Real Camping

All of my childhood days I believed camping meant that you took out your raggedy old sleeping bag, walked up into the woods, and slept on the ground under the stars to the melodic beauty of crickets and Katy-Dids. This was in the beautiful mountains of western Maryland. Real camping was what I did all my childhood days.

Camping as You Know It

I then lived in Arkansas for fifteen months and these people did go camping, but it felt like they took the fun out of it. We had to pack up most of the household, old army cots to sleep on, enough food for that old army, and sometimes tents.

A little of the bubble of camping was deflated inside of me. Tents?! Why were we even camping if we couldn’t fall asleep gazing at the stars, risking the bumps and hollows on the ground over the uncomfortable wooden spine of the khaki army cots. And all the preparation? Just throw in some  marshmallows and hot dogs, and find a stick to whittle down for roasting them. You won’t starve eating less for a day or two.

Real Camping

If you haven’t been able to gaze in the starry heavens, feel every touch of scented wind that blows across you, smell all those earthy smells, be quiet enough to hear every night sound possible, crawl into your sleeping bag with a little bit of sticky marshmallow here and there, smell the wood smoke, sleep on the hard ground,  feel completely and totally content…then you haven’t experienced real camping.

Author: Lisa Petersheim

Edited By: CampTrip.com