I have not yet gotten a chance to use my new sewing machine, because I have had approximately 8,793 things to do since the last post. Hopefully now that everyone in the apartment has left to visit home (I’ve had enough of Wichita family for awhile myself 
), I’ll have a bit more free time to do artsy crafty grandma-ish things, without being distracted by more age-appropriate activities like destroying my liver (drinking) and ears (concerts).
For a long time, the boy and I have talked about camping. The boy being the one to initiate these conversations, of course. I have never been camping. My family’s idea of nature consists of mowing the lawn. Occasionally it will expand to include visits to botanical gardens, or the fetid marsh-puddle known as Cheney Lake, which we have not visited as a family since I was ten. I am probably the one in the whole family (including the extended relatives scattered about the globe) most inclined towards nature and outdoorsy things, and I am pathologically afraid of germs and creatures with more than four legs. My involvement with wetlands activism was purely accidental, and that’s a story for another post.
Anyhow, because of summer school and various obligations planned for other weekends (weddings and going away parties), he decided that this weekend would be the optimal weekend for a camping trip. He seemed so excited about the trip, and waxed nostalgic about his Boy Scout days, when he and the other little troopers would march into the woods to light fires and herd bears and whatever else the Boy Scouts did (the Girl Scouts were much lamer, according to my sister). So I didn’t quite have the heart to express my lackluster interest in these plans, as opposed to the alternative to staying home and reading / knitting; so we gathered various camping equipment and effects (tent, sleeping bags, and about five bags of food), and sallied forth, in my well-worn Corolla, into the camp at Lone Star Lake.
The fatal flaw in the boy’s plan for camping this weekend became evident when we turned a corner and saw the glinting of a million glittering sideview mirrors twinkling at us from the sea of cars and trailers and SUVs covering every square inch of green ground not already covered by nylon billowing tents. The owners of the cars, their families, and spawn in various stages of development leaned against the cars, ran around on the gravel pathways, or frolicked en masse in the murky lake. Even the trees were occupied; huge American flags were draped on every other tree.
“We may not get a spot,” I stated the obvious. But the boy wanted to perservere, as we’d taken the trouble of packing everything already. We asked the camp hostess (yes, that’s what she’s really called) if there were any spots available, and she told us to check back in the afternoon, after she would kick out people for non-payment. We parked the car and proceeded to go on a walk around the lake, one that involved taking the wrong route, which happened to be a gravel road for cars surrounded by trees obscuring the view to the lake. Every once in awhile, cars would speed past us, kicking up clouds of dust in our faces.
“Honey?” I said, panting and shaking the sweat from my (faux) straw hat. “I’m sorry, but so far, I don’t think I really enjoy camping.”
The boy tried very gamely to make it a fun experience, poor guy. He had to contend with Memorial Weekend crowding, the heat, and my general crankiness. Oh, and the fact that we stood out rather remarkably. People stared at us as we walked past, probably because a) we were the only minorities, apart from one African-American dude, b) we were walking, as opposed to sitting in the shade, swimming, or listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s greatest hits blasted from our car, c) I had on a dorky-looking hat (according to the boy. I, for one, am fond of my sort-of-straw hat).
Eventually, though, it became too much. After we had finished our avocado and tomato sandwiches, which probably got us curious stares from the folks out grilling hamburger patties and other variants of dripping bloody shanks of animal flesh, we sat for awhile, still recovering from the three-hour promenade around the lake in the burning sun and humid air. The boy admitted to me then that this didn’t exactly mesh with his idea of camping, either, which evidently included building tents from scratch and fighting wolves in hand-to-hand combat, not angry rednecks in line to the porta-potty. “Let’s just go home,” he said.
“And go swimming?” I offered, excitedly.
“Sure.” And so we went back from the lake, defeated but strangely triumphant, safely installed in our air-conditioned, bug-free car innards. When we left, the boy rolled down the windows and blasted some terrible classic rock station as we drove around the campgrounds one last time, in an attempt to communicate goodwill with the locals.
We got home and swam in the pool, and I didn’t care that my legs were pale as paper, covered in bruises and cellulite, I was so happy to be immersed in water free of lake gunk and little kid residue. On the way to the pool, we saw a cleanup crew hard at work, scrubbing puddles of blood out of our parking lot. A few nights before, according to one of our neighbors, a girl had gotten into an altercation with her abusive boyfriend, who stabbed her foot (!) with a broken mirror. Drunk and who knows what else out of her mind, the girl had then run around the parking lot, back and forth between her car and the pool, scraping her foot on the ground in the process 
After our trip to the pool, and tour of the Bloudie Footpath, we went and bought me a brand new bicycle, one without a busted, unremovable tire (very important for riding, so it seems). As some of you may know, I only learned how to ride two years ago, so it’s a bit of a challenge for me. I took it for a practice ride yesterday morning, successfully; a car drove by me and I didn’t even hop off automatically this time! Hurrah!
Though my weekend greatly improved since we left the campground, I’m willing to give it a try when it is not the busiest weekend in the year for camping. Maybe when it’s less hot, and there are fewer bugs around. Winter camping, maybe? Sure, it would be cold, and most likely also miserable, but there won’t be lots of other scary people around and I’d have an excuse to knit more things (to keep us warm and toasty, of course). Fewer bugs to devour my flesh, and less choking humidity to contend with. Unfortunately, the boy is leaving, and Simon, who will be the only one staying next year, is an indoors-only creature (much, much more than myself. I do leave the house on occasion). So perhaps my next camping attempt will have to be delayed for a long time. I can’t say I’m terribly broken up about it!
