Our new, and rather large, tent has arrived, magically making its way through the internet and onto our porch. Camping has been a summer way of life for as long as I can remember. As a child, camping trips were our family vacations. Camping trips crammed into the little Chevy S-10, all four of us plus a dog, puttering up the hill and into a world of sleeping bags, campfire smoke, and dirt. Ahh, the good life!
Tyson and I still keep to the summer camping tradition, although I must say that we do it with more frills and fancy equipment than I ever did as a kid (I’m thinking old canvas army tent and inflatable pool toys for air mattresses). The way my family camped when I was growing up was certainly closer to ‘roughing it’ than we ever get now. However, while the times of sleeping in leaky tents and traveling in vehicles that didn’t open from the inside are over, I must say I still feel nostalgic each year as I think of all the fun memories we created every summer.
One summer when I was about eight or nine (correct me if I’m wrong, Mom!) our family headed up to Chaparral campground near Anderson Reservoir. We found a nice campsite not too far from the Boise River, set up our trusty old tent, laid out our sleeping bags, and proceeded to enjoy the great outdoors. I don’t remember all of the details of that trip, but I’m sure that Mom and Dad spent a lot of time and energy setting up camp, preparing food, and keeping an eye on my brother and I while we played in the dirt, argued, and got too close to the river. But there is one vivid memory I do have of that trip. And it is vivid because I was the first one to discover what was in our tent that night.
We had left Sunny, our over-hyper Springer spaniel, in the tent while we walked down to the always not-so-clean camp outhouse before going to bed. We brushed our teeth at the water pump, took turns going to the bathroom while Mom held the flashlight in the outhouse, and then headed back to our camp. For some reason, I was ahead of everyone else (I was probably pouting and stomping back to camp for some reason or another). I trotted right up to the tent, only spotting IT just moments before entering our tent. Inside our tent was a SKUNK. And the dog. And the dog food. The skunk entered for the food, the dog chased the skunk, and the skunk chased the dog, managing to spray EVERYTHING in its path. As you may well imagine, I screamed, stomped my feet in fear and surprise, and made myself as useless as possible in all the commotion. I don’t think I have to tell you that we didn’t sleep in the tent that night!
That is one of my cherished memories from our many camping trips. And, as I unpack our beautiful oh-so-yuppie tent, a part of me yearns for one more restless night in that old, smelly, canvas army tent where so many memories were made.
