I love camping - Blatantly stolen!

[Cecile]

I found this posted elsewhere and I knew I had to post it here! I only camp with Moondog under duress, and only if it's "glamping." He on the other hand would probably live in a tent in the snow for half the year if he could.



My partner loves camping. A lot. She once returned home from a camping trip, threw down all her stuff, walked into my office, put her hands on my shoulders, yelled “CAMPING!!!”, and stormed to her room.

Many of my friends love camping. In fact, I don’t know anyone who is just so-so neutral on camping. You are either framing your life as a series of tedious interruptions between periods when you’re camping, or you’re very against camping.

I, on the other hand, am more conflicted on the process of camping. First off, there are many things I love about camping. For example:
•Bonfires. I am very fond of bonfires. They’re beautiful, they warm you, and you can stare at them for hours like they’re a dang lava lamp. I don’t know too many people who hate bonfires. Bonfires are great.
•Conversation. Camping is great when you can do it with close friends, and it’s a terrific opportunity to bond with them and have excellent, long conversations around the aforementioned bonfire. Three-hour conversations are something I really cherish in my life, and camping is full of them.
•Nature. Because I live in the center of a 50-mile-wide, 100-mile-long concrete hellhole. Come visit!
•Industrial design. Seriously, just go to Campmor and click around a bit. Camping equipment has awesome industrial design: it’s all ultra-light, flat-pack, weird materials, and super-practical. No detail has been spared. Erin’s 2-person tent packs down to the size of a basketball. That is some incredible design. I could write a whole separate letter about how designers of my sort could learn from people who make camping equipment. Go to REI sometime and just bask in it.
•Fire-cooked food. Real talk: if you hate cooking over an open fire, you are a monster and should unsubscribe immediately. Or you screwed up your food in the past, which isn’t really my fault, now is it?
•Whiskey. Oh sure, you could bring a handle of Jim Beam and have a good time. But you’re camping. That’s a good opportunity to break out the Willett Family Reserve, no? Because let me tell you, Willett Family Reserve pairs excellently with bonfires.
•Focus and relaxation. It would be easy to trot out dozens of arguments about how technology is destroying your brain. Fortunately, though, camping is not exactly iPhone time. There are lengthy periods of peaceful, restorative calm during camping.

With a list that long, you would think I love camping, right? Nope. I do not love camping. In fact, every time I have gone camping in the past two years, it has been a disaster. Meanwhile, I have spent the past several months watching Erin camp in multiple time zones without me, and I think I’m ready to try my hand at camping again – with a few small modifications.

My Ideal Camping Journey, by Nick Disabato

Rent a car. Drive out to your spider-free campsite with a few close friends. Do a little hike if you’re there before sundown; otherwise, start a fire and cook a meal. You deserve it!

Get the fire going nice and hot, get some s’mores fixin’s out and pass the Willett Family Reserve around. Have some great conversation.

Once the fire is dying down and you’re all good and drunk, grab a bucket of water, extinguish the fire, and your Uber Black will then take you all to your private suites in the Four Seasons. Take a thirty-minute bath in your jacuzzi, crawl into your king-size bed with 1,000 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets, and fall asleep in total darkness and silence.

Ten hours later, wake up to room service: an intercontinental breakfast and a spa treatment. Surprise! Isn’t camping fun? I’m having fun. Once you’re done, return to the campsite – in another Uber Black, of course. Grab a light lunch at a locally-sourced, farm-to-table restaurant on the way if you want, or just have room service pack some sandwiches for you. The option is yours.

Hike around the area. It’s beautiful! Hills! Illinois doesn’t have hills in most of the state. This nameless state does. Hooray!

Head back to your spider-free campsite. Start a fire. Cook dinner. Conversation. Uber Black.

Repeat until you’re ready to go home.

Three administrative notes
1.Someone should be standing on guard to eliminate all raccoons, foxes, coyotes, bears, skunks, and other inconvenient interlopers for the entire duration of your magical camping expedition. But, any guards should also be sufficiently out of your way that you don’t have to look at them or their muskets.
2.If the campsite is sufficiently remote, you may use Blade in lieu of Uber Black. Yes, there is Uber for helicopters. This is real. It is the responsibility of all of us to contemplate that there is Uber for helicopters now.
3.The campsite should be completely cleared of spiders in advance of your arrival, by any means necessary.


Thanks for reading,
— Nick Disabato
nickd@nickd.org