Get Out of the House! – Camping 2020

Ah, 2020 – the year we went from traveling the world to not leaving the house. It seems that Lea and I took our Globetrotting Year not a moment too soon. Given the current COVID-transmission statistics and the fact that too many people still don’t know how to wear a f&%#^ng mask, it’s not even safe to set foot in a grocery store, much less get on an airplane. If we risked it anyway, what would we do once we reached our destination – confine ourselves to a hotel room and order delivery? But there’s still one way to cure cabin fever and get that much-needed change of scenery, that’s more or less the safest way to travel until the world gets vaccinated and it’s not irresponsible to leave our respective caves, and that’s camping.

Lea and I used to camp several times a year, then went through a phase when we hardly camped at all. This year has brought us back to camping in earnest, and from the packed-out campgrounds we’ve stayed at, many people feel the same way. While originally we’d planned to go to Mexico and England this year, instead we’ve stayed within a four-hour radius of Atlanta, visiting Chattahoochee Bend State Park, DeSoto State Park, and the Blanton Creek Campground. Blanton Creek usually closes in October, but due to popular demand remained open much later, which was lucky for us because Hurricane Delta scrapped our earlier reservation.

That being said, our experience has always been that there is a very narrow window in both the spring and fall when we are personally willing to sleep outdoors in a canvas box. In the American South, particularly in Georgia and Alabama, the temperate shift from freezing nights to summer heat only lasts for about a month, and planning a camping trip requires a certain degree of luck and/or precognition regarding the weather. Campground reservations fill up months in advance, so there’s no use waiting to see what the forecasts predict.

Of course, the relevance of this window varies depending on where you fall on the “camping technology” spectrum. On one end are the primitive campers who hike to their sites with all their gear on their backs, and pitch their tiny tents far from electricity or water spigots. On the other side of the scale are the campers who show up in RVs the size of Metallica’s tour bus, with all the amenities of home: mattresses, kitchens, showers, big-screen TVs, and satellite hookups to watch the Big Game, can’t miss that!

Given that many of these RVs are more spacious and well-apportioned than some apartments I’ve lived in, I can’t help but think that these people are cheating. However, given that I crossed the half-century mark this year, I can’t help but see the benefits of bringing your whole house with you into the Wild. At Blanton Creek, in fact, Lea and I (and our friend and camping buddy Melissa, no stranger to this blog) drove around the campground to window-shop RVs. Our position on the caveman-to-RV spectrum has shifted over the years, and the day will eventually come when we’ll invest in a smaller pop-up camper. The plan, in fact, is to retire, sell our house, and spend a year or two roaming from park to park across the States. Maybe in something like this:

For now, we stick to what gear we can fit in our car. For years, that was a tiny Honda Civic, but our new vehicle of choice is a hatchback Honda Fit with seats that lay flat to make packing an awful lot simpler. We bring a tent, an air mattress, a propane camping stove, chairs, bedding (the thickness of which depends on how cold it will be at night), cookware, a cooler, lanterns (propane and electric), headlamps, toiletries, clotheslines, towels & washcloths, reading material, a selection of board games, twenty pounds of ice, and enough food for two dinners, two breakfasts, and one lunch (which we usually end up skipping in favor of chips and Little Debbies). This year we’ve added an extension cord to run inside the tent, from which to charge our phones, run a box fan, and power my C-PAP.

What never varies, though, is that we always forget something. Looking at the list above, I’m reminded that I forgot to pack my camera on our last trip, which I was supposed to bring to photograph the fall colors. Thankfully, Lea’s Olympus is better at making the colors pop than my Canon Rebel T3 (see below). When we went to Chattahoochee Bend in the spring, I forgot to pack our brand new stove and had to drive all the way back to Atlanta, or else we’d have eaten chips and cold cuts for two days.

What is there to do while camping? Cook, for one thing. As you’d imagine, when living like a caveman, a primary activity is heating meat and vegetables. After decades of bringing ingredients to chop and prepare on-site, this year it finally dawned on us to do the bulk of our prep-work at home (chopping up peppers and onions to go with eggs, mixing beef and sausage for patties, etc.) so all that remains is to heat everything up.

Cleaning without benefit of a sink or running water is a chore, but one we worked out years ago: Heat up clean water in a pan with a sprinkle of Dawn, use a rag and hot soap-water to wipe off dishes and plates, then rinse with whatever cold water is on hand. Often we’ll use the nearest spigot (which usually isn’t potable, just so you know) but at one of our sites this year that water was brown. (Let’s call it rusty and pretend that was all.) That site, thankfully, did have washing sinks down by the bathhouse.

Hiking is another activity one would expect to do while camping. We hiked a lot more when we were younger, sometimes wishing we hadn’t. Cloudland Canyon and Amicalola Falls are two that spring to mind where hiking down the trail was so arduous that hiking back up was near impossible. Lately we’ve traded hiking for kayaking, and found that much more suited to our enjoyment. (Kayaks, not canoes, which our kayak instructor cheerfully refers to as “divorce boats.”)

And of course, most campgrounds will have other attractions and activities nearby. In the fall, we went kayaking on the Little River above DeSoto Falls, near Mentone, Alabama (and raided the Tip Top Bake Shop afterward). In the past, we’ve gone caving, visited a diamond mine in Arkansas (waste of time) and Bill Clinton’s childhood home (fairly interesting). We’ve spent mornings on the beach and afternoons in shady pool halls. We’ve gone to museums, attended nature talks, and even went shopping at an outlet mall.

But in truth, our primary activity while camping is lounging. There are few things more relaxing than sitting outdoors in the shade with a good book, a pleasant view, a bag of Zapp’s potato chips, and no damn reason to do anything productive. Let’s be honest, much of camping is an ordeal: the preparation, setting up and tearing down your tent, fretting about the weather, shooing mosquitos, and dodging whatever acorns the squirrels above are throwing at your head. But once you kick back for a morning, afternoon, and evening by the fire, until your sense of the passage of time hangs up its coat and takes a nap beside you…  That moment makes you wonder why we live any other way.

P.S. Fall Colors! We’ve been wanting to camp at Blanton Creek for years, specifically because of the brilliant red sourwood trees and the views across the lake.

P.P.S. Lea’s Macrophotography Returns!