I had planned to return home for church today anyway. I do have to conduct and I suspected that since this is our first camping trip in more than a decade, I would need things I had not anticipated needing. Like a camp cot, for one thing. And Drew is so disgusted at the picnic table at the site that he decided we had to find a portable folding table.
We went our separate ways for worship, then headed for the stores to scout up the required pieces. We found just the right things, then decided on Wegman's subs for lunch. Once again, we went home to the air conditioned living room and watched a Monk episode while we ate and Sugar recovered a bit. Then we headed back to camp with renewed vigor to continue pursuing our camping excursion.
Camping experiences of my childhood surface here and there in my memory as we do typical camp stuff. We certainly had our adventures. Twice we trekked across America to California where my father's father lived, staying in all the national parks along the way. I was so fortunate to camp in places like Yellowstone and Yosemite and Glacier Lake. Such beautiful sites. I clearly remember driving our car through the middle of a huge redwood tree and stopping at a little gift shop on the other side. We kids wandered through while Mom and Dad bought some little thing for Grampa. I found a small jewelry box with a forest scene on the top that smelled so good - made out of and fragrant as the redwood tree we had just driven through. I wanted it badly, but we had no money for such stuff. Years later, Mom recalled my little girl wish that I had sobbed about for miles and bought me a very similar box which I have treasured ever since.
But what really stayed with me over the years were the challenges that we met along the way. I suppose my parents would have called them misfortunes, but watching our family overcome things like hitting a deer with our new station wagon, losing a transmission ring and having to be delayed while a replacement was ordered, fighting traffic on twisty windy mountain roads, having our little camper trailer destroyed in an accident - these are the events that brought us cohesiveness and strength. If you can work through such stuff and come out the other side in one piece, then other challenges don't seem so daunting.
I am pretty sure Drew and I will not encounter challenges of that magnitude this weekend. But we will remember setting up the tent in the dark, cooking food in the great outdoors, sleeping in the tent and dealing with strangers for neighbors. Besides, being out here reminds me that life is not as easy as we normally experience it. It takes much more effort to carry out daily life here in the "wild." You have to work to make a fire to cook food. You have to work to keep your tent up and livable. Light is not automagic.
And even with all the 'roughing it' that camping entails, we are still living way better off than many people. We have a cooler full of food that we can easily replenish. We can go to the camp store and buy firewood already split and dry. We can bail out of it and go home anytime we want. We can put on a sweatshirt if it gets chilly and switch shoes when we walk long distances.
We do as a luxury and a vacation what so many are forced to do for life. I am humbled and blessed. And totally enjoying the crackling fire Drew has started while I sit in my recliner and enjoy being outside.
We went our separate ways for worship, then headed for the stores to scout up the required pieces. We found just the right things, then decided on Wegman's subs for lunch. Once again, we went home to the air conditioned living room and watched a Monk episode while we ate and Sugar recovered a bit. Then we headed back to camp with renewed vigor to continue pursuing our camping excursion.
Camping experiences of my childhood surface here and there in my memory as we do typical camp stuff. We certainly had our adventures. Twice we trekked across America to California where my father's father lived, staying in all the national parks along the way. I was so fortunate to camp in places like Yellowstone and Yosemite and Glacier Lake. Such beautiful sites. I clearly remember driving our car through the middle of a huge redwood tree and stopping at a little gift shop on the other side. We kids wandered through while Mom and Dad bought some little thing for Grampa. I found a small jewelry box with a forest scene on the top that smelled so good - made out of and fragrant as the redwood tree we had just driven through. I wanted it badly, but we had no money for such stuff. Years later, Mom recalled my little girl wish that I had sobbed about for miles and bought me a very similar box which I have treasured ever since.
But what really stayed with me over the years were the challenges that we met along the way. I suppose my parents would have called them misfortunes, but watching our family overcome things like hitting a deer with our new station wagon, losing a transmission ring and having to be delayed while a replacement was ordered, fighting traffic on twisty windy mountain roads, having our little camper trailer destroyed in an accident - these are the events that brought us cohesiveness and strength. If you can work through such stuff and come out the other side in one piece, then other challenges don't seem so daunting.
I am pretty sure Drew and I will not encounter challenges of that magnitude this weekend. But we will remember setting up the tent in the dark, cooking food in the great outdoors, sleeping in the tent and dealing with strangers for neighbors. Besides, being out here reminds me that life is not as easy as we normally experience it. It takes much more effort to carry out daily life here in the "wild." You have to work to make a fire to cook food. You have to work to keep your tent up and livable. Light is not automagic.
And even with all the 'roughing it' that camping entails, we are still living way better off than many people. We have a cooler full of food that we can easily replenish. We can go to the camp store and buy firewood already split and dry. We can bail out of it and go home anytime we want. We can put on a sweatshirt if it gets chilly and switch shoes when we walk long distances.
We do as a luxury and a vacation what so many are forced to do for life. I am humbled and blessed. And totally enjoying the crackling fire Drew has started while I sit in my recliner and enjoy being outside.
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