As a child growing up in rural Indiana, there weren’t many choice vacation spots. Since there were seven children, any vacation we did take had to be reasonably priced, meaning practically free. This is why we started camping.
Each summer, my family would pack up a week’s worth of luggage into the minivan to set forth on the four hour journey to what always became the disaster known as our annual camping trip.
I find as I age the adventures blur into each other creating a Wes Craven style movie trailer in my mind. There’s the image of my father speaking tongues while spending hours assembling the “8” man tent. For an obese group like ourselves, “8” really meant “4”, and we’d be sleeping close. There are the memories of torrential downpours that always managed to wash the tent and all belongings down the ravine. I remember getting lost while hiking and having to catch a ride with a “Deliverance” throwback to get back to the site. There were yearly battles with a rabid three legged raccoon that always seemed to make off with a week’s worth of hotdogs and generic soda. I flashback to raging poison ivy rashes in areas that shouldn’t be mentioned, and the death defying canoe rides that girl scout camp never properly prepared me for.
Despite this, I still find myself returning every year.