As we begin the sad process of closing up our seasonal site for another year, it feels like a good time to do a list of the reasons Shea and I enjoy camping so much:
We both camped lots with our own parents growing up so we know how it can create amazing memories for kids, parents and now, grandparents since we camp in the same park as Shea’s parents and my parents usually make it down a few times a season (including a surprise visit this weekend!)
Although it can be as expensive as you make it (hello $100,000 motorhomes!), for us, it’s a relatively inexpensive activity that provides an entire summer of fun and entertainment compared to a few days in a hotel visiting expensive tourist attractions and eating in restaurants (though we enjoy that too!)
Camping a wonderful way to enjoy the great outdoors – probably one of my favourite things is simply sitting in a reclining lawn chair with a book, a beer and some tunes but I also love going for walks around the campground (see #6), sitting around a campfire (see #7) and gazing at the stars (see #8).
Sort of related to the last point – I always find that camping makes my “normal” life of work, mortgages, cable TV news and everything else stressful – easily drop away.
As I mentioned yesterday, you meet lots of new people – both those passing through and also the people you get to know who also have seasonal sites.
Shea and I aren’t exercise fiends but part of what we enjoy about camping is we often do daily (and sometimes multiple times per day) walks around our campground.
Nothing tastes better than a hot dog cooked over a campfire and eating 99% of your meals outside means they all taste better too!
There’s a ton of things you learn while camping about everything from different aspects of the natural world (plants! animals! stars!) to basic repairs (lots of room for ingenuity when something goes wrong camping) to how much you enjoy the smell of bleach in a camp washroom as a sign that it’s just been cleaned! 😉
(Slight) disconnect from our devices. We still take them, we still use them but the campground where we have our seasonal site has somewhat spotty Internet so we don’t spend a lot of time on our devices while camping. We also don’t have TV (no satellite and we can’t even pick up antenna channels) so much of our activities and entertainment are the old fashioned kind – reading, playing cards, scavenger hunts, going to the beach, buying ice cream, etc.
Shea and I really enjoying the camping lifestyle and, although it’s still a few years away, have begun talking about what it would be like to downsize our house and buy a small camper/motorhome/camper van and just travel around in that once we retire.
We got a glimpse of what it might be like this past weekend when we met a couple from Kingston, ON who had done exactly that – sold their home and bought a tiny camper and now basically live on the road permanently, having seen nearly every province and state since they began travelling (as the stickers covering their camper attest!)
I think Shea and I would want a *bit* more space than these folks had (I didn’t get a photo of the inside but it was basically a “bed on wheels” with nothing else – no bathroom, no sink, definitely no room to stand up. The camper even came with doors on each side so you didn’t have to crawl over your partner to get out though they admitted it was an acquired skill to learn how to dress while laying down!
Anyhow, it was an interesting conversation and we’ll see what the future brings…
This video is at ~5000 views as I type this. Will be interesting to see if it goes viral and jumps a lot higher as it appears designed to do just that…
We live in a pretty amazing world where I can use some of the world’s most advanced technology – the Internet, YouTube, wifi – to watch a video clip about one of the world’s most primitive societies.
As summer comes to an end, I thought this video was appropriate for a Secular Sunday post (and yes, it’s a Christian making fun of atheists for a change!)
The gist of the guy’s bit is what kids would learn at an Atheist Summer Camp and the irony is that Shea and I frequently lament that basically every summer camp in Saskatchewan is connected to one church or another and we *can’t* find a secular one.
One hundred and ten seems like a bit of an unusual anniversary to commemorate but anyhow, 
