My kingdom for a pillow. And a good cup of coffee

LOML and I decided we should go camping. I’m not sure who actually decided to go camping and who fell for it, but it happened. We decided to go to camping. You know, sleeping in a tent—with sleeping bags—food in a cooler, cooking on a Coleman stove, flashlights to find your way to the toilets, and other ancient camping accoutrements. We packed the coupe and went camping. While our Coleman stove was purchased in 1968 for the princely sum of $18.88, it’s still operational. The tent is new. We figured there wasn’t much point in packing a 9 X 9 canvas tourist tent from our soixante-sept EXPO sixty-seven trip. Seriously, we figured it’s been about 14 years since we last ventured out into the wilds of Canada’s provincial parks. At that time our youngest was a teenager—too young to stay home on her own—and was therefore forced (against her will, if you believe her story) to camp, in public, with her nerdy parents. If I remember correctly, she packed everything but the necessities, including a hair dryer, a curling iron, a massive bag of beauty products, a Sony DiscMan, a case of CDs, a tote bag full of magazines, gum, Skittles, her retainer and sunglasses. I suppose the sunglasses were part of a disguise in case someone in New Brunswick or Nova Scotia recognized her. By the time we realized she needed clothing, we were in Montreal and had to make a side trip to shop for undies, shorts, a hoodie and a few tops. The side trip took priority over finding a campsite for the night and we set up in an overflow just outside the city.

But, that was then. This past weekend we found out camping had changed a lot in 14 years. First of all, we booked our site online. Go figure. Heck, we even got to see photos of the site before we made our final decision. Getting a campsite was a bit of a crapshoot in the old days. Sometimes you could phone ahead and book a site. Mostly you just showed up and took your chances. One of the sites we were assigned on our teenaged-daughter-trip in New Brunswick was in the middle of a fairly open field about twenty feet from the beach. Seemed like an okay-sorta-spot until the gale force wind kicked up in the evening. Our red faces the next day weren’t from sunburn, I figured it was dermabrasion brought on by the sandblasting. The wind was one thing, but have you ever had the pleasure of telling a teenaged girl, “no showers and no hot water and no electricity for the hair dryer and curling iron”? Well, it was a blast—the wind and the whining, to say nothing of the pouty face we had the pleasure of seeing in the rear-view mirror for hours on end.

This time around, it was just me and LOML. We like to travel light, and aren’t afraid of wearing our Levis for the duration. Unlike the old days, when you got home and spent 25 minutes in a hot shower washing away the campfire smoke and the grit, today’s campgrounds have running water (no pumps), hot showers, electricity and WiFi, not to mention paved roads, cycling lanes, flush toilets and recycling depots. Geez! We thought we’d died and gone to mosquito heaven. Of course, the mosquitoes don’t get bug-bombed anymore and, apparently, poison ivy is part of the out-of-doors experience to be savoured.

Will we camp again? You bet. The next time we’ll remember to bring pillows, a French press, a finer grind of coffee and ceramic coffee mugs. I can rough it with the bugs, but I need my beauty sleep and my coffee. I wonder if Ontario Parks have ever considered newspaper delivery to the sites. Too much? Yeah, maybe you’re right.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca