Long vacations are also a rare occurrence for my family - too expensive and there's too much to do at home. I like being comfortable, and nowhere am I more comfortable than the familiarity of my couch or bed.
Naturally, you'd expect my view on something like camping to be similar to this:
But in actuality I love camping!
Camping is another pastime enjoyed by my father and I (along with sports and Bruce Springsteen). In particular we love a good fishing trip. Fishing is what makes camping all worth it for me; despite the fact we might be the worst fishermen in history. I still can't properly set-up a fishing pole on my own, and together we've broken more poles and lost more bait than I care to remember.
I can still remember the first fish I ever caught. We were fishing in Lake Oroville with several relatives. I was trolling along in a motorboat we rented when I felt a sharp tug on my line. I thought I had something, but as I reeled it in there was absolutely no resistance. I figured something had merely nudged my hook, until I finished and on the end of my line was the tiniest rainbow trout I've ever seen. More of a minnow really. We threw it back.
I waited six years before I ever caught another fish. To this day, I've only caught three in my lifetime. And dad isn't much better than me.
Our mishaps aren't just limited to fishing, though. We once spent almost four hours to set-up a tent.
We have this really large tent - can easily fit four people with room to spare. It's also about 40 years old and there's no instruction manual. We used to struggle with this thing every time. You'd think we'd learn from the previous year's struggles, but nope. We would still get confused about which tube connects where? Is this the right part? Is the ground flat enough? This doesn't fit! (That's what she said).
On one particular occasion, maybe four or five years ago, I can remember we arrived at the campsite at 2:00pm, and it was getting dark by the time we finished setting up the tent. We finally color-coordinated all the tent poles ourselves and now we can get that tent up in less than an hour. Maybe 30 minutes if the camping gods are on our side.
Another memorable moment came a couple years before that one. It was my dad, myself, Uncle Darrell, and one of my friends camping together. I can't remember where it was now, but I remember it was the same exact campsite we had been at the year before. But there was one difference on this occasion: we arrived during ant mating season.
Everything was fine the day we arrived, but the next morning the air was thick with large black ants, flying to and fro in search of mates to start new colonies.
I don't know if you've ever seen flying ants, but in large numbers I can tell you that they are absolutely terrifying! They look like black wasps, and at first we thought they might be those. But they didn't sting any of us, and I remembered there being a colony of ants at the edge of the campsite the year before.
We did attempt to eat breakfast amidst them all, during which one landed directly in the middle of dad's back. I told him not to move as I crept in to swat it away. Keep in mind, we still thought they might be wasps at this point. Dad panicked, however, and took the cup of water in his hand and attempted to splash his own back in an attempt to get the ant/wasp/whatever off of him. Except his aim was a little off and instead of splashing the bug he splashed me.
So I was tired, hungry, surrounded by bugs, and now soaking wet.
We spent most of the morning in our tents and the afternoon hiking trails to get away from them all. By nightfall they were gone, and there were considerably less buzzing around the next morning.
But camping is one of those things where you expect things to go wrong. You anticipate failing at something and coping with it. Getting lost on the way, troubles with tents or fishing poles, bug bites, trouble starting a fire, etc. If you do that, the experience is much more satisfying for all the things that go right.
Take roasting marshmallows, for example. You might burn through a whole pack before getting that one perfect s'more, but that one tastes soooooooo good. Same goes for fishing. Nothing tastes better than a fish that you've caught and cooked yourself.
Something my father always does is have a steak dinner on our first night of camping. It takes a lot of preparation beforehand, the seasoning and keeping it fresh on the long drive to the site, but it is so worth it to enjoy steak cooked over a campfire. Nothing compares (not even a fish you've caught yourself).
Dad also makes pancakes from scratch on the last morning of every camping trip, using one of those Colman portable gas grills.
Wonderful tastes aren't my only fun memories of camping, though. There's the hours spent chatting with relatives on the fishing boat; the excitement when somebody caught a fish! Everyone huddling around the campfire together and sharing stories. There's days on the beach when camping near Santa Cruz. The time racoons tried to sneak into my cousins' tent (that caused a common, all right).
The time my uncle had the largest fish we've ever seen on the line. No, not a fish...a shark! A whale! No...the Loch Ness Monster! Whatever it was, we got it close to the boat, but the camping gods weren't on our side that day. We had forgotten the net that day, and this behemoth tore the hook off the line and got away. They say you always remember the one that got away, and I can tell you all four of us on that boat that day still talk about that one. And the fish grows bigger with each telling of the story.
The time something big was rustling in the bushes one night. I was about ten-years-old, and scared to death! Suddenly, a great big stag pokes his head out through the shrubbery. Couldn't see the rest of his body, just the neck, head and towering antlers, but he clearly towered over my father and uncle who were with me. He just took a look around the campsite, and disappeared without a fuss.
For all my instinct to avoid the great outdoors, I still love our semi-annual camping/fishing trips. Those memories (the good, the bad, and the frustratingly funny) will stay with me forever. And I greatly anticipate my next trip and the memories that will follow.
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