Camping, Nowell-Style

1. If you plan to build a fire, both wood and matches are critical.
It is NOT a good idea to count on dry wood being strewn around the forest floor or match fairies to be at the ready when you realize "It looks like it just rained here and I have no clue how to strike two rocks together to make a spark."*

2. It is critical to know where the flashlight is located for the middle-of-the-night pee excursion to the bathroom.
If you are rendered blind by the velvety, pitch-blackness of the Chickasaw National Park, you might stumble eight feet, end up squatting next to the car, and accidentally pee on your pajama bottoms. And then wonder, the next day, "Why does it smell like urine next to the Armada?"

3. There is nothing funnier than a child observing the "...rain from last night..." based on a brief clutch of your soggy pajama bottoms the next morning.

4. It turns out that government workers CAN put such thoughtful construction into a camp pad site that the packing of the ground is rendered the hardest material known to man**.
Further, it seems that the result of three pregnancies worth of extra hip padding is NOT enough to counteract sleeping on ground that feels like granite.***

5. Raccoons are crafty little critters and CAN figure out how to open the top of a cooler.
They don't much like it when you yell "HEY!" at them in your best, mad voice. So, as a courtesy, they leave nasty, muddy paw prints on every square inch of both of your coolers.

6. The most romantic gift a woman can receive at a campsite is not the last s'more, but a camp stove, thoughtfully purchased at the local Wal-Mart in the wee hours of the morning by her hubby, so she could awaken and brew her cup o' morning joe.

7. If you visit a wildlife sanctuary with five 12-and-under boys/one girl and it is feeding time in the lion's cages, don't be alarmed when the live chickens (AKA: dinner) are caught and killed by the hungry lions and all the kids are glued to the action.
However, when they concoct cooler things to watch being taken down, such as live gazelle, even the tour guide might begin to worry and get that "Am I in the presence of future gun-toting, whiskey-drinking, mass murderers?" crease in his forehead.

8. "No, honey. The 'Golden Corral' sign on the tiger's cage doesn't mean the TIGER eats at that restaurant. It means the company pays money to the sanctuary so they can feed the tiger in that cage. Yes, same thing with the 'Burger King' sign."

9. Petting a 7.5 week old Indo-Chinese tiger is as cool as it sounds. And totally worth the price of admission.

10. Rocks beside a freezing cold river have no mercy when a Mother yells "Don't get wet!"
In fact, they seem to come alive and add slimy, slipperiness to themselves so your children fall in harder and faster.

11. Falling prey to rocks by Arctic-temperature water gives you an excuse to tell your boys to shuck their shirts and to take cute pictures of your bare-chested men-in-training.
Bonus? Pictures that, quite possibly, will allow you to check "Take Christmas card photo" off your exhaustive to-do list.

12. If you attempt to make homemade marshmallows and graham crackers for your hyper-allergenic children, they will fail. Miserably.
But, you won't know that until you get them out in the forest to eat them and everyone is salivating in anticipation.

13. When your attempt at keeping s'mores from driving your children into food-induced craziness fails, your best friend is the Mom in the next pad site, who has all the makings, plus some. And is totally willing to share.****

14. When you borrow a second tent from a neighbor and sleep separately from your kids, it is a good idea to move at warp speed when one of them calls for you in the middle of the night.
If you don't, one of your kids will sleep walk, unaware of where he is, and piss all over the interior of your tent, adding a little hip motion for good measure, and hit most of the length of the structure, including a good-soaking of one brother's pillow as payback for some unknown act.

15. When you are rudely awoken from the second night of relative sleeplessness, by the sound of a sprinkler hitting a window, and realize "HEY! There are no windows or sprinklers here...IS THAT A PEEING CHILD?!?!?!", neither the bride nor the groom is very happy/cordial/pleasant.

16. Should you decide, since you are up anyway AND your bladder is screaming AND you have a flashlight, NOT to travel to the bathroom because you are freaked out by the thought of going alone in the pitch dark because surely you will meet your demise at the hands of Jason/Freddie/Chucky, you WILL pee on your panties, even though you've chosen a ledge, a long, long way away from the car.***

17. The first taste of Fall feels better when you wake up to it in a sleeping bag. Even with bruised hips.

18. It's good for children to see wild bison so they can exclaim "THAT'S what you've been fixin' us?....COOL!"

19. Solar-heated water in a communal bath house in the woods feels good. But, old-fashioned, scalding water in a shower attached to a brick house feels even better.

I agree, Dorothy, there's no place like home. But, there's also nothing like escaping for a weekend in the wilderness, either.

Next time, though? At least two of us are wearing diapers to bed......*****


*And, Bear Grylls? You are totally full of horse poo. "Man Vs. Wild" was of ABSOLUTELY no help to us in this situation.

**Move over diamonds.

***At one point in the night, I realized I was just like the character in Princess and the Pea. But, with extraordinarily good reason.

****She is also the most prepared Girl Scout I've ever met. I aspire to be just like her next time I go camping!

*****The woods are no friend to a girl who has to urinate. Or a smallish boy with sleep-walking issues.