A River Runs Through It… (Our Campsite That Is)

Webster defines “camping” as “sleeping on the ground during the rain while fighting ginormous mosquitoes.” A secondary definition is “walking 600 yards to the bathroom in the pitch blackness while aliens stare at you from the woods.”


I love to camp…camping is fun! But my wife got enough of it in the Army, and as a result she doesn’t view it as something enjoyable (unless it’s camping in the mall). So when our daughter asked a couple of months ago, “Hey, lets all go camping together!” my wife was a real trooper and agreed. Our daughter then emailed and asked if we had any requirements. My wife had just one – there just has to be a shower! My requirement? I just wanted a mint placed on my sleeping bag pillow each morning by tent service.

When a lot of people say, “We went camping this weekend!” they really mean that they brought their house with them -- a 32 foot “camper” with a satellite dish on top and where you can push a button and the living room extends out of the side.

In my mind the term “camping” should be limited to:
1. Sleeping under the stars with just your sleeping bag
2. Sleeping in a tent
3. Sleeping in a pop-up camper
4. And maybe you can include those really small travel
trailers like “Scamps”

Anything else is just…well…I don’t know what it is, but it sure isn’t camping. And just one other thing. I recently saw an advertisement in a catalog for a tent WITH CLOSETS! The DNR should have a sign at all state parks that says, “Don’t even think about camping here if your tent has a closet!”

I packed in about 13 minutes…from Friday noon till Sunday noon I needed just one pair of shorts and one pair of underwear and one pair of socks and a sweatshirt. And an extra hat. Extra underwear, not so important. But you always need an extra hat. You never know when a bear might run off with the only one you have and then your weekend is ruined. But I guess the bear would be happy (“Hey hey Boo Boo!” says Yogi, “How do I look in my new Viking hat?”).

My wife packed all her stuff PLUS her blow dryer. I told her that blow dryers were outlawed by section 1, paragraph 6, subsection 12 of the US Camping Code, but she took it along anyway.

We got to Oak Lake campground around noon, or about 30 minutes after our daughter and son-in-law and the three grandkiddies and their dog Auggie. Their pop-up camper was all set up, and we just had to get our tent up before the rain hit. It’s advertised as a “6 man tent” but in fine print it says, “6 Gulliver’s Travels Lilliputian sized men.”


We got the tent up just in time. Because it rained REALLY, REALLY, REALLY HARD for about 2 hours or more. So much so that the little drainage ditch between our campsites looked like the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi. The ground became so saturated that when you went into the tent it felt like you were on a water bed. But it didn’t leak! And despite the rain we had a great time. The youngest granddaughter loved wading in the stream and the grandkiddies and Kay played games in the tent.

Some of my fondest memories of family vacations as a kid were when the weather was bad and we had to sit in the cabin and play cards and other games (I’ll call your 3 match stick and raise you 5 match sticks!)


The weather finally cleared about 7 that evening – we built a campfire, my son-in-law Gus valiantly fought off Godzilla the crazed crayfish that invaded our campsite; we had smores, looked at the stars, found the big dipper, and had flaming meteor marshmallows. I love when they are burnt to a crisp on the outside and then you just plop the blackened layer of carbon and the white gooey center into your mouth.

Sometime that night my wife had to make a trip to the bathroom. When my peaceful slumber was interrupted by her struggle to untie the flashlight hanging from the center of the tent, I got a little irritated. So I untied it for her so on her 100 yard dash she could spot the raccoons and skunks and lions and tigers and bears, oh MY!


The next morning we had pancakes and then we went fishing on the pontoon. And that’s when my daughter latched onto just a monster of a fish! It weighted maybe 2 ounces. We thought about filleting it, but couldn’t find a knife that small. She also caught a little sunfish and she says she latched onto a northern pike or something (she “claims” she saw it jump) but it got away. I personally think she was just hallucinating from the gas fumes from the boat motor.

All I caught was some green bass.


That night we had hotdogs and brats and cooked a can of beans in the fire. It could have been just burned bologna sandwiches, but for some reason food just tastes better around a campfire.

At times I try to attach a Bible verse to some of these little stories so that they have at least some sort of redeeming value. I searched and searched and searched and finally found one from II Corinthians 5:4 (New American Standard Version) that fits just perfectly:

“…in this tent we groan…” :>)