband sit in chairs and watch us.

It’s late by the time we crawl into bed and the heat is overwhelming. The tent is so stuffy we can’t even stand to touch each other. We fall asleep sometime in the early AM and around six the following morning, our Jack Russel Terrier starts to whine. I roll over ignoring her. Her whining goes on for a few minutes and then we hear the lady next door’s voice.

“Ummm….Excuse me! You need to walk your dog!”

She wakes us all up until I finally yell at her to leave us alone.

We drift back to sleep and then we hear the sound of sprinklers. The water is hitting our tent and I unzip it, looking out. We put up a shelter over the picnic table and it enclosed two of the sprinklers. All of our food and lanterns are being soaked. We jump out, half-dressed attempting to salvage our supplies and look over to see the older couple still watching us while shaking their heads.

In glum moods, we decide to attempt to fish. Despite the water that got into the motor, we get it started and hit the lake. We have a great time and catch our limit of fish. We are clear on the other side of the park when our electric trolling motor dies. My husband starts cranking the gas motor and it won’t start either. He pulls again and again until it floods. We are completely stuck and although we have oars, we are too tired to row such a heavy, large boat to shore. We decide to anchor and take naps.

We sleep in the sun for an hour, catching up on much needed sleep. I wake up and rub my forehead, feeling a stinging sensation there. Despite the fact I had piled on sunscreen, I blistered along my hair line. Thankfully, we get the motor started and head for the dock. On our way there, our stringer comes untied and we lose all our fish.

Angry, blistered and severely disappointed, we trudge back to camp. We are starving so I pull out a bag of homemade spaghetti sauce from the cooler. My husband and best friend are excited over the prospect of a decent meal. I get to work with boiling water over our Coleman stove when I can’t find a lid. We search through every camping bin and can’t find anything. An hour passes and I still can’t achieve boiling water. I decide to shower while waiting. I return, feeling refreshed to find that my husband put the noodles in while I was gone. It never boiled so we ended up with a mushy inedible substance. We end up eating spaghetti sauce without noodles for dinner.

Later that evening, the older couple next door packs up. We are relieved. I truly believe they had more fun watching us then camping. The old lady tells me one last time. “Make sure to check your dogs for ticks.”

I roll my eyes and wave, while reaching down to stroke my Jack Russel’s neck. Oddly enough, I feel something flat within her fur. It’s a tick! By this time, we are hot, hungry, stressed out and our dog has a tick. We have been either working or fighting this entire trip. I’m also basically sure, my best friend has been scared off from marriage. We decide to pack and leave early the next morning.

As if that torturous camping trip wasn’t enough, we decide the following year, to give it another try. By this time, our families have been humorously telling our camping woes to just about everyone. We are determined to make this next trip work. We buy some better equipment, get a new tent and I make sure to pack a lid. I keep the meals simple. My best friend is coming solo again but we don’t mind. She too is determined to make this trip work.

We pull into the same exact spot, position our tents and enclosure away from the sprinklers and set everything up in a remarkable amount of time. My husband comments that he’s concerned about the stakes. The ground is so sandy and dry, there is basically nothing holding them there. I tell him not to worry, there’s hardly any wind.

We enjoy the campfire that night, sleep in and start fishing the next morning. We catch a few large Triploids and grill them over the campfire. When the afternoon sprinklers come on, we are prepared! We let the dogs off of their leashes and go running through the water with them. We chase them and they chase us, tongues and tails wagging. This is a particular memory I cherish because our dogs are no longer with us.

Around dusk, we feel a cool wind sweep over us. There is heat lightening in the distance and a storm rolls in. We try and sleep but the wind starts whipping at our tent. My best friend leaves the tent to check on our enclosure. A huge howling gust sweeps over us and she starts screaming. We jump out of the tent and see that the enclosure is gone. The stakes didn’t hold and we look up to see it flying through the air, up and over the neighboring campsites R.V.

We race to retrieve it before it ends up in the lake or crashes into someone’s vehicle. We haul it back to our site and place the coolers over it. Right as we secure it, another massive gust assails us and our tent stakes pull up on one side. Our tent is on the verge of rolling over so we jump back inside of it as my husband attempts to re-stake it. For the rest of the night, we lay on the floor, arms and legs spread out as wide as they can, attempting to hold our tent in place as we ride out the strongest wind storm I have ever been in. 

Morning arrives and we’re exhausted. I roll over to see my best friend glaring at me.

“Your dog threw up on my blanket!” She spits out!

Sure enough, my Jack Russell Terrier puked all over her blanket!  We take it into town and have it cleaned for her. When we return that afternoon and start preparing dinner, a bee flies up my shorts and you guessed it! I get stung in a very personal area. We lasted one more day after that before returning home.

My mom eagerly awaits our camping report. All three of us sit at her table, complaining and whining about the trip and how everything always goes wrong. She just listens with a smile on her face.

“That’s camping!” She tells us. “It’s nothing but work! Do you think it went smoothly for your Dad and I? We just did whatever we could to make it fun for you kids! Camping is one of those things in life where the memories are fonder than the actual experience.”

It took us a few years to understand what she meant. Now, we love re-telling our camping stories. We have also found out that our stories are not that unusual. The memories have made every disastrous moment worth it!