As the camping season draws to a close for another year, I feel somewhat saddened. I will miss those days spent getting in touch with nature. I will definitely miss those hot humid days with no air conditioning, watching the bugs swarming around my food and ultimately dropping into my cool glass of wine. I will yearn for those morning lineups at the shower, waiting to get into a stall that will be peppered with unknown items, which I am glad I don’t have to clean.
“Camping breakfasts” are the best. Nothing compares to greasy fried eggs and bacon, done over a propane stove. Morning coffee is a necessity – fresh brewed, with water from a questionable source. I will undeniably miss those mornings.
Moreover, during the long winter I will yearn for those leisurely days spent, biking, hiking, swimming all the while trying wholeheartedly to keep ahead of the bugs. Slathers of greasy sun screen is a necessity, thus attracting additional swarms of deer flies, regular flies and any other variety of winged varmint. Therefore requiring a further coating of bug repellent, containing deet, which however, can only safely be applied every six hours, but the varmints are back within three. Oh well.
What can be more enjoyable than a barbeque? Camping and barbeques go together – juicy red sirloin steaks grilling on an open flame. So what if they’ve found carcinogens in the smoke from barbeques. If the flames get too high, we just lift the steaks off the grill and wave them around until the blaze subsides – or simply beat them down with a wooden spatula. Even charred black meat tastes good after a day outdoors.
Camping is a family affair, so of course we have to take our dog and cat. Ahhh, nothing like the smell of a wet dog inside a hot, stifling tent trailer. Of course Boots, being the attack cat that she is, spends her days batting at bugs, and throwing cat litter all over the trailer. Her evenings include running from one end of the trailer to the other chasing bugs that only she can see and jumping on whatever or whoever is in her pathway. Our evenings are joyously spent coughing and gagging as the smoke from neighbouring campfires fills our trailer.
Sadly I guess I’ll just have to adapt to spending my evenings in front of the warm cozy fireplace, sipping wine and munching on crackers and cheese, until camping seasons begins again.
Barbara is working towards her B.A. in English. She enjoys writing in her spare time. Barbara is located in London Ontario and can be reached at barbgodin@sympatico.ca.
