A Wilderness Challenge?

It’s the perfect season for camping – not too hot, nights not too cold, bugs not too invasive yet. We decided, only this past week, we want to go on Memorial Day weekend. But everything good is already booked. Our favorite campground, 40 minutes away, has non-electric sites available still. This would be fine with me several years ago. Even now I feel that camping beside an electric outlet isn’t really camping. I used to laugh at the other girls on camping trips that insisted on bringing blow dryers and curling irons, wouldn’t camp unless there were flush toilets nearby and took showers twice a day. These little puffballs would order pizza deliveries to the campsite – and this was before everyone had cell phones. I prided myself on being a “hardcore camper” – all I needed was a tent and sleeping bag, some clothes, cookware, and a cooler of food and drinks. I’d pee in the woods.

Ah, but those days have changed. We have two kids now, and so we purchased a “pop-up” camper. It’s an older model – 1985, I think, small, and nowhere near as luxurious as new pop-ups. Ours has a full size and two twin beds, except that the table’s broken, and since the table converted into one of those twin beds, there’s only one now. It has a sink that can be used with a water hose hookup or with a gallon water jug and a hand pump. It also has a stove that can be hooked up to a propane tank.

I don’t understand the sink and stove at all, and eventually we’ll probably get rid of them and just use the space for storage and countertops. For one thing, why would you cook inside a tent with an open flame? That’s just asking for trouble. If the popup is equipped with electric, wouldn’t it be more logical to use electric burners on the stove? No open flame, no exhaust fumes! And as for the sink, given its tiny size, wouldn’t it be easier to wash your hands at an outside faucet, and to wash your dishes in a plastic dishpan? Why pump water from a jug when you can just pour it into the dishpan?

Ah, logic.

I do welcome electricity, though, these days. For one thing, it means the kids can watch TV. Did I just type that? At first, I had a serious problem with the idea of watching TV on a camping trip. I’m still not thrilled, but there does come a time when it makes the trip a lot more pleasant, especially at night. They watch a kids’ video while we parents relax by the campfire – and if we’re lucky, they fall asleep in the process. It’s not like I’m gonna let them watch TV all day in the camper when there are frogs to catch and leaves to collect. Electric hookups also mean we can keep our cell phones charged all weekend without running the car, have easy lighting inside the camper, and…well, that’s about all we use it for.

Other “campers” take this hookup thing seriously. They use air conditioners, TV’s, video game systems (and sometimes satellites!), stereos, computers with Internet access (available as dialup or Wi-Fi), microwaves, coffeemakers, and anything else they’d use at home. I think that’s pretty cool, really, if your goal isn’t getting away from it all, but taking it all with you.

If I could have all that stuff with me, I might not want to leave the camper. In effect, you get a hotel room on wheels, minus the maid service. If it’s just an alternative place to sleep while you travel, that’s fine. But that’s not why I camp.

I like camping because it pushes my creativity. I like having to invent new ways of doing things – cooking, cleaning up, passing the time. It’s good training for life, really. Everyone should know at least two ways of doing anything. Electric goes out? Light candles and play cards. Stove isn’t working? Roast weenies and bake potatoes in the backyard fire pit. And learn to live without the curling iron. That’s what camping teaches you.

Camping, when you get right down to it, is about self-imposed hardship. If something goes wrong, that means you’re doing it right. You’re going to take home more than a set of mosquito bites – you’ll take a sense of resiliency and a feeling of competence under trial.

Can you get that with a full utility hookup? I don’t know, but I’d like to book a spot that has them Memorial Day weekend and find out!