1) Everything you own smells like campfire smoke, including your dog and your van.
2) You slap your knee and dust puffs out of your jeans.
3) Enjoying the sounds of nature while camping includes a screaming raccoon fight at 2 a.m.
4) Enjoying the sounds of nature while camping includes listening to the coyotes howl at 1 a.m.
5) Enjoying the sounds of nature while camping includes listening to the drunken yahoos a few campsites down singing "Happy Birthday" for the seventh time in two hours.
6) You have damp camping gear draped across all the furniture in the spare bedroom.
7) You took a shower in an unheated bath house on a 42 degree morning and can safely add the experience to your F-It List (Rhymes with Bucket List) of things you never want to do again in your life.
8) You came home and took the longest, hottest, soapiest shower you can remember.
9) By Sunday, your jeans could run an agility course by themselves.
10) By 6 p.m. on Sunday, you've done 4 loads of laundry.
Okay, 10 isn't enough.
11) You learned that wearing a fleece jacket while crawling into a flannel-lined sleeping bag means you won't be able to move. Whatever position you collapse in is how you're going to stay all night because fleece sticks to flannel like velcro.
12) You're sitting at the computer at home, your dogs walk by and you catch a whiff of campfire smoke.
13) The most beautiful thing in your house (after the shower) is your bed.
14) You got to watch the vast number of penguins . . . err . . . pelicans . . . migrating on Saylorville Lake.
15) What happens in the tent, stays in the tent.
16) You've eaten more roasted marshmallows in the last two nights than you have since this weekend last year.
17) You've eaten so many roasted marshmallows, you can elaborate at length about the style and technique used to achieve a delicate brown with slightly puffed top.
18) Camping in a tent when overnight temps drop to 40 can be a very snug and toasty experience if you observe proper protocol for layering blankets, sleeping bags and dogs.
19) The malinois prefers to be included in the base layer.
20) The tervuren should be applied to the top layer. He may re-arrange all layers to suit himself with little regard to other occupants of the tent.
21) This may lead to dissention in the ranks of the lower layers.
22) Doing a happy dance on the air mattress at 5:15 a.m. is highly frowned upon by the human element.
23) The canine element does not care.
24) When it's 41 degrees outside, getting up in the morning is a genuinely unpleasant experience.
25) Genuinely unpleasant experiences tend to spark new and creative uses of the English language.
Your list reminds me how much I used to love camping. Seriously, no sarcasm intended. I miss it!
ReplyDeleteIt was a great week-end. I had a hot shower each morning! But will admit was thinking about s'mores while sipping on my marg. A happy dance in a tent - I remember that happening once -no, wait - they weren't dancing -they were racing around the tent - inside. Memories. Glad Jamie got to come too.
ReplyDeleteLOL #12 is my favorite. Vinnie still smells like campfire. He will be getting a bath this week. The van has been emptied of everything washable and the requisite four loads of laundry are done. The shower was luxurious and the bed is calling me!!
ReplyDelete"25) Genuinely unpleasant experiences tend to spark new and creative uses of the English language."
ReplyDeleteHAHAHAHAHA!
Oh boy!
ReplyDeleteThose things aside, how was the trial?
I used to love camping too. But my back says - no more. (not that some hotel mattresses are any more comfortable)
ReplyDelete