GETTING CAMPY

My boyfriend grew up in Colorado and, like me, feels a special connection with nature. Whereas my childhood included going each summer to the family cottage on a river in Ontario, Evan’s involved regular treks to a family cabin in a wooded area in the mountains. But Evan’s experiences communing with nature go deeper. He got a taste of camping in university and then, after moving to Seattle, started to think about being a camper again.

 

When Evan considers adding something to his life, he’s intense. He studies the subject and stocks up with all the necessities. Because he’s an architect and designer, he’s highly visual and he strives for an aesthetic. In terms of camping, that doesn’t mean chandeliers and roasted duck, glamping options I mentioned in my last post. Too much glam, too little camp. Instead, he takes the essentials and bumps them up. He strives to make camping possibly comfier but positively prettier. 

 

In my fifty-eight years of living, I’ve steered clear of camping. The closest I’ve come is ninety minutes in a tent in my back yard at nine years old before missing a real mattress and several years of unrolling my sleeping bag in barebones cabins while chaperoning seventh-grade trips.

 

In our first year together, I’d managed to avoid becoming camp acculturated. He was thrilled that I loved hiking as much (or more) than him. We hiked aplenty. We stayed in funky Airbnb cabins or basic motels in remote places after hiking days that involved long drives. We could ooh and aah on trails, silently listening for the call of an eagle, the whistle of a marmot or, more troubling, the grunts and growls of a black bear, then wash the mud and pine needles off in a long, hot shower before noshing on bad restaurant fare from bland Nepali to “motel Mexican.” I also expanded my nature experiences, spending two separate weeks at Evan’s Airstream in New Mexico, not just surviving but thriving. With nightly fires and peeing amongst the sagebrush—or, better yet, driving into town to use the facilities at the gym—I figured I’d proven myself as being a guy who could occasionally veer from pampered city life. 

 

But then Evan raised the stakes. Perhaps I’d been too adaptable. A few months ago, he started talking about full-on camping, with words like “tent” and “frostbite” popping up too often. I listened politely. Hypothermia was still only hypothetical.

 

Things started to feel real when we browsed our cities’ respective yuppy sporting goods stores, REI in Seattle and MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-op) in Vancouver. At MEC, I even bought “Moon Cheese Gouda” and “Kathmandu Curry,” both in flat, airtight packages that felt super light, highly practical for a long backpacking trek, but defying any common sense thinking about food that quells hunger pangs. (I sensed that satisfying the palate was not even a consideration.)

 

Once camping season kicked off—when exactly, I’m not sure; perhaps when we had three consecutive days without rain—camp talk got more intense. It sounded like the goal was to camp as much as possible, maybe even every weekend. I started to worry. After all, my time as a Boy Scout involved sitting in a school gym once a week while browsing through the manual at home with me dreaming about, then prioritizing all the cute badges I’d get. After a couple of months, I became a Boy Scout dropout. Badge count: zero.

 

There’s also the fact I can’t light a fire. It’s a fear I have that started when I got an owie from holding a sparkler when I was four. Camping prospects: negative twenty-five.

 

I should mention I’m a horrible sleeper. As a teen, I was gifted at slumber, turning my bedroom into a cave, the windowlight blocked by mounds of dirty laundry resting on a weight bench I used maybe three times. On weekends, I’d awaken for the last half hour of morning at best. But shortly after entering the workforce full-time, I lost my ability to sleep soundly. Even now, on disability without a real job, I’m unable to nap—ever!—and sleep time comes with a sense of agony, lots of staring at the clock and then, whenever I do nod off, stressful dreams that leave me feeling exhausted once I jolt myself awake. Surely, sleeping on the ground would prove more challenging as I worried about snakes and bugs crawling into my sleeping bag, bears seeking a late-night din-din—more than moon cheese—and whether the evening fire was really totally out. 

 

As luck would have it, camping is a religion for tons of people in British Columbia and Washington. There’s a date provincial and state parks set for opening up the year’s online bookings and people awaken at 5 or 6 a.m., competing to reserve as many camp weekends as possible for the privilege of doing body scans for tics, peeing behind pines and presumably holding one’s poop until accessing a sketchy gas station restroom on the way back home. Apparently, we missed the big day. Everything was booked. Shucks.

 

As a “consolation,” I booked us a weekend in Victoria, staying in a glorious old home with a view of a real castle basically in our back yard. We went to New York City and took in the Karl Lagerfeld exhibit at The Met. Life remained perfectly civilized.

 

Still, Evan’s voice got edgier as he continued to mention weekends of yesteryear in the woods and cursed “tech bros” who’d possibly used some algorithm to overwhelm camping reservation systems. Conspiracy! (Turns out they’re not all bad.) I brightly suggested hiking in Whistler, booking two nights at my favorite hotel with a pool, sauna and a cute alien stuffie, available for purchase, on the generously pillowed bed. He didn’t even hear me.

 

And then it happened. Evan announced, “I found a site!” His best friend was all in. I needed to appear equally eager. Whidbey Island, here we come. 

 

Yippee. (Notice the pointed lack of an exclamation mark.)

 

In the week leading up to my Intro to Camping, I checked the weather forecast multiple times each day. Friday called for rain. Great. We’d have to set up our tent on soggy soil. Would it soak through my sleeping bag? Evan mentioned liners and bought me a mattress pad that was something between a yoga mat and an air mattress. Would that lessen the jabs of pinecones and rocks as I feigned sleeping? By Wednesday night, Evan’s best friend bailed. Wise man, opting to stay home and shop Amazon for frankincense and myrrh. (What are they anyway?)

 

As I got ready on Friday morning fretting over the impression I’d make by showing up with a rolling carry-on instead of a smartly packed backpack, Evan started texting me nearby hotel options. This was clearly a trap. My reply: “No. Let’s camp!” 

 

Passed test. Failed seizure of opportunity.

 

It wasn’t until I’d crossed the U.S. border and ordered an especially chichi iced coffee (“black cherry and mint mojito”)—last taste of civilization—that I saw a forwarded email for a one-night reservation at a hokey, Dutch-style hotel, complete with fake windmill, along the busy island highway. 

 

Heaven!

 

That night we set up the tent—I even proved somewhat helpful—and then headed for the hotel, walking across the parking lot to eat dinner at a Dutch restaurant that specialized Mexican food. I ordered the berry waffle. When things seem awry, go with it, right? 

 

In the morning, Evan donned a camp-worthy shirt—"shadow plaid,” he told me—while I wore a weather-inappropriate but thematically on point forest green t-shirt with a silhouette of trees across the chest. We spent much of a cloudy, chilly Saturday checking out murals—Aren’t walls glorious?—and getting oat milk lattes in Oak Harbor before making our way to Coupeville for antiquing, book browsing and cider tasting. Camping rocks!

 

Alas, no more rain meant no more delays. We drove to the campsite and I ran forest trails while Evan used his camping gear—a burner and fancy pot—to whip up wild rice and quinoa with aged cheddar, tomatoes and fresh basil. As an appie, I opened the moon cheese. One nugget was more than enough for me, but Evan made a big deal of downing a handful, pretending the not-so-subtle hints of salt and cardboard meshed perfectly to smack of real gouda. (He’d make a good vegan.) His meal was super tasty and admittedly better than the package of Norwegian crackers I’d stashed in the trunk of my car in case the weekend turned into a smorgasbord of dehydrated astronaut bites.

 

We wandered to an ocean bluff to sip wine and watch the sunset as a lone deer grazed nearby, oblivious to us, only hightailing it when a family showed up, the children’s urge to get closer and closer leading to inevitable disappointment. But that’s part of camping, too. As idyllic as the setting was, there was plenty of excited kiddie chatter piercing through the forest as they ran about hiding and seeking, brandishing sticks and staking claim as humans do. On several occasions, I heard one child say to another, “What are you doing on my campsite?” 

 

It wasn’t just the young ’uns who shattered serenity. Men with RVs, bushy beards, and bulging bellies bellowed boisterously, fulfilling some need that seemed to say, “Hear me roar!” I realized that hikers and campers may both claim to love nature, but the hiker soaks in the quiet, listening for the squeak of a pika, while a camper dude wants to crank up the tunes, down a few brewskis and let Mother Nature know Bubba Was Here, hopefully without carving it into a tree trunk.

 

No matter. Evan and I enjoyed our time together, ending the day by a fire which I, of course, had no part in lighting or stoking. Eventually, we crawled into the tent, slipped into our sleeping bags and nodded off, my sleep no better but no worse than at home or in a janky knockoff of a Dutch hotel. 

 

I did it! 

 

Not only did I survive, but I was a happy camper. A single night was perfect. I could cross it off my bucket list…after after-the-fact adding it. I came. I saw. I camped.

 

Two days later, Evan back in Seattle and me in Vancouver, I searched online and found an available campsite for mid-October along B.C.’s scenic Howe Sound. I called Evan and mentioned it out loud. We talked about how cold and rainy it could be that time of year. We also noted how autumn sometimes included moments of unseasonable warmth. Too much of a gamble. I booked it anyway.  

 

Good god, is this the start of something?