The thought of camping causes a tornado to take place in my brain. It’s very unsettling. Not the act of camping itself but the inner conflict of do I like it….I don’t like it…..I should like it….it looks so fun….it’s so much work….

Camping is timeless, people have enjoyed camping for many many decades and over the years it’s evolved tremendously. It no longer involves spending an entire afternoon putting together a hot non-breathable canvas tent, that gets soaked in the rain and stays soaked all weekend. Tents are state of the art, as far as how they hold up in all kinds of weather and take just minutes, maybe even seconds to put up. And not to mention camper trailers that are homes on wheels. They have electricity, heat, air conditioning, big screen tv’s etc.

In my adult life, I’ve had some experience with camping in various forms. I’ve camped in both small and large tents, a yurt, a motorhome and a remote cabin on an island. It all sounds so fun. Looks so good on paper.

You make the list for camping, what to bring. Weiners, buns, fire starter, axe, lawn chairs, hammock, rain jackets, bug spray, marshmallows, eggs, bacon, etc etc. It makes you so excited. Out of the house, in the wilderness, away from traffic, alarm clocks and society in general. Even the rules of life are different when you’re camping.

Cocktail hour might begin around noon for the grown ups, you’re snacking on chips all day long and other unhealthy snacks. And for the kids, they’re wandering through the camping bays on bikes, accepting a hot dog and a can of pop from wherever they land. They come “home” and check in only sporadically.

Daytime activities might include fishing, boating, waterskiing, kneeboarding, swimming, biking, hiking. The fresh air is exhausting and at night you sleep like a baby. Cool vacation right? Wrong.

I’m not saying I will never camp again but last year I did sell the motorhome I had purchased only the year before. Why? Well it’s the mice. I’m terrified of them. And they are out there roaming in the wilderness with squirrels. People have looked at me like I have two heads and said there’s no mice at the campground! Oh you better believe there are. And so I went to great lengths to secure the perimeter of our campsite by shaving and then sprinkling on the ground, an entire case of Irish Spring soap. Yet I find myself looking for them everywhere I go. They’re not cute, they carry diseases and if you inhale air where their feces is, you can die. Facts.

Besides mice, camping is a f#*& of a lot of work. To get ready to go camping, you basically have to move everything in your entire home, into the camper. Everything that’s in your home, that you need to live, now has to be packed up and carried out to the camper or in a tent situation, packed up and carried out to the car. Then carried out of the car when you get there, and unpacked.

It takes days to get ready to go. And if you forget one essential on your list, you’re done. You forget the bug spray? Might as well go home because the mosquitoes will carry you away. You forget the rain jackets? Great, now everyone is soaking wet in a matter of three seconds in a downpour running to the bathrooms. You forget the frying pan? Well okay, cook your over easy eggs in a deep pot with sides, that’s real fun, have fun flipping those little buggers without breaking the yoke. And I could go on and on.

If you’re one of the lucky ones, camping involves actual hot showers and running water facilities of some type. But it doesn’t always. And by the end of the weekend if you haven’t showered, you’re packing up to go home feeling like a real dirty, yucky, smelly human. You’ve got sixteen to eighteen layers of bug spray on, three days worth of applying deoderant on top of deoderant, your hair wreaks of campfire smoke and there’s an invisible layer of soot on your face. Your feet are filthy and your ankles covered in mosquito bites. Sooo much fun.

And yet, despite me feeling like the cons outweigh the pros, I still find myself romanticizing spending a part of my summer vacation, camping. It LOOKS like it’s so much fun. I know that it’s not. But some little messed up voice inside me says I should be doing it, trying it out again. And so I continuously fight with myself about it.

Will I end up camping again at some point? Probably. Will I hate every second of it? Probably.