To know me now, you might think I had never camped while growing up, but you would be wrong. My parents owned a pop-up camper that slept eight-just the right size for our medium-large family. My brother and sisters would sleep in the camper during the summer in our own yard. But we also camped at a couple of parks in northern Wisconsin, cooking outdoors, eating s'mores and enduring mosquitoes.
When I was a teenager, a group from our church went to northern Wisconsin in November and tent camped. Now those of you who are familiar with the weather in Wisconsin when you near the winter will know that this was a chilly time to camp. There was snow on the ground. Those who enjoy winter camping will undoubtedly call me a wimp, but I was totally unprepared for cold weather camping. I enjoy doing outdoor activities, but was always freezing during them and therefore didn’t participate in them very often. Translation-my feet were always freezing no matter what I tried to do to keep them warm. I look back on it now and realize that I just didn’t have the right clothing for outdoor winter sports.
Anyway, we got to the camp and the guys put up the tents. I got stuck right by the door of the tent. Even though there were about seven of us in the tent, I froze all night long. Consequently, I didn’t sleep much. I got up when the sun was barely coming up over the horizon and thought I would try to light the campfire. It’s a little hard to do without matches and whoever had the matches, did not leave them where I could find them. I decided to go for a hike to try and warm up instead. I hiked through the woods and prairie until I got lost. Seeing a few bear tracks along the way didn’t encourage me to dawdle on the trail, but since I wasn’t on an actual trail, I couldn’t retrace my steps. What can I say? Unlike my brother, who’s Mr. Outdoorsman, I never had an opportunity to do much hiking except at summer camp on established trails. I finally found myself on a paved road and saw that I was actually still within the park, so managed to find my own way back to the campsite.
I never camped again until a month ago when my husband, who grew up camping, decided it would be fun to try and camp on our trip to Indiana Dunes National Park. Since both of us have back problems I was not too sure how this would work out, but I was game to try again. After all, it was summer, not winter, and it was only for one night. On our tight recreational budget, we bought a small tent from Bass Pro and decided we would just use sheets and camp pads. We bought two different pads each to try and make it more comfortable for us. We also brought plenty of pillows since we had the car with us.
It was so hot and humid during the day and the mosquitoes were horrible. Getting a camping spot was the first plan of action and since you can’t leave the site without a tent set up, we got that in place before we went exploring the park. We stopped at Wal-Mart and bought a citronella candle and bug spray. When we got back to the campground, it was late and almost pitch black. We fumbled around getting ready for bed. My husband had suggested bringing the portable DVD player and watching a movie before we went to sleep. You could barely sit up in this tent and with the pillows and double pads; there was not much room for us. Also, the temperature had dropped nicely, but the tent was like an oven. We pushed the rainfly open, but you couldn’t unzip the tent as the mosquitoes were still very bad. We lit the candle and that actually helped a lot right by the candle.
We were up until 1 AM watching the movie, I think because neither of us wanted to face trying to sleep in the tent. We did finally lie down, but it was none too comfortable on either of our backs. I probably could have finally dozed off, but my husband was never going to be able to sleep in the “oven”. Finally, at three-ish, he said he was going to sleep in the car, so we put in the Skeeter Beaters in the back windows and pushed the seats back as far as they would go. It was certainly cooler in the car, but I didn’t sleep any better. We were up by 5 AM, (to beat the rush to the showers, ha!) and packed up the car and went in search of sustenance. All in all, not a great night.
So, what did we learn from this? Would I ever camp again? My husband thought that if we had a bigger tent and went in a cooler season (not winter) we might be able to pull it off. We thought that cots might help also. We were really trying to find a way to camp on a bike trip and that’s why we bought the light tent and decided to test it on a short trip. I’m not sure if we’ll ever make it camping on a bike trip. We may have to resort to hotels. I’m still uncertain about camping, but am willing to try again.