Camping--Why?

Linda: We're going to primitive camping this summer.

Diane: Isn't that all camping?

I know primitive campers, or as I call them weirdos my former in-laws--not all of my former in-laws, just the ones I called Linda and Roaul mainly because that's their names. 

For those of you who are lucky enough not to know, primitive camping is where you get dropped in the middle of nowhere, portage all of your food, water, clothing, shelter, and miscellaneous supplies deeper into the middle of nowhere to spend a week or longer living without luxury. During this time, you pitch a tent, hunt for firewood, dig your toilet, sleep on the ground, and basically forget any hygiene that most of us take for granted. 

To me this sounds harder work than work! There isn't enough alcohol in the world to make this trip appealing to me. I would probably explode by not going to the bathroom an entire week.  Bears may like to poop in the woods, me--not so much. Heck according to commercials, even the bears use Charmin. When I was putting my eHarmony profile together, one of the questions asked in my profile are what are the 3 things for which you're most grateful. Number 3 on my list was city sewers and running water. 

If I didn't die by gastro-intestinal explosion, I know my fellow campers would have to portage my dead body back home because I would have scared myself to death because I'm convinced that every stick in the forest was a snake out to poison me.Yetis don't scare me, snakes on the other hand. . . the one thing I have in common with Indiana Jones. 

I have been camping more than once but less than five times during the time with my former husband, it was never a great experience. I went with the former in-laws. Not primitive camping but primitive enough for me. Every Memorial Day weekend, most of the in-laws would go up to Necedah, WI to camp and fish at Ollie and Minnie's Fish Lake Campgrounds. They took campers with real bunk beds and the dining table could be taken down and folded into another bed. However, Ollie and Minnie had no running water, no electricity hookups, no showers, no flush toilets--need I say more? The primitive pit bathrooms were a very long walk from where we camped. Seriously, like the walk our parents took to school, uphill both directions in a snowstorm without shoes.  I usually ended up with the flashlight that had the nearly dead batteries in it that went from nearly dead to completely dead when I needed to make the bathroom trek.  

It was okay during the daytime, there was time in the "lake" which was actually the Wisconsin River for fishing (yuck) or taking a lawn chair and sitting in the lake to cool off until Linda had to mention the poisonous water snakes that swam by.  I've never run out of a lake while still sitting in a lawn chair so fast in my life; I don't think my feet touched the ground. There were excursions to Necedah which while not the most boring place in the world had absolutely nothing of interest unless you counted the creepy shrine. The Subway wasn't even open back then. However, I could beg my way into a real bathroom at the gas station.  It's saying something when the gas station bathroom is the more desirable option. These were the days before hand sanitizer as well.

My last trip, I came home and discovered the world's largest tick having the specialty of the house in between my boobs--lucky tick not so lucky Diane. No Lyme's disease  thank goodness, but no more trips to Ollie and Minnie's either.

Here are my last thoughts on camping, go if you enjoy it. Tell me about it when you come back.  I'll listen; I'll admire the pictures. I'll even say it looks like you've had fun. Just don't feel the need to expose me by making me go with you. You enjoy the great outdoors your way, I'll enjoy it my way.

Meanwhile the next time I go primitive camping, it will be at the Motel 6. At least they'll leave a light on for me.

Till next time, thanks for coming to my neighborhood.