Here we are, in the peak of summer, and it’s time to let our minds stray to one of our favourite seasonal activities. Yes, summer’s here and the time is right for camping in the woods.
Before you start tossing camping supplies willy-nilly into your car or camper unit, you must make the psychological transformation into the headspace of a camper. Start preparing yourself for how the next few days or weeks are going to play out. Find ways to break yourself in. Are you going to be sleeping in a tent? If so, you need to simulate how the cold, hard ground is going to feel against your brittle bones. Don’t think that a thin foamie is going to make much of a comfort difference. Stop using your expensive memory foam mattress a few days before you leave and lay out a small layer of crushed gravel or navy jack on the living room floor. Now snuggle up to yourself and feel every single little sharp edge dig into your body. This is as good as it’s going to get, so you better start getting used to it.
Food intake is another adjustment you are going to have to make. Before you leave home, start decreasing your daily consumption of fresh vegetables and real food. Instead, you want to start leaning towards those trusted camping staples such as hot dogs, popcorn and marshmallows. You can prepare yourself for campground coffee (aka cowboy coffee) by gathering up a few days’ worth of old grounds and dumping them in a big pot of boiling water. After a couple of hours of maximum heat, the thick black liquid should be revived back to its original full-body flavour.
The battle against insects and their annoying habits of biting and stinging innocent campers like you is another issue you will need to consider. By all means, bring along bug spray and mosquito repellant, but preparing your body against the inevitable itch/scratch conditioned response to these flying bandits is the best way to go. Personally, before I leave on a camping trip, I strip off my clothes and take a little naked run through the nearby blackberry hedge. After the bleeding has stopped, I can be quite certain that insect bites and stings will seem hardly noticeable.
Now it’s time to think of packing for the trip. Many campers claim that less is more, but I belong to the camp that insists that more is more. Basically, you want to take along everything that will fit in your trunk, camper or trailer, and then everything else you own. Drawing up a packing list will help you organize for the trip, but don’t let the list cramp your creativity. A general rule of thumb is to pack five times as much as you’ll ever need. You never know when you might have mechanical problems and have to rely on that never-opened fondue set to fend off starvation.
Getting the right campsite at a campground will make a big difference in how much you enjoy your experience. For instance, camping close to the outhouse can be a good thing because you’re close to the outhouse. On the other hand, it can be somewhat revolting because, well . . . you’re close to the outhouse.
It’s almost impossible to know for sure who will be your camping neighbours at any particular campground. Maybe you will be within sharing distance of a peaceful gathering of a local Raging Grannies chapter who are celebrating the completion of an Honour Our Earth Mother weekend workshop. Just as easily, you may be interfacing with Club 666 of the California Hell’s Angels who are ready to party hardy because their incarcerated leader, Snakehead, has finally been released on parole.
One summer, a friend and I were camped next to a bizarre religious sect from Seattle who were followers of the mysterious cultist Brother Love. Each of them had been given a new name by the good Brother to remind them that they needed to resist temptation and keep working on their spiritual auras so they could attain enlightenment. They sported names like Ego, Greed and Envy and wore these monikers proudly. We were invited to join the Love family and were told that Brother Love had taken a shine to us and was willing to bestow new names upon us. We declined the invite and informed them that we already had taken on new spiritual names. We said that we had considered Dopey, Sneezy and Bashful, but settled finally on Flashing Amber Light and Shoulder Check. They didn’t bother us much after that.
People go camping because they want to have fun. And how can you have fun unless you bring toys to play with? You’re going to need a variety of recreational accessories to enjoy the grandeur of nature and to keep from getting bored. By these, I mean surfboards, paddleboards, kayaks, canoes, jet skis, motorcycles, dirt bikes and ATVs. If you find that you don’t have enough room in your vehicle for all these toys, you can always tow a trailer behind you or, better yet, a speedboat (or both).
If you’re going to camp anywhere near water, you’ll want to have inflatables on hand. These can range all the way from water wings and air mattresses to humongous floating castles that look like they would not seem out of place as attractions at Disney World. When inflated, these floaties could actually save your life if you get into a serious collision and your air bags fail. You will also need about a dozen colourful foam noodles lashed onto different parts of your vehicle to prevent your ride from sinking to the bottom of a lake and to make sure that you are visible from outer space. Don’t forget the Super Soaker water guns in case you get hijacked by banditos.
There. You are all packed and ready to go. Nobody asked me, but the only things standing in your way are packed ferry parking lots, overloads, bumper to bumper traffic, highway construction and deconstruction, road closures, full campgrounds and weather that’s either cold and rainy or abysmally scorching. Have a great time camping.
On the other hand, have you considered a staycation?