The day I went camping

and a bear almost stole our hiking boots

My knowledge of camping is barely minimal. Leveraging my degrading photographic memory, I squint my eyes (which seem to be a common recurrence in this channel), and search for my Camping Trip Child volumes. I am 7. The tent is fully fleshed, I don’t have to pack, there’s watermelon on a wobbly table, I drink water from a plastic cap, I sit on a chair that is so flimsy that could flop at any point, my only worry is not letting the army of ants get into the tent. That’s the extent of how much my family trained me about camping. The trepidation, then, of taking my whole family of three, including myself (which, quite frankly, I am the most problematic), camping and expecting it to go well, was high.

But are you going camping, or glamping? now that we’ve become acquainted, you’d like to ask.

Fully camping, and I almost wish to add - sadly - but I don’t because I’d like to embody, even if for just a fleeting weekend, the identity of an adventurous human being, daring life by getting into a fight with a bear for a piece of barbecue chicken, or testing my urinary tract capacities by holding my liquids for as much as possible to avoid using the lavatories provided by nature. Pushing all boundaries.

I wake up at the ungodly hour of 5am because as far as I am aware there are no camping butlers that fetch you cucumber sandwiches and provide San Pellegrinos at the earliest signs of dehydration.

I prepare so much food that it looks like either I am the head chef of a banquet, or I am trying to poison my family because it is unclear how long will this indecent amount of food survive at room temperature. But you must have snacks - another epigenetic switch that occurs upon motherhood and a scientific unproven fact that is not talked about as much.

Pegasus, the car, takes us on a car journey of delicious 150 minutes. Why would you call your car Pegasus? That’s a good question that, albeit off topic, I am willing to answer. Pegasus is the result of letting your 2 year old daughter choose a car name during a peak season of My Little Pony.

Because 150 minutes are a lot of minutes, I not only bring snacks, but entertainment. I have so much random stuff at my feet that I can’t barely move. I don’t want to give Target ideas, but I may have invented the concept of a Mini Target Express (for those outside of America, Target can be viewed as the greatest selection of nonsense in a single store that sucks you in and only lets you out when one of the parties involved starts crying or gets injured). I bring Collected Poems by Carol Ann Duffy, because it is my chance to unsolicitedly recite poems that no one asked for but they are TRAPPED to listen to. I bring a notebook that I already know will not use. I bring a journaling notebook that to everyone’s surprise we ACTUALLY use and it is all very cathartic and therapeutic. What is my favorite way to learn new things? What advice would I give to my younger self? What things did I particularly enjoy as a kid and why? Is there something that is easy for me but challenging for others? We listen to nuvole bianche for a million times. I would like to agree with you and say that a million times may be an overexaggeration, but it is not. With nuvole bianche on loop and the introspection of the questions I may have also invented the concept of a Wellness Car Retreat.

After 150 minutes of therapy, we arrive at the lake and pay 90 coconuts to get into an inflatable water park because this is America and coconuts are not free. I go in the water, which is preferable than pool and sea water because in this case the water is just flavored by tiny fish and it may even be firming for the skin due to the collagen (and I don’t want anyone correcting me in the comments section).

The water is so cold that I am basically doing a cold plunge.

I partake in absolutely no running and I don’t fall not because I have the skills of a ninja but because my legs and arms have developed a suctioning technique and I think I will forever be attached to the plastic of the inflatable because I absolutely want to avoid a cold plunge for as much as I can. I have become part of the inflatable, basically.

You cannot spot me because I am essentially part of the inflatable.

Following two hours of suctioning technique, we finally go camping. Pegasus takes us to the entrance. And we are confronted by the following: “Have you guys reserved?”

After packing a Mini Target Express and exploiting Pegasus to gallop for 121 miles (I still have no concept of miles, I must say this is all google maps doing), you will agree that this question was the least desirable question this ranger, in ranger badge and ranger hat and ranger shorts, could have asked to this group of pathetic camping amateurs.

You may be hoping our answer was yes. Who would be as stupid to go camping with no reservation. Well, I am proud to say we are such people. Sometimes the world surprises you just like that.

The ranger clicks on a keyboard and rolls the mouse up and down and the tension is building inside of Pegasus. More clicks. More rolls. There’s one spot… 93, yes… sorry, there’s just 93.

The way she said 93 made me think that 93 was the worst camping spot available, as it if was literally inside the portable bathrooms or adjacent to a tent full of bears. I keep on asking what's wrong with spot 93. Mr Pickwick attempts to shut me down. Let’s take 93! I hear him say. And Pegasus grand jetes to spot 93 and I am still wondering whether we are going to hell, and what’s wrong with spot 93.

Nothing is wrong with spot 93. Mr Pickwick, with Miss Margot’s assistance, set the tent whilst I pretend to reorganize the Mini Target Express. I am essentially useless.

We have dinner and make sure not to leave trails for the bears, who are around and ready to nibble on the chicken nuggets and stir-fry cabbage.

I wave goodbye to my 10-step Korean bedtime routine. We read Lost and Found. Then I make the horrible mistake of bringing up bears and now Miss Margot is worried that the bears will take her hiking boots, which she left outside, and she zips the tent’s door up and down at least 3 times to make sure the hiking boots are still there.

The sleeping arrangement is not ideal, to put it mildly. I am aware we are not at the Marriot’s suite, but perhaps I was placing too much hope on the inflatable supporting mattress. Why would you add indentures to an inflatable supporting mattress is beyond my architectural design knowledge but let me tell you, don’t add bloody bumps to your mattress. Miss Margot is oblivious to any bumps or lumps and she gets transported to the land of dreams in the middle of my thought, I should have not forgotten my pillow.

Because we are cheap to buy the 2-sleeper option whilst consciously ignoring there’s 3 of us, Mr Pickwick gets assigned the au naturel mattress, the futon of nature, a rock for a rock. So mid-night he decides he would make himself perpendicular to us, and essentially sleep by my feet. So, I go 121 miles away from Queen Elizabeth (the cat), who likes to sleep on my feet, to then find myself on top of bumps and lumps and a giant version of my cat at my feet. I cannot move again. This trip is altogether a bit restrictive on the hamstrings, let’s put it this way.

There’s a creature moving near me. I know it’s probably a rabbit but in my prodigious creative mind it sounds like a bear, a Gruffalo almost. Naturally I wake Mr Pickwick up because I am not going to be the only one being scared in that tent. Whilst I try to sleep back again, I can sense Mr Pickwick sit straight near the door, moving the zip up and down at least 5 times trying to catch the bear in the middle of the feast but failing miserably.

Apparently it’s cold in the tent and Mr Pickwick, the hero of the story, risks putting his body under trepidatious low temperature, and being photographed by bears in his underwear, to close a tent window that was left open from the outside in our amateurs ways of doing camping.

We wake up. Margot is so ecstatic that you would almost think is Christmas morning. She is so rested that I am wondering if we actually slept at a Marriot’s suite, then I recall my disjointed neck and the warmth of my feet from being so connected to Mr Pickwick, not in a very romantic way.

Do you think the hiking boots are still there? I ask Miss Margot. And she rushes to check. Will she have found the hiking boots is something I will leave you hanging, because I have read quite a few Agatha Christie’s novels and you must leave your reader hanging.

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