camping: personal history

Here is the time for true confessions: I have very limited camping experience. Growing up, it’s just not something that my family did, which I find odd. My father is a major-league outdoorsman, in the Ernest Hemingway sense of the term. He was an Eagle Scout, who attended national jamborees and portaged in the Boundary Waters. And despite my siblings’ requests to pitch a tent in the woods, the closest we ever came to camping was borrowing my grandfather’s RV for a month to drive through the American West. That multi-state extravaganza was pretty awesome, and I know I’m pretty lucky to have parents who would travel with kids in this way.

Also, there was the one time I attended Girl Scout camp at Memorial Park, sleeping in a heavy canvas tent with wooden poles. You know—the kind of tent wall you’re not supposed to touch in a rainstorm, because it will spring a leak. We did crafts and went on long hikes in the rain and raised the flag and told ghost stories around the campfire. I loved it!

Otherwise, the only real tent I’ve pitched with any regularity is the red, two-person number that John and I own. When we participate in RAGBRAI, we pedal our way across Iowa—with 10,000 other people—pitching our tent overnight on high school playing fields, county fairgrounds, and various parks along the route.

The tent and I have became friends. I’ve put it up by myself a number of times. I love the way the poles snap to attention when they’re unfolded. I like the tent’s features, such as the vestibule where we store items we want to stay dry but don’t want in our tent proper (e.g., shoes). I like the loft—a nylon shelf suspended inside the top of the tent that serves as a place to stash cell phones and to set up a flashlight to illuminate the tent’s interior at night.

And, the tent provides shelter for which I'm grateful. I am so not a sleep under the stars kinda gal. The first night of RAGBRAI 2005 delivered a doozy of a storm with high winds that pummeled our tent, flattening it against us as we endeavored sleep. I tried to imagine that I was on a Himalayan mountainside at high elevation to make the experience a little more romantic and a little less scary than the reality—we were in Tornado Alley. Even with our faithful tent, I felt totally exposed.

But, when we’re on RAGBRAI, because we’re not hauling food or stoves and fuel, we eat all our meals in restaurants. We don’t have campfires and marshmallow roasts because we’re not staying at campgrounds with fire pits. Cooking our meals over a campfire and making s'mores are two activities that will complete my camping ideal.

Also, on RAGBRAI, we don't sleep in the woods, which is a camping factor I'm preparing myself for.