Camping and a Father's Love

To my Dad, whom I love dearly, and thank with my whole heart for loving me for just being me. You are the GREATEST - and Happy Father's Day!

25 or so years ago, Dad and I would take camping trips of various types. My favorite trips would start out with Mom dropping us off, with the canoe, on the Blackwater River. When I say we went camping, it was none of this air mattress, bathrooms, showers, and other conveniences kind of camping trip. When we went canoeing and camping, we only took the bare essentials: 2 black trash bags packed with sleeping bags, and another bag with hot dogs, buns, some bacon, and coffee. How many times did we eat hot dogs with soggy buns and bacon that was burned to a crisp? And just how many times did the canoe flip over? Dad, even though you don't go canoeing anymore, you may get a dry bag for Father's day.

Dad, this is how you cook bacon on a campfire. Notice, it isn't black. :-)

For those of you who haven't been on the parts of the Blackwater River that resemble a creek, let me assure you, there are plenty of places that you actually have to drag the canoe because the water is so shallow. I'm sure my dad didn't find this a pleasurable experience, and I can remember one trip in particular where the bottom fell off of one of his shoes, so he tore a piece off one of the sacred trash bag "dry bags" to hold it together. I was thinking, "Why doesn't he just get another pair of shoes?" Who knows why, but I do know that he still has a pair of classic 1984 Nike swoosh jogging shoes that are worn so smooth on the bottom I call them his "racing slicks". Regardless of his shoes falling to pieces, we always managed to have a great time.

Our river float usually left us camping in the Devil's Den, sans tent. The name conjures up all sorts of scary thoughts in a kid's mind. Like I said, it's been 25 years since I've been there, but the cave on the side of the river seemed huge to me at 10 years old. No, not just huge - huge and scary! I mean, the name alone makes you think that the devil will be there waiting for you when you arrive. Fortunately for me, the devil was never made an appearance, but I sure watched the campfire dancing on the stone walls until I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer. I'm sure Dad always wondered why I insisted on a big fire, I guess I figured that if a fire could keep wild animals away, surely it would work for the Devil too. Now that I'm older, I suppose a fire to the devil would have been like the brier patch is to Brer Rabbit, and I would have been in real trouble had he ever made an appearance. Dad camped there when he was a little boy, and it makes me sad to think that my kids will never experience going to sleep wondering if they'll wake up looking the old devil in the eye.

Even though they may not get to have the same experiences I did, they will still get to go camping, but it will be Shannon's style of camping. This Father's Day weekend marks our first family camping trip. Shannon is an outdoors guy, but he's a man who prefers to have some comforts of home. The first time I went camping with him was on a river trip where I discovered that he packed an air mattress so he could sleep better. I couldn't believe it, an air mattress! Wasn't that some type of camping faux pas? That was also the first river trip I had been on where I didn't eat soggy hot dogs, but manicotti for dinner and a delicious casserole for breakfast (thanks to Chad and Alison, who are the true gourmet campers). Once you make the transition to his type of camping, you start to get soft, and the next thing you know, you're looking for a place to charge your laptop so you can blog.

That's right, we're camping, and I'm blogging. And I can imagine my dad is rolling his eyes right about now, but my main concern is which direction I need to move in order to pick up on the open "Z LAKE HOUSE" signal that is near the camp spot. If we had Wi-Fi here, I would want to come camping every weekend!

So our camping trip started out with a flurry of throwing things together, a quick trip to the local Wally World, and a trip to the brother-in-law's house to borrow his big tent. Camping when I was little was preceded by miles of hiking up Grassy Hill, or by several hours of floating the river, not by driving 20 minutes to a flat campsite that is already cleared. As if that wasn't easy enough, there's a fire pit already built and plenty of easy access wood for fuel. That sounds nice and easy, except for the fact that it wasn't quite easy enough for Shannon. I didn't question it when he asked me if I had any "fire starter" when we left the house, I just said "no", thinking that we would gather leaves and twigs like normal people would. Not my husband, not in a million years, not when you have mineral spirits at your disposal. Yes, mineral spirits. I questioned how combustible it was - "is this a gasoline, or kerosene type of starter"? Needless to say, I wasn't comforted by his answer that he didn't know. For those Redneck Engineers out there, mineral spirits will start a fire without an explosion or the loss of body hair.

The Redneck Engineer

Okay, so that may be no big deal to some of you. How about when I see my husband's eyes light up because he "has an idea" that would be fun for the kids? Fun for the kids? I'm thinking they're going to pick up sticks for the fire, or maybe play in the lake. Nope, not my husband. Now I see that he's carrying a log that he places on a stump. I'm still stuck in safe creative play mode, thinking the kids may pretend that they're going to ride a horse or something else silly. Good grief, I must have lost my mind, this is my husband we're talking about. While announcing he was the former blue ribbon knife and tomahawk thrower, he proceeds to start teaching our 4 year old son how to throw a camping axe at his target. All I could think about was how I was going to explain my little man showing up in the emergency room needing stitches. Lucky for me, it was a quick game, and there was no time for any blood to be shed. It may have had something to do with my chanting, "be careful, that's just not safe, you shouldn't be letting him play with that" over and over.

The future blue ribbon winner?

After two potential disasters, we let the kids play in the lake (little danger there), we cooked hot dogs (okay, so a couple rolled in the fire and were rinsed with fresh water, then reheated), and then we went to my favorite part of camping - the making of S'MORES. Dad never introduced me to this delicious treat on our camping trips, but I can guarantee they're a big part of everyone I take the kids on. You may not be aware of it, but there's a special technique to make the perfect s'mores. I prefer my chocolate slightly melted, and on a hot day, that's easy since you're really struggling to keep the chocolate from doing just that. In the fall though, I place a piece of chocolate on the bottom graham cracker beside the fire to get it on its way to gooey goodness. And while we're on the subject of chocolate, not just any chocolate will do for me, it has to be dark rich chocolate to bring out the flavor of the marshmallow and graham cracker. However, the preparation of the marshmallow is the real key to the perfect s'more, it has to be perfectly melted and hot enough to continue the melting of the chocolate. There are those of you who may prefer to create mini-torches, and that was how I roasted marshmallows until I had one of my flaming masterpieces land on my wrist, leaving a scar that is still visible today (another one of those camping trips with my dad, and he insisted that it wasn't blood on my wrist - good thing it was dark). Now I prefer a slow, long toasting that leaves the outside golden brown, and the middle completely gooey. When you place that on the piece of slightly melted dark chocolate, and sandwich it with the last piece of graham cracker, you may as well say it's close to heaven on earth. That's yummy goodness.

The ingredients

My perfected toasting technique.

Court prefers a little char.

Perfection.

A happy little boy, messy, but very happy.

So here I sit while the kids are fishing, bathing in the smoke from the campfire with a full belly, and watching the sun set behind the trees while listening to the water lap up on the shore. Could camping get any better than this? Hmmm...if I could just just figure out where "Z LAKE HOUSE" is located, I would think I had reached camping heaven.

***UPDATE*** I just had a camper walk by me and ask if I'm doing homework! I have to admit, I smiled and said "yes". That just feels good!

Click here to see the photos from our trip.