When I was a young girl I was fascinated with pioneer life and wagon trains. I had a long, brown, flowing dress and brown tie-up boots (with ample scuff marks on the heel) that was my designated “country” outfit when I wanted to embody an outdoorsy explorer girl from Manifest Destiny days. My naive delusions of prairie life included lush meadows, big blue skies, cute horses and butterflies. Also, eating chili and cornbread. My family moved across country from Michigan to California via automobile when I was two years old. That is about as close as I have come to being a pioneer.
Perhaps my idealized version of wagon trains stemmed from the Wagon Train TV Show I watched as a kid where no matter what, everything turned out okay in the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BESu7Ly18uY
My pioneer fantasies did not factor in horrific weather conditions, disgusting insects, famine, thirst, no bathrooms (!), bumpy, uncomfortable seats for hours on end (pun intended), the threat of attack and, oh yeah, death.
Okay, so there is one less obstacle.
Ironically, I was terrible at outdoor life. A girly girl who preferred indoor, temperature controlled activities such as dancing or dolls; every time I ventured into the great outdoors with Girl Scouts or an obligatory summer camp, I was miserable. Dodging bees, sleeping on rickety beds, cold showers and a lack of creature comforts were not for me. Several times I tried camping and ended up begging the counselors to call my parents to come and pick me up (and my parents always schlepped up winding mountain roads to fetch me, bless their hearts). So it’s no surprise that my fascination with pioneers came to an abrupt end. So much for simple pleasures: I required complexity to be happy.
Meanwhile, my husband, Kevin, has gone camping his entire life. Real camping, too, with tents and campfires and no electricity in remote places. When we first started dating over nine years ago, he asked me if I would like to join him and his life long friends on their annual Labor Day camping trip to Sycamore Canyon Campsite in Point Magu State Park. It’s on the California coast, about ten miles north of Malibu. Believe it or not, I said yes…and I loved it…sort of. I mean I loved his friends, their comradery and sense of humor, the happy hour with delicious wine and appetizers, the sound of crickets at night, the campfires and conversation. The bugs, not so much. The public bathrooms, bleh. Sleeping on the ground, ouch. I watched the others, though, took notes, and wrote a super long list of what I would need to make a more comfortable camping experience in the future.
I have joined my husband and his group of friends ever since; seen children grow up, get married, have babies. Each year, I have added a little of this and a little of that, so my husband’s preferred low key, bare bones camping has evolved to “glamping” to suit my sensibility. We still battle mosquitoes and use the public bathrooms; but we have an air mattress, a camp kitchen, and a fancy new tent that has a door and a light. So life is good for me, at least. It is a lot of work to pack and unpack all of the gear, though…so it does take a lot more effort than just setting up a tent and campfire.
Interestingly enough, on our most recent camping trip, there was a young lady who set up a campsite beside us. On her first night she was alone, and had a chair, a small tent…and that was it. She made her own campfire. I was truly impressed, and admittedly, a little envious of her simplicity. I was suddenly reminded of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, where he wrote in his tiny cabin, “Our lives are frittered away by detail…simplify, simplify.” I had last read Walden in high school, mind you, so for me to think about it now was a fluke. Or was it? In my quest for comfort, had I forgotten about the whole point of camping? Wasn’t getting back to nature supposed to be about downsizing and appreciating simple pleasures? These questions started buzzing around my head, along with the mosquitoes.
Yes, you read that right: after all of the hard work required to set up our cushy campsite, I entertained the thought about wanting less. The next day I had the good fortune to meet the charming young lady (working on her PhD at UCLA in Neuroscience, mind you!), named Elle, and found out she was expecting friends to join her later in the day. She was from Durango, Colorado, where camping was a part of her upbringing. Though keeping it simple is important for Elle’s camping experience, she was excited to tell me about her new camp stove and collapsible sink…her camping luxuries! Even an expert needed some modern conveniences. Somehow, I found that reassuring. She was an amazing young lady who wants to find a cure for stroke victims! How great is that? (On a side note, we also agreed that Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand is one of the best books ever…)
On this last trip I heard owls hooting, rain pitter pattering on our roof (thank goodness we put up the rain fly!) and a host of other weird animal sounds as they scavenged about on their nocturnal rounds. Because we are close to the ocean, the sound of waves crashing also joined the evening symphony. I often have a hard time sleeping. One night the post-blue-moon was bright enough to light up the sky and create shadows of leaves from the Sycamore tree overhead. I fell asleep watching the shadowy, mysterious dance on the roof of our tent.
Time flies by on these camping trips with socializing, joke telling, game playing, cooking, eating and drinking. The past few years Kevin and I have cheated a tad and taken a journey (via automobile, not wagon train) down the road to Trancas Country Market where we stock up on supplies and such. This time we went with one of his friends and had lunch at the Malibu Brewing Company. To clarify, this is not officially camping. I also won’t tell you that there is a Starbucks there, too…and I may have had a cappuccino. Shhhh…nothing to see here.
Unfortunately, on the last night of our trip I wasn’t feeling well, and opted to leave after dinner so I could be home with my own clean bathroom and medication. Driving home in the dark, I was very sad that I couldn’t stay that last night. I already missed everyone! One of my favorite parts of camping, too, is waking up in the morning. The quiet, early morning light is so peaceful. Making coffee for us on my camp stove also brings me great joy. I guess you might say those are the simple pleasures that drew me into camping in the first place. The serenity, the calm, the lack of distractions — these are the qualities I am seeking in the great outdoors, whether or not I’m adept at it.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”
― Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Cheryl Thatt-Burbank 