Growing up, my family only camped occasionally. I suspect the limiting factor was Mom's annoyance with the heat and humidity that are some of South Mississippi's summer charms. And the mosquitos - we can't forget the bloody state bird. There was one particular trip we made that stands out for me. It happened one summer up at Flint Creek in Wiggins, Mississippi. There were two other families apart from Dad, Mom, and me. My defacto brothers, Noel and Roel, were there, along with our dogs, Mickey and Brown Shoe. The parental units put the three of us and the dogs in our own tent to keep us out of their hair. This was fine with us. It was like an extended sleepover. Our tent was a stone's throw from the reservoir, and we had our dogs, fishing rods, and access to a skiff. The whole week played out like chapters from Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.
For Andrea, while her family had a tow behind camper, she tended to decline hanging out with the family on their little excursions. It's not like she's a prima donna about roughing it. In college, she spent time out in the literal jungles of Brazil. Bathing was done at the local river, and armed guards were posted in the event a wayward anaconda or crocodile came along. I just assume that somewhere along the way she decided she liked puffy queen-sized mattresses and hot showers instead of bedrolls and sharing a bathroom with the flora and fauna.
Imagine my surprise as we found ourselves perusing YouTube videos of tents, towable teardrops, and truck bed campers. She then starts detailing features she likes and doesn't like about every model we viewed. "Oh, look, this outfit gets their cabinetry from an Amish community in Ohio."
Offhandedly I mentioned, "You know, we've got a tent in the garage that we've never used. We could take it for a spin at some point." She seemed surprised by this revelation.
"What!? When did we get a tent? Why do we have a tent? How do I not know about this!?" I assured her I wasn't keeping it from her. She was actually with me when we bought it the first year we were married. It was then her turn to surprise me.
"We should go camping this weekend." I just stared at her. She could just as well have been strapping on a helmet and said, "Let's go to Mars." However, she appeared to be serious.
OK. Let's run with this. I started making a mental list of things to dig up out of deep storage. There's Dad's old sleeping bag he used on maneuvers, a kerosene lantern, a cast-iron skillet, and a fire ring. We'll have to call ahead to the campground. I wonder if I've got wicks for the lantern. Then Andrea snapped me out of my internal dialogue.
In the midst of me trying to determine how rough we'll be "roughing it", she says, "We need to get a new queen-size air mattress. I think the one we have has a leak."
*sigh*
Here's something else that surprised me. One Google search turned up this song as the number 1 camping song of all time. I thought they were joking. They may just as well have said, "Bye Bye Bye" by NSync, but they were, in fact serious.
OK. Let's run with this, too.
"House of the Rising Sun" - The Animals
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