A couple of months ago, my husband announced that he was
finished with family vacations in hotels and that from now on, we are going to
be a camping family.
Here! Here! I agreed.
Enough of those vacations where kind
strangers appear in order to clean your room, cook your food and bring it to you, wash
your dishes, and even scour the dirty laundry if you leave it outside the hotel
door in that little white bag that hangs in the closet….why would anyone want a
vacation like that? Yucky. Blech...(insert awkward pause). So we purchased a
brand new used travel trailer and hit the road for the first time this summer
last weekend. What a glorious idea. The Great Lakes of Michigan are a true
blessing for all those who have the opportunity to experience them for any
amount of time. The wildflowers were brilliant and the crashing waves of Lake
Huron were melodic and therapeutic, I arrived home refreshed and rejuvenated by
its waters.
However, I did observe
that campgrounds are a place of true wonderment. Hundreds of people gathering
from afar, squeezing onto stamp-sized pieces of ground, to spend hours
inflating, leveling, assembling, unpacking, and setting up tiny houses and
campsites, only to deflate, unlevel, disassemble, pack and put away the entire
package two days later in order to return home where you go through the entire process
again in order to clean everything. Some would say an exercise in insanity, I
say, last weekend’s good times!
The P.H. Hoeft State Park Campground close to Rogers City,
MI, is located in a pristine pine forest, beautiful and shady. The first thing I wondered
was from which planet the enormous mosquitoes that infested our five by six foot
camping acreage had arrived. Those babies were full-size and abundant, capable
of supplying the blood bank at the university hospital for a month. The official
tally was approximately 13,000 blood suckers per cubic foot. I was smacking
them so often, people walking past our campsite thought I was applauding
them….some folks smiled and bowed, uncertain of what warranted my ovation. The
black flies were so tough, they were smoking ‘roll your owns’ and had tiny
tattoos on each little leg that read “BITE YOU!” I basically dipped the kids in a pool of DEET
and sent them on their merry way, fully accepting that my grandkids may have
atomic super powers or psychic anomalies due to toxic chemical poisoning. At
one point my son complained that he had lost all feeling in his lips from
sticking DEET soaked fingers too close to his face…”no worries Stef”, I stated,
“taste is highly overrated… you may just start liking that tuna dish your
Grandma Nada makes at Christmastime and that will get you some holiday gift
bonus points.” Problem solved.
The second thing I wondered during our camping extravaganza was
where else in the world can you go to vacation and hang out with a couple hundred
people that are all okay with each other walking around in their pajamas? I mean, other than downtown Pittsburgh or drop
off and pick up at my son’s elementary school? Apparently, if you are on your
way to the rest room at any hour, proper attire is not expected. Flip flops, men’s
boxers and a tube top where all the rage among the ladies…the men? Let’s just
say I hope there was something other than God’s gifts under those giant
t-shirts.
My husband had some wonderings of his own. He wondered how
he could have been the only person to actually read the forty or so signs that
stated, “All dogs must remain on leash”. I observed a moment outside the camper
truly indistinguishable from the Bumpus’ dog scene from the movie ‘A Christmas
Story’. The neighbor’s three burly dogs came over for a mass visit in order to
relieve themselves on all of the trees and leafy areas around the camper, smell
our dog, and help themselves to the breakfast my husband was preparing on the
camp stove. I wondered how my spouse was able to refrain from the famous
explicatives as he directed the brood back to their owner, only to find the
gentleman, Rambo-style knife strapped to his ample thigh, attempting to ignite
his camp fire with street flare and intending to burn a twenty-foot pine log
across the fire pit …nothing can go wrong there, situation explained.
I lastly wondered how I did not know to ‘forget’ my broom at
home. I now have Schwarzenegger arms from all of the clearing of dirt from
inside the camper to the outside rug, from the sweeping of the dirt from the
outside rug to the mat just outside of the outside rug designed to keep all of
the dirt off of the rug and the inside of the camper. Jeesh! The clean would last about ten minutes and the
dog, kids and husband would bring in the mess of pine needles and my spouse would utter, “Wow,
lots of dirt in here! Honey, you probably need to sweep in here again” …I can
now return to my career in arm wrestling during half-time at the roller derby
in Kalkaska.
The camping nights would end peacefully with red wine served
in plastic cups consumed in the serene glow of plastic palm trees and pink
flamingo lights dangling from the campers’ awnings, (I will own some of my very
own, very soon!). I look forward to our
next camping adventure in the U.P. coming soon…I am sure there will be all
kinds of normal up there….
Well, not too
much as my family will be there!
Happy Summer Camping!!
