go camping

Last weekend was a much more successful camping trip than the one we did two years ago. We were far more prepared, with good food and conveniences. I think camping is a learning experience, and each time you get better at it. The campground was pretty nice – clean bathrooms with showers and a little area to wash your dishes. Here is what we did better this time:

- we went to Target and bought a big rubbermaid bin to keep all our camping supplies in, along with a bunch of other stuff that will live in the bin permanently
- some of the supplies include some malamine dishes, a jar of sugar, a jar of coffee, salt and pepper shakers, a set of silverware, a small box of plastic silverware, ziploc bags in various sizes, tin foil, plastic wrap, tongs, napkins, a roll of paper towels, candles, a few garbage bags, bug spray, and antibacterial hand wipes
- i made a big batch of potato salad and brought a bagged salad mix and we just had burgers one night and sausages the next night. for breakfast we ate cereal out of tupperware containers. very simple.

My favorite and proudest moment of preparation was bringing a french press! It was so lovely to wake up and have coffee. Of course we don’t have a propane stove or anything, so I came up with the ingenious idea of bringing a small kettle and heating the water over 3 little jarred candles pushed together. It took a good 20 minutes to heat the water, but it was so worth it to enjoy a little taste of dark roast in the great outdoors. It felt like a lovely luxury.

The one thing we didn’t anticipate were the flies! They were terrible. One of the people camping near us said they always bring Yard Guard spray and spray down the campsite. Not particularly environmentally friendly I suppose, but the flies were really enough to drive you insane at times.

We also forgot to bring games! We wound up buying a deck of cards, but next time we’ll bring our travel Scrabble set.

The lighting situation wasn’t that great – all we had were 2 small battery powered lanterns, a few candles and a couple of flashlights. Next time I might bring a string of lanterns to hang from a tree, since a lot of camp sites have electrical outlets.

All in all a good time was had by all. We talked about going again in July, hopefully it won’t be too hot. I’d also love to get some friends together to go, I think it would really make it more fun.

So in an effort to change that for 2010, I went into my Google calendar and “penciled in” four weekends of camping for the year. The thought is that the year goes by and suddenly it’s late fall and you say, “Crap, we never went camping.” So I’m hoping that since I’ve already planned tentative weekends ahead of time, even if those particular weekends don’t work out, it will be on our radar.

When I was little, my family didn’t have much money and our vacations mainly consisted of camping. For the most part, I loved it. My husband and I would like to be a little more outdoorsy, and we go hiking fairly often for city people. Several of our vacations have involved camping in some form – we’ve camped in Big Sur, Yosemite, and Washington state, but it was sort of makeshift camping, since we had to bring everything on the plane. We went once closer to home in the Poconos last year, but it wasn’t particularly enjoyable. I think we both forget that camping is hard work, and requires a lot of preparation. Not to mention, when I was growing up, we had a camper van, which is considerably easier than lugging everything in the back of our little hatchback, so I realize my mom did have an advantage. This year we’re gearing up to go more, and be more prepared. We’ve been making lists and figuring out ways to make it easier and more pleasant. We can’t wait for the warm weather to get her so we can get going on this!