A significant portion of my childhood was spent camping. My father loves camping. He has since before I was born. My parents went camping every available weekend. After I was born, the pace didn’t slow down, and as I grew up every school break was certain to be spent camping.
I’ve logged a lot of hours camping. I’ve been on camping trips that were two months long. I’ve camped in every state this side of Texas.
Nonetheless, when I moved out to go to university, my camping days mostly stopped. The span between trips went from being measured in weeks to being measured in years.
Now that I have kids, I have a certain desire to give them some of the same experiences that I’ve had. Also, my father, still the avid camper, has been so looking forward to going camping with his grandkids. Still, unlike him, I’ve not been too keen on taking the kids up before they reach a certain level of self-sufficiency.
Michelle has reached that point and, I anticipate that James will be there… next year. The camping season up on the Mogollon Rim ended this weekend, and my father was so hopeful that we’d go that we decided to head out early on Friday morning and spend the weekend at Rock Crossing campground with him.
Things went fairly well. Michelle has a blast spending time with her granddad and actually beating him at poker. James was a little bit of a problem, as he would only go so long before he had to find mommy. My usual pastime of hiking was impractical, so it was mostly just sitting around the campsite and enjoying the smell of the pines.
Until nightfall, that is.
It was one of the longest nights of my life. My back, which used to be so forgiving when I was under 30, refused to cooperate when it came time to sleep. I simply could not sleep on the ground. I would drop off for short periods, but awake suffering some pain or another.
Friday night was absolutely cloudless and clear. The stars were out in their billions – I know, I counted them all in my wakefulness.
Years ago, I stopped wearing a watch. I’ve always had problems with them anyway, and with the advent of cell phones, computers and MP3 players, all displaying the time, a watch became unnecessary. With all those items turned off or back at home, the night dragged on and on and on with no perception of time passing.
Had we just gone to bed an hour ago? How long have I been staring at the stars? What time was it when the unknown animal knocked off the lids of the garbage cans? Is it perhaps just minutes before the first gentle light of dawn will begin the lighten the eastern sky? I could not tell.
One thing I could tell. I had to take a leak. You can only hold it for so long, but for how long? I don’t know, but it seemed for hours. In a way, I was relieved to have something to do to kill the time, but at the same time, I had to find my jacket and shoes, put them on and climb over three other sleepers without waking them up.
When I was done, I couldn’t bring myself to go back, I had to know what time it was. My cellphone was in the car, so I climbed in and discovered it was just shy of 3:00AM. 6 hours gone, perhaps 3 more to go. A long time.
I curled up in the front seat of the car and finally drifted off to sleep until 7 AM – somewhat rested, but immensely stiff and sore everywhere.
In the end, we had to cut the trip a day short. I hate having to give up because of my back, but I suppose that’s one of the things we have to face up to as we get older. Next year, I’m finding something comfortable to sleep on before I go out! (Like a motorhome or tent camper. 🙁 )