Back to Nature and Back

Went a campin' this weekend!
What fun, eh?

Well, sometimes. Sometimes fun, sometimes just a count down to a hand washing.

Okay I'm not a complete spoiled sport. First of all I did my time tent camping and bush potty'ing years past. And I learned a valuable lesson from it. I gotta have running water and a toilet everywhere I go in this life (and in the next). (It's how I'll know I'm in Heaven.)

I'm not sure about in other states and all, but in Cali the one with the biggest motorhome and most attached awnings wins.

Grateful for it, --but our motorhome is like the booby prize of motorhomes. Every once in a while during pre-trip prep I will hear my husband mumble things like "I hope that part doesn't blow-up on us" or "this leak might get into the back mattress" or "that sewer line is the thinnest dang sewer line I've ever seen". Now I don't make a big deal out of it because bottom line, the motorhome doesn't come with us, my primitive indoor plumbing doesn't either - and I'm willing to risk leaks, blow-ups or a little camper fire for that.

I've done my part too, trying to cute it up with patio lights and such, --but my husband warns me plugging them in our outlet, might deliver an electrocution. (It's either that - or he just doesn't want Debbie Mumm Daisy Lites hanging around his man-time. Whatever.)

Also, space is cramped in our home away from home. When the boys were little they used to sleep together on the top bunk, like a litter of cute puppies, all intertwined and at peace. Now it's like a cruel chapter from Alice in Wonderland as they spread themselves masculinely and heavily across tables, floors, window ledges, counters, and faucets to sleep at night.


We camp a lot with my high school girlfriend and her family, and that's one of the saving graces to our trips --
Because their motorhome is freakin' Awesome! . .
it has push-outs, flat screens, spa tub, queen bed, food pantry, and a Cuisinart.

(Oh, and we really enjoy their company.)

With our motorhome you can hear us coming for fifteen minutes before we arrive. It has avocado appliances, a staunch supply of baby wipes, and swell walkie-talkies. --And my toilet, of course.
I admit one appears very ungrateful when they get to the point of coveting other peoples toilets - but her's is a glistening globe of porcelain paradise! . . mine a fairly functioning bucket with foot pump. Plus when you sit on it, the whole camper leans.

Each night after a long day of fun and games, a lengthy line of hairy, grubby, roast-beast smelling band of man and young men (all mine, --but that doesn't mean I want to sleep in the same space with them) line up to enter at the camper screen door. By this time in the evening I have swept it out three times, founded a pile of dirty clothes the size of Mars, and disinfected anything that doesn't move, twice. A terrible mean streak comes over me and I suggest in my sweetest mommy voice from the clean side of the screen "wouldn't it be fun if you guys all slept in the real outdoors tonight??"

It never works but I never cease trying. That whole bit about us women being natural nurturers really only applies to certain situations.

And while for this trip we were at the beach --which truly, is so lovely--thank goodness we had one of the front row spots where you can look out at the coastline instead of the six-hundred people in sites, packed in behind you tighter than pubescent girls at a Hannah Montana concert. I don't know what it is with Los Angelinos and this fantasy that we can ever 'get away from it all.'

But now that I ponder on it a bit more -- I'm pretty sure a good upgrade on our ol' tent-on-wheels might be the ticket just the same. If we can't get away from it all --- maybe a simple in the motorhome arms-length distance from each other would feel just as good. I'll keep you posted on any changes in this department.