Sunday, May 16, 2004
Wilderness Detour
With the May long weekend fast approaching camping has been on my mind. I was talking to my sister-in-law about this today and we've decided that camping really isn't for us anymore. I used to go camping a few times a year, not the real hard-core outdoorsy "roughing it" type camping, but rather car camping. Car camping means that you bring all of the comforts of home with you (to a point) and you can drive into the closest little redneck town to stock up on the important stuff you either forgot or run out of. Beer, for example.
Alcohol played a VERY important role for me and the people I camped with. It was basically all we had in common. It's a good thing we don't see each other much anymore or we'd all have to think about checking into some sort of clinic. The only ways you could tell the difference between the camping trips, and our typical bar weekends were that it took longer to get to where we were going, there was nowhere comfortable to sit, and the facilities smelled like Satan's asshole. Aside from that everything was pretty similar, lots of second hand smoke (in the camping instance it was from the fire as opposed to DuMaurier), people fell down a lot, and we spent a lot of money.
No one ever packed very well for these trips. Well, that's not true, one girl did, and she was mocked brutally for it. However, whenever someone was hungry, or needed band aids or something, guess who they went to? She eventually stopped coming 'cause she was sick of packing for thirty people. As a result we had nothing to eat but hot dogs and NutriGrain bars and there weren't enough chairs to sit on. We drove into town every day, often more than once. This was in order to pick up all of the things we hadn't brought with us, as well as to sample the local culture. Val feels the need to buy sunglasses wherever he goes because he loses them so often. My favourite pair were dubbed "the creepy uncle's." We made it a point to purchase humourous hats to take pictures in.
Anyway, as the years went by and we started having more diverse interests and groups of friends our camping trips petered out. I'm not sorry about that. I didn't enjoy the trips all that much for a few reasons, but there's one that really stands out. When camping at a provincial park it's almost impossible to ever feel truly clean for more than ten minutes. Using the shower facilites was always quite the ordeal. You have to remember to take everything with you, and then make the trek across the campground to the least scary shower facility at the park (other campers are very useful resources for this type of information). Then it's time to wait in line for half-an-hour, with a hang over, carrying all of your worldly goods, which you are trying vainly to keep hold of. Inevitably, if you haven't lost your underwear on the way from your site, you will drop them now. They will be your largest and most embarassing pair.
Once you have collected your now leafy underpants you'll shuffle over to an open stall. This stall will be foul. Very, very foul. It is necessary for you to wear flip flops during your toilette. At this point it's time to try and find an area of the shower that is still dry. No mean feat, I usually ended up wrapping my clothes in my towel and stuffing the package into the least likely corner for the water to find it. I was always wrong and my stuff always ended up partially soaked. Once your belongings are stored you take off your pjs and put them on top of the pile of towel and future garments. You can dry them out later, so there's no point trying to keep them safe from water. These will remain dry. It's usually at this point, or shortly thereafter, when your underwear will fall out of the package, where you had them stored safely, into the murky water on the shower floor. Fix them up as best you can.
At that point you're ready to press the shower activation button. In keeping with the luxuries you have already become accustumed to throughout your camping experience this shower will be sub par. The pressure of these provincial park showers is much as I would expect the pressure to be of a fireman's hose. One blast from the showerhead and you are slammed back against the slimy tiled wall. Bacteria will immediately start burrowing into your skin, but, happily, you've consumed so much alcohol at this point that there's no fear of anything being able to survive inside of you. Please note that this is not an effective way to guard against camping related STDs. Or so I've read...shut up. The pressure of this shower is sufficient to rip the nipples directly off of your chest, so you'll have to protect yourself accordingly after the initial assault. Predictably, the water is either seeringly hot, or numbingly cold, but that doesn't matter all that much because it only lasts for about twenty seconds. When the water goes off there is now time to lather and count the number of giant hairy spiders waiting to make your acquaintance. Feel free to name them. Noticing these spiders ensures you will be unable to close your eyes during the rest of your shower. Guess where the shampoo ends up?
The rest of the shower is relatively uneventful. Since I was pretty young, I always had to do a touch up shaving job, but that was fairly unneventful. I will say this, however, a Bic razor, when it is new, can slice through time.
When it comes to drying up and getting dressed again you will have to do an elaborate balancing act. This is made more complicated by the acidic hangover threatening to cripple you at any moment. Since you're wearing shower shoes you can be pretty certain that you'll step on your underwear when trying to put them on and they'll have another introduction to the scary shower floor. You'll likely do the same thing with your pants, which, interestingly enough, have one very wet leg. Then it's time to collect your personals and make your way out. I'll leave you to imagine how many things you drop on the way out of the bathrooms. The number of girls who brought their hairdryers and complete make up cases on a camping trip never failed to amaze me. Isn't the point of camping to not have to wear that sort of shit? Although, I'm fairly sure that the point of camping is not to drink until you don't notice the smell of the outhouse, either.
By the end of the weekend I was always so exhausted and dirty and fat that I couldn't imagine ever wanting to go on another camping trip, but I did for at least three summers, until I started working in the restaurant industry and gave up any hope of having any weekend off, much less a long one. When my parents got a cottage I became spoiled by comfortable beds, a wood stove, a dishwasher, and screen doors. Who needs camping with that kind of luxury? Now that they have air conditioning it'll be a wonder if I ever see a tree in a non-landscaped environment ever again. Did I mention that they have satellite TV?
With the May long weekend fast approaching camping has been on my mind. I was talking to my sister-in-law about this today and we've decided that camping really isn't for us anymore. I used to go camping a few times a year, not the real hard-core outdoorsy "roughing it" type camping, but rather car camping. Car camping means that you bring all of the comforts of home with you (to a point) and you can drive into the closest little redneck town to stock up on the important stuff you either forgot or run out of. Beer, for example.
Alcohol played a VERY important role for me and the people I camped with. It was basically all we had in common. It's a good thing we don't see each other much anymore or we'd all have to think about checking into some sort of clinic. The only ways you could tell the difference between the camping trips, and our typical bar weekends were that it took longer to get to where we were going, there was nowhere comfortable to sit, and the facilities smelled like Satan's asshole. Aside from that everything was pretty similar, lots of second hand smoke (in the camping instance it was from the fire as opposed to DuMaurier), people fell down a lot, and we spent a lot of money.
No one ever packed very well for these trips. Well, that's not true, one girl did, and she was mocked brutally for it. However, whenever someone was hungry, or needed band aids or something, guess who they went to? She eventually stopped coming 'cause she was sick of packing for thirty people. As a result we had nothing to eat but hot dogs and NutriGrain bars and there weren't enough chairs to sit on. We drove into town every day, often more than once. This was in order to pick up all of the things we hadn't brought with us, as well as to sample the local culture. Val feels the need to buy sunglasses wherever he goes because he loses them so often. My favourite pair were dubbed "the creepy uncle's." We made it a point to purchase humourous hats to take pictures in.
Anyway, as the years went by and we started having more diverse interests and groups of friends our camping trips petered out. I'm not sorry about that. I didn't enjoy the trips all that much for a few reasons, but there's one that really stands out. When camping at a provincial park it's almost impossible to ever feel truly clean for more than ten minutes. Using the shower facilites was always quite the ordeal. You have to remember to take everything with you, and then make the trek across the campground to the least scary shower facility at the park (other campers are very useful resources for this type of information). Then it's time to wait in line for half-an-hour, with a hang over, carrying all of your worldly goods, which you are trying vainly to keep hold of. Inevitably, if you haven't lost your underwear on the way from your site, you will drop them now. They will be your largest and most embarassing pair.
Once you have collected your now leafy underpants you'll shuffle over to an open stall. This stall will be foul. Very, very foul. It is necessary for you to wear flip flops during your toilette. At this point it's time to try and find an area of the shower that is still dry. No mean feat, I usually ended up wrapping my clothes in my towel and stuffing the package into the least likely corner for the water to find it. I was always wrong and my stuff always ended up partially soaked. Once your belongings are stored you take off your pjs and put them on top of the pile of towel and future garments. You can dry them out later, so there's no point trying to keep them safe from water. These will remain dry. It's usually at this point, or shortly thereafter, when your underwear will fall out of the package, where you had them stored safely, into the murky water on the shower floor. Fix them up as best you can.
At that point you're ready to press the shower activation button. In keeping with the luxuries you have already become accustumed to throughout your camping experience this shower will be sub par. The pressure of these provincial park showers is much as I would expect the pressure to be of a fireman's hose. One blast from the showerhead and you are slammed back against the slimy tiled wall. Bacteria will immediately start burrowing into your skin, but, happily, you've consumed so much alcohol at this point that there's no fear of anything being able to survive inside of you. Please note that this is not an effective way to guard against camping related STDs. Or so I've read...shut up. The pressure of this shower is sufficient to rip the nipples directly off of your chest, so you'll have to protect yourself accordingly after the initial assault. Predictably, the water is either seeringly hot, or numbingly cold, but that doesn't matter all that much because it only lasts for about twenty seconds. When the water goes off there is now time to lather and count the number of giant hairy spiders waiting to make your acquaintance. Feel free to name them. Noticing these spiders ensures you will be unable to close your eyes during the rest of your shower. Guess where the shampoo ends up?
The rest of the shower is relatively uneventful. Since I was pretty young, I always had to do a touch up shaving job, but that was fairly unneventful. I will say this, however, a Bic razor, when it is new, can slice through time.
When it comes to drying up and getting dressed again you will have to do an elaborate balancing act. This is made more complicated by the acidic hangover threatening to cripple you at any moment. Since you're wearing shower shoes you can be pretty certain that you'll step on your underwear when trying to put them on and they'll have another introduction to the scary shower floor. You'll likely do the same thing with your pants, which, interestingly enough, have one very wet leg. Then it's time to collect your personals and make your way out. I'll leave you to imagine how many things you drop on the way out of the bathrooms. The number of girls who brought their hairdryers and complete make up cases on a camping trip never failed to amaze me. Isn't the point of camping to not have to wear that sort of shit? Although, I'm fairly sure that the point of camping is not to drink until you don't notice the smell of the outhouse, either.
By the end of the weekend I was always so exhausted and dirty and fat that I couldn't imagine ever wanting to go on another camping trip, but I did for at least three summers, until I started working in the restaurant industry and gave up any hope of having any weekend off, much less a long one. When my parents got a cottage I became spoiled by comfortable beds, a wood stove, a dishwasher, and screen doors. Who needs camping with that kind of luxury? Now that they have air conditioning it'll be a wonder if I ever see a tree in a non-landscaped environment ever again. Did I mention that they have satellite TV?
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