I used to like camping. Then my back got older and it wasn't so much fun anymore. The dirt, cooking over a finicky fire, the bugs, the setting up and tearing down of the camp. The hauling of the blender to the community laundry room to make margaritas…
Oh yes. I have done that. On more than one occasion. If I'm going to sleep on the ground then I'm going to be anesthetized when doing so.
These pictures make me want to rethink camping. There is even a term for this type of camping – it's called Glamping. Isn't that the dumbest word you have ever heard? I refuse to call it that. I think it's just camping the way it was intended to be.
Actually the first time I talked Rick into camping I set up the most luxurious campsite I could. I borrowed a big canvas tent from my sister and I set up a queen sized blow up mattress with satin sheets and fluffy down comforters. I had two 'bed side tables' (cardboard boxes covered with pieces of lace) for our lanterns. I even had a big thermos of frozen strawberry daiquiris (before I figured out the blender in the laundry room trick). It would have been quite the romantic camping trip if not for the troop of Cub Scouts in the next campsite.
My parents went on an Abercrombie and Kent African Safari back in the early 90's and their accommodations were very similar to the pictures here. My mother said that they would travel to a new spot every day and their tent would be set up for them and they would be served an incredibly gourmet dinner. She even marveled that about a week out they served ice cream for dessert. Out on the African plains, in the middle of no where, eating ice cream.
When I was ten or eleven I went to Summer camp and shared a big tent with three other girls. We slept on wooden cots and would roll up the walls of the tent every day to air out the place. It was a big canvas tent that was set up on a wooden platform. Sort of like the first picture in this post but without the Rachel Ashwell-esque bedding.
The morning of the last day we were all laying on our cots, too cold to get out of bed yet, when I noticed something dark on the roof of the tent above my head. I asked my tent-mate to hand me her flashlight and I shined it up and there were about 50 ginormous spiders just hanging out above us. You never saw four girls fly out of their sleeping bags faster. I'm just thankful I discovered it the LAST day otherwise none of us would have slept in there.
Come to think of it – camping still may not be for me.
