Call of the Wild or Hotel Camping Epilogue

I've stated previously that we are not campers.  Yet, we live in a part of the country where the number of campsites and protected areas of nature are rivalled only by Starbucks.  It seems everyone here either owns a dog, or goes camping regularly. Having had twins instead of a third child, we are less likely to get a dog than the family of cats living down the street.  A coworker of mine told me that he hated camping, but he went yearly with his boys for 7 years (not that he was counting) because they loved it so much.  Inspired by his willingness to be miserable for the sake of his kids, I felt like I couldn't deny my kids both a dog and their right to get to know the Great Outdoors.

We started with just camping in the backyard. My husband was skeptical. My sister and her husband joined us in their own tent. My son asked if it would be okay if he dug a latrine in the backyard. No, because we have several working toilets in the house. We told ghost stories. We learned that it gets extremely cold at night. The kids had a blast. My husband remained skeptical, but was game for real camping.  My son was especially excited about the prospect of digging a latrine. I assured him that there was a restroom at the campsite and we would not need to dig a latrine.

And I should add that when I say "real camping," I mean car camping, and only for one night.  Apparently, if you don't reserve a campsite at least 2 months in advance, they all get booked up by people that know what they're doing. We are not those people.

Figure 1. Eagerly awaiting my geeky friends' suggestions
on how I could make my graph more accurate.

We drove up to a site, amongst many other sites, and carried our gear down a dirt path a short distance. My sister and her husband were already there.  My son wondered if they had already dug the latrine. (FOR THE LOVE OF PETE.  WE DO NOT NEED A LATRINE.  THEY WILL HAVE BATHROOMS.)  We got our tent put up in 22 minutes, which was no small task given all the helpers.  I've done a little research and determined that the time it takes to complete a task is inversely proportional to the average age of your helpers and almost directly proportional to the number of helpers you have.  This is best represented in Figure 1. I am still conducting studies to determine the point of intersection.  After we put the tent up, my son asked if we would be digging a latrine next. We suggested making dinner instead.

We didn't take a lot of pictures of the twins' first camping trip.
Mainly because we were on Campfire Deathwatch,
Campstove Deathwatch, Dirty Shoes in the Tent Patrol,
Food That Fell on the Ground Patrol, and Bug Spray Patrol.

As expected, the twins had some difficulty getting to sleep.  What I mean by this is that they scared all the other campers, ghosts, and wildlife away.  I'm surprised the park ranger didn't pay us a visit, followed by Child Protective Services, quite frankly.  We had them in these peapods, kind of like a tent within a tent, so that instead of wandering around in the middle of the night, they were trapped like little aliens trying to kickbox their way out of the womb.  Having carried them in my womb, I've experienced what that's like, and kind of felt sorry for the little tents.  On the bright side, when we finally went to go soothe them, the little tents were so warm inside (from them being so worked up) that I didn't worry about the toddlers getting hypothermia overnight.

We definitely got dirty, but truth be told, I have four kids and I have definitely gone for much longer without showering. Big deal.  Not to brag, but we were nowhere near our family nadir of disgustingness. I think we'd need to extend our stay for a few more days to even get close.

Before we all went home, my son was able to spend an afternoon fishing with his uncle. He had a lot of questions about latrines, including whether or not you had to bury your poop.  Good camping talk. For his birthday, he told me he wants a camp shovel with a pointed tip so that he can... wait for it... Dig a latrine.

My husband stated that camping was just like being at home,
except that everything was suckier.
Here he is having a terrible time.

Here we are having a terrible time.

I'm pretty sure there's a kid in there, but not 100% positive that
a. there's a kid or b.which one it is. Based on the color of the bag,
probably my daughter.

The only thing more boring than fishing (to me) is
watching someone else fish.
I bet he's thinking about digging latrines.

Hotel Camping

We are not camping people.  My husband and I, once when we were younger, took a 4 day camping trip into the Boundary Waters of Minnesota.  It was hard core.  Pack in, pack out.  We had to portage our canoe ridiculous distances, and tie up our stuff during the night so that bears couldn't get at it.  Bears. And mosquitos, which, in northern Minnesota, are difficult to distinguish from the bears. After the first night, the safety mechanism on our cookstove slipped, and we were unable to figure this out for the remainder of the trip, since we pretty much had zilch camping experience between the two of us.  Which meant granola bars and PB&J for the next 3 days, while we looked longingly at our dried rations.  We got used to drinking the tablet-treated lakewater, sort of.  I mean, do you ever get used to drinking brown water with sediment?  I still remember that first glass of ice cold clear water that we had once we straggled in. It was like nectar. We survived, and actually had a good time, but I think we were a little traumatized. So that was our last camping experience, no kids, about 12 years ago.

If you look closely, you can actually see the mosquitos lurking in the foliage.
www.moshannonfalls.com

The thing is, I've come to realize that what I really enjoy is hotel camping.  Especially in nice hotels. Since my husband earns hotel points from his business travel, I have roughed it in more than my fair share of really nice hotel "campgrounds." Clean water. Generous shower. Pool.  Wi-fi. Workout room. Clean crisp sheets, without little toys or binkies or food particles lurking underneath the blankets.

The Heavenly Bed.  It's exponentially more comfortable than a sleeping bag.
I'm surprised they don't use this in their ad copy, actually.

The kids also love hotel camping, which was why I was a little surprised when my son started bugging us about taking them wilderness camping.  It started in the middle of an otherwise uneventful dinner.

Michael: Daddy when are you going to take us camping?  Because you said that when Allison was old enough, we could go. And now she's old enough, but we have the twins.

Daddy: That's right, son.  And when the twins are old enough, we are going to have another baby (this comment made me throw up in my mouth a little bit).  And we're just going to keep on having babies so that we never have to take you camping.

Allison (listening intently, blurts): Daddy!  You can't have any more babies!  You had your balls chopped!

Allison, roughing it on one of our wilderness hotel camping adventures.

She had him there.  I'm not sure how she heard about my husband's vasectomy, or how she connected it with having babies.  We haven't had any sort of talk along those lines with her, but she does have an extremely knowledgeable older brother who loves to dispense his font of information to others.  I can't totally control that.  At any rate, I remember responding to her comment by looking off to the side and suddenly deciding to chew my food very deliberately.  It was important that I didn't make eye contact with my husband, as that would have put one or both of us at high risk of choking on our food.

This conversation happened many months ago, and since then, I've had this nagging guilty feeling that we really should take the kids camping so that they can experience Nature in all Her Glory.  I don't know why I feel this way- it's not like my parents ever took us camping when we were little.  I guess because the Northwest has such beautiful campsites and protected areas. And what could be more fun than camping with four kids, two of whom are toddlers and still in diapers. So against my better judgement, we now have a 10 person tent, sleeping bags for the kids, and a plan for the summer.  It's cheaper than a few nights of hotel camping, I suppose.  So that's it, we're going camping sometime this summer.  In the wilderness. Where there could be bears and mosquitos. Stay tuned.  Wish us luck.