For as long as I can remember my family has gone camping. When I was really little, probably about 3, we all camped in tents and I thought that was just the greatest. I can remember being put in the tent for my afternoon nap wearing a big t-shirt of Pop's (my grandpa) and I would curl up on the air mattress with my "curly" blanket my grandmother made me. The tent windows would be zipped open and I could feel the breeze coming in and hear the ladies discussing dinner plans.
When I was about 5, I remember dragging out my purple suitcase of Barbies on a big outdoor rug and playing for hours. I especially liked to use Barbie's heels to kill the ants that approached Barbie and Skipper's living room. And I remember wearing my teal Minnie Mouse raincoat and rubber boots while running around to "help" everyone cover up their stack of wood before they got too wet.
Then we got a camper; the pop-up kind with beds on either side that extended over the sides of the camper. Now that thing was cool. The table turned into a bed. There was a "sofa" that was really like a bench, with all our pots and pans below. I loved to draw and color and "make art"; I would lay in my bed with the entire window zipped open and it felt like I was sitting in a hayloft.
By the time I was in middle school my suitcase was filled with books, cd's and my DiscMan. I would pull out a lawn chair in the sun with three or four books and read the entire day. My unruly curls hated camping so my hair was always piled in a bundle on top of my head. The only time I moved was to take a bike ride to the bathroom or to go out on the boat, but even then my book went with me. Then at night, after the campfire was out, I would go into the camper- which was a typical camper now with several sofa's-turned-beds and a regular bathroom; except we didn't use it for anything but storage. I'm still not sure why but I digress. I would put NSYNC or Mariah Carey in my DiscMan, turn it way down low and drift off to sleep. I went through a lot of AA batteries in those days.
Through high school I camped less because I wanted to be with my friends. But I would always spend at least one day out on the boat and at least one night sitting around the campfire. I was prissy in those days though- I didn't want to get dirty and I didn't want to get wet so camping was less appealing to me.
It wasn't until sophomore year of college that I really started to miss camping trips. So I started planning my own with whatever friends I could convince to go. The first one was miserable because I had never planned a camping trip before and I had no idea all the things we would need. We must have driven into town ten times that weekend. And camping in a tent was nothing like I remembered. For one thing, tents just aren't made the way they used to be. Secondly, I had an eye for bugs and that tended to keep me awake for hours. And of course I still am not a fan of mud and it's really hard to keep things clean when it's muddy and rainy.
But I've been pretty smart since I've started my own camping trip; every time I've made a list of the things that we needed that I didn't pack. And I'm not talking luxuries here, I'm talking about necessities like can openers and starting wood. It only took one time of opening a can of baked beans to realize a knife is not the best tool. And it really only took one time of scouting the trail for dry sticks and twigs to get our fire started to know that I need to bundle some up before we leave.
Today I'm posting over on
designology my tips for true outdoor living: the necessity's on a camping trip. Make sure to check it out before you plan your next nature adventure.
