Camping

Tis the season!

Do you enjoy camping? What kind of camping do you like to do? When you camp, where do you go--a lake, the ocean, the mountains? What kinds of things do you like to do when camping?

I love camping. I prefer the ocean or the mountains, but I'll go camping pretty much anywhere. We have a little 2-man backpacking tent, so we're pretty mobile in terms of where we can go; we're not limited to just car camping. We've also got 3-season bags, so we're not limited (much) in terms of when--so long as we're not camping in the snow, we stay pretty snug and cozy. The tent we have has a full fly, so rain is not a concern. Having nice gear definitely makes camping much more comfortable.

Not my picture, but here is my tent:


Depending on where we're camping, I enjoy reading by the fire (if a fire is permitted), relaxing, being in nature, canoeing, and hiking. We scoped out a campground nearby yesterday, and I expect we'll be out there in a couple weekends, enjoying the woods.

Got any camping trips planned yet?

 

We took our littlegirly camping for the first time this past weekend, it was super fun.

We use a lightweight backpacking 3-man tent that a friend gave me about 10 years ago. We camped a lot before we were married, as a way to get out and have our own space. We tend to camp during times when there are fewer bugs, springtime. I want to camp more in the autumn, but college football often gets in the way. I prefer hiking in to a camp site. I don't enjoy drive-up camping as much. There is too much temptation to over pack. I also like campgrounds that have a common fire pit or otherwise encourage socialization. We love meeting new people and sharing stories/songs. We also tend to go to bed early and sleep best when we can hear people having a good time around the camp fire.

We have backpacks, so don't mind hiking in some distance, but I do prefer staying at an established site over back country middle-of-nowhere camping. It is harder with our girl.

We have that 3-man tent. When we don't have a long hike, we use a queen size air mattress that has an internal pump. It fits perfectly in our 3-man tent with room on either side for packs. We share an extra- large sleeping bag, unzipped, and have a bottom sheet. If the weather is warmer we use a sheet or a thin blanket. Littlegirly slept on my side of the air mattress this time (mostly on my chest), though in our current tent there is room enough to have a little mat beside us.

Some of our best sex has been in that tent. Good times.

 

Hubs and I both have North Face Aleutian bags that zip together to make an extra-large bag if we like. We're also a little spoiled when it comes to padding--we both have Ridgerests AND Thermarest Prolites, both of which are easily strapped to packs for short hikes to campsites (my preference). The Ridgerests fit side-by-side on the bottom of our 2-person perfectly, and then we put our Prolites on top. It's super comfy. The Prolite alone is usually enough padding for me, but the Ridgerest smooths out everything. I sleep soooo well when I'm camping.

Even when canoe camping or car camping, we do our best not to overpack, but as @genuinemommy said, the temptation is certainly there! Usually if we're doing a long camping trip (a week or so with multiple places), we pack 2 backpacking backpacks with gear (love my Gregory Deva), a daypack for hikes, a duffel bag with extra clothes, a reuseable grocery bag with food from home (I always have my camping food separated and packed in ziplocs, ready for a trip, as it's all shelf-stable) and a cooler. If the canoe is going with us, then we have to pack all the canoe stuff too, and we usually take our Dutch oven in that case.

Since we recently moved, we had to move all of our gear, too. Surprise, surprise--all of it fits into our backpacks, except for the Dutch oven and the ice axe.

Here's a camping ritual we have that I love: my husband gets up and makes coffee first thing, then brings me coffee in the tent. I sleep so deeply while camping that I often wake up a little groggy, so the coffee delivery helps a lot!

 

My SO and I used to go camping annually. We actually camped across Canada when we first got together. It was our thing.

For a while now it's been difficult for us to do so because our work schedules are opposite: she's a teacher, I'm a book editor. Early summer, she's usually finishing up school stuff and is then quite exhausted for a week or two, when I'm pretty much coasting after the spring books have been released and promoted. Mid- to late summer, I'm usually getting manuscripts in while she's got a huge block of time off. By late summer (last week or two of August), she's already gearing up for September.

That said, I think I've only gone camping twice since 2008 (or longer). She's gone only once without me. We normally go about a week. We don't do smaller frequent trips mainly because it's a bit of an ordeal to go "real" camping when you live in Toronto.

So the challenge of both of us getting a week off together in the summer is what has kept us from going more regularly.

The particularly difficult thing for me is that camping is what I do—or so I used to. My first camping trip? I was days old. My family used to own a fair-sized plot of forested land on a sizeable lake. It was our family retreat during many weekends over the summer, sometimes up to a week. It's a part of my upbringing. This place had a trailer and a storage cabin. It had electricity. But it was secluded. The only people in earshot (if you yell and you're quite loud) would be the adjacent property owned by my granduncle's family (my grandfather originally owned this property shared by my family).

Anyway, many memories over many years of being out in nature. Time passes, children grow into adulthood, older folks die. Family grows apart, and suddenly someone wants to sell their share of the property—my estranged uncle. Since no one can afford his share, he forces the sale of the entire property through some kind of legal wrangling.

The property is lost to us forever despite my grandfather's wishes that it stay in the family in perpetuity. It's more than 3 hours to drive to this place (under 30 min. for my family), so I hadn't seen it much since moving to Toronto in 2000. I regret that. I don't remember when I last saw it, but it must have been over ten years ago, maybe longer. What I do know is that the last time I was there I didn't realize it was going to be my last time seeing the place.

So today I find myself rather stranded in the city. It weighs heavily on my soul, and when I do find myself out of the city and in rural areas I lament my lack of time spent there.

Things have changed. I have a bit more flexibility with my schedule if I can plan properly. I don't know if we'll go camping this year (we'll need new gear), but I think there might be a chance. We'll see.

Sorry. I went on a bit of a ramble there. Camping is a touchy subject for me at the moment.

 

Maybe I'm weird, but I love peeing in the woods.

 

I'd rather dig a hole than use one of those nasty, germ-ridden, poorly-maintained pit toilets.
Oh, and if you ever find yourself someplace where it grows wild... ginger leaves are the best toilet paper.

 

I just spent a good half an hour researching possible places to camp over my birthday weekend. There are so many choices--rustic Forest Service campground v. we-have-everything state parks and everything in between. We're about half an hour from a state park campground that trends towards rustic--no hookups, but running water and flush toilets, and only a few sites for trailers. That sounds just about perfect. I think we're going to have to go check that out this weekend.

I also need to research campgrounds in national forests south of us and renew this sucker: