Camping With Kids(Elaine Faber) The magazine said, “Camping with your children brings families together.” The full article went on to describe the family sitting around a roaring fire, making S’mores and roasting marshmallows. They talked out their problems, kids bonded with their parents, sang Kum-Buy-Yah and told ghost stories in the dark, making memories that would last a lifetime. With my heart bursting with affection for my 7 and 10- year-old children, and newly found enthusiasm to share the family togetherness thing, I thought, That’s what my family needs. A little bit more bonding and a lot less bickering. I tossed the magazine on the sofa and phoned my husband.

“We’re going camping with the kids,” I said. There was total silence on the line. By the time he got home that night, I had rounded up camping gear from family and friends. My husband capitulated with only a small amount of arm-twisting and the promise of a ‘guy’s only’ fishing trip later that summer. It took the promise of a Barbie doll and roller blades to gain the children’s cooperation. This togetherness thing had already cost me $47.82 and we hadn’t even left the front yard. I had borrowed a tent, a kerosene lantern, sleeping bags, a campstool, camp cots, cooking gear, kerosene cook stove, and an ice chest.

The smooth talking salesman at the Outdoorsman Camping Store, persuaded us to buy powdered and instant camp food, dehydrated ham and eggs, powdered potatoes, canned beef stew, dried prunes, beef jerky and powdered applesauce. He guaranteed that these items would cook, stew, puree, and heat over a cheery campfire, and create gourmet meals for a family of 4 for two days for only $24.95, cheap at twice the price. The picture on the dehydrated ham and eggs promised to free mom from a hot stove, showing her on a hillside with a gentle breeze blowing through her hair. The canned beef stew picture showed Daddy snoozing in a camp chair with his dog curled at his feet. The brochure promised precious memories to last a lifetime. I knew it had to be true, because it said so, right on the labels.

We set off for a campground in the Sierras, about an hour from home, with the kids in the back seat. The drive was punctuated by my daughter’s shrieks, whereupon I would find my son’s fingers in his mouth, eyes crossed, and tongue protruding while his sister screamed,

“He’s looking at me! Make him stop looking at me!”

Our chosen Sierra Mountain campground was located on top of a steep hill. There were no guardrails on the winding road. The canyon yawned below. I clung to the armrests, terrified, as rocks rolled over the edge of the canyon when the car wound around the hairpin curves.

We eventually arrived safely at the campground and found our assigned campsite a half block from the outhouse and 200 feet from the only source of water; a water pipe with a faucet on top, surrounded by 263 bees. The camp had been listed as “dry camping,” meaning there would be no running water, no electricity and only the aforementioned outhouse.

We pitched our tent and started to assemble the camp cots, only to find the poles on the end of each cot missing. Our sleeping bags would lie on the hard ground. My husband’s response was filled liberally with four letter words. I couldn’t help thinking of my own bed with 14” of cotton batting, memory foam and bedsprings.

Ah, well, I reasoned, the promised “family togetherness,” would be worth more than the inconvenience of no camp cots.

The children chased each other happily around the camp. That is, until my daughter asked me to accompany her to use ‘the facilities.’ She and I walked past the other campers setting up camp and I noticed they were unpacking folding chairs, down comforters, portable record players, and Porta-Potties.

“Uh oh,” I thought, “What do they know that I don’t know?”

Within 15 feet of our destination, we slowed our steps, as we realized that all that we had previously thought we knew about outhouses didn’t hold a candle to the reality that met our noses. An indescribable smell hung like a cloud over the building. The door hung loosely on hinges that defied latching. Holding our noses, we rushed the door and tried to enter. Our eyes beheld a sight that took away any bodily urges and we raced back toward our campsite. It was impossible to guess what we would eventually be forced to do, but for the moment, the bushes held more promise.

A ranger informed us that ½ mile up the road there was a washhouse with several real toilets. We had a plan. We would do a bathroom run right after dinner. Then he announced that due to a high fire hazard this time of year, no open fires would be allowed in the fire pits. No problem, since we had the precious little kerosene stove to cook our instant and dried foods. Undaunted, we looked forward to our gourmet meal.

Dinnertime approached and my husband unpacked the stove, to determine how it worked. Flip this open, fold this down, click in the burners, attach the precious little kerosene tank, pump it up and light it with a match. He pumped and it would not pressurize, it would not light. A “ssssssssheoshee” emanating from the kerosene tank could only mean one thing. There was a minute hole in the tank. There would be no hot water for our gourmet meal. Disappointing, but we still had the canned beef stew, which could be eaten cold. My husband held the beef stew can.

“Honey, where is the can opener?”

“It must be here somewhere.” I surveyed the empty boxes lying on the ground. No can opener.

“Um…It must have been left it on the kitchen counter.”

“What the ….? Never mind. I’ll open it with my pocket knife.”

The children sat expectantly with tin plates in their laps. They looked like hungry waifs from a Charles Dickens novel, waiting for their daily gruel. I began to think that gruel might be a welcome sight.

My daughter’s shriek interrupted my fascination with the jagged hole my husband was gouging into the beef stew can. She danced around the cold campfire, beating her chest and jumping up and down. She began tearing at her tee shirt, which I pulled over her head. A flattened kamikaze bee dropped to the ground, twitched and lay still. Several inflamed bumps began to swell on my daughter’s chest and shoulder. A thorough search through our gear proved the first aid kit was likely lying along side the can opener at home on the kitchen counter. We made a mud poultice and painted her upper torso.

By now the ragged hole in the top of the stew can revealed its contents.
Unfortunately, it was all too reminiscent of what we had seen in the bottom of the outhouse. The children tossed their tin plates into the dirt beside the mutilated can and ripped open a bag of dried prunes.

Ah well, I mused, as I bit into a dried prune, we can get through this. The anticipated memory of the family gathered around the fire, eating a gourmet meal tumbled into the dirt next to the stew.

Shortly thereafter, the sun disappeared behind the towering pine trees and darkness crashed around us. It would be a long night.

“Daddy will light the lantern, and we can sit around the fire pit and pretend that we have a roaring fire, and we’ll tell stories,” I cheerfully suggested. (You can see this coming, can’t you?) A few pumps on the kerosene lantern should have blossomed into a soft and romantic glow, but didn’t.

“Please don’t tell me the tank is empty,” I squeaked, glancing nervously around the dark campsite, barely able to distinguish the features of my amazingly quiet children who were actually holding hands in the darkness. My long-suffering husband pumped furiously on the lantern, to no avail. So much for telling stories by lantern light. That family memory joined the can of beef stew casting an ominous green glow as it oozed into the mountain dirt.

“This can’t be happening,” I grumbled, munching on another dried prune as we drove down to the washhouse where we showered and used the facilities.

Returning from the washroom, our car lights illuminated the campsite up ahead. Total disillusionment and despair filled our car. My husband turned off the headlights and we sat in silence, staring at the dark campsite and the sagging tent. We had to decide whether we should give up and go home or stay. Going home meant driving down death hill in the darkness and risk plunging the car over the canyon, or stay and go to bed at 7:30 PM in the hot tent. My husband was for going home; he wanted to sleep in his own bed. The canyon road terrified me so I over-ruled him. I insisted that we wait until dawn when we could strike the camp and get out of this nightmare from hell. From the look on my husband’s face, barely discernible in the darkness, I knew he would never forgive me for this weekend if I lived to be a hundred.

Our sleeping bags touched each other on the canvas floor. Even lying on top of my bedding, I could still feel the enormous lump that pressed into the small of my back. Had we pitched the tent on what felt like a pile of rocks? Why hadn’t we cleared the ground before we set up the tent? We could only wiggle and squirm and try to go to sleep.

Blackness... hot air...snoring kids… noises outside the tent. Was it a bear? No clock... Rock in the small of my back... I could hear a mosquito. Mosquitoes find me the way bears find honey. I had to get inside the sleeping bag to escape from being eaten alive…. Hot… oh Lord, what time is it? It must be nearly morning.

I poked my husband in the ribs. “Honey, what time is it?” He groaned. His luminous watch dial read, “9:30.”

I would not survive the night. I would either be eaten alive or go insane before dawn. The strains of Kum-By-Yah, drifted faintly from the camp next door. I hated those well-prepared people. I should just die and get it over with.

Within a few hours, the unbearable heat cooled and the mountain air became a freezing chill and we shivered through the early hours before dawn. 895 hours later, when I was barely able to see the outline of my husband’s face faintly in the morning light, I punched him.

“Are you sleeping?”

“You’re kidding!”

We struck the tent, wadded it up and pitched it into the back of the station wagon. We did not fold it. We tossed our still unconscious children on top of the tent. The sun cast it’s faint glow across our neighbors who slept peacefully around us, dreaming of last night’s gourmet meal cooked over a functional camp stove and story time, having bonded with their kids by lantern light, we roared out of the campground and hurtled down the hill, spewing rocks over the canyon walls. We did not look back.

By 7:45 A.M. we were sitting at our kitchen table, eating bacon and eggs, talking about our adventure, trying to determine what was the worst thing that happened.

I voted for the outhouse and smiled. My husband voted for the propane stove that wouldn’t light. He actually grinned. My daughter thought the green stew spilling in the dirt was pretty funny. She laughed. My son was most impressed by the bee that stung his sister. He howled in laughter. My precious daughter whacked her brother on his shoulder. He squinched up his face, and put his fingers in his mouth, crossed his eyes, and stuck out his tongue. My daughter squealed, “Make him stop looking at me!” We laughed about all the disasters we had shared together, until the tears rolled down our faces. It’s a memory that will last a lifetime.

---