A Camping I Will Go...

In three days, I am going camping in Yosemite National Park. Excited? Oh, you bet'cha.

Bob and I and three other couples, friends of ours from LA, will be tackling the great outdoors in a grand adventure for the history books. We will be spending Friday and Saturday on the lighter, easier trails, then we'll cap off the weekend on Sunday with a 16-mile hike all the way to Half Dome.

We have the tent. We bought it this past weekend, a brand spankin' new Columbia tent. We set it up last night in our apartment and quickly realized that sleeping in it should feel just like home, since it's the size of our entire living space. We have the sleeping bags - I have my first new sleeping bag ever. We have the marshmallows - ginormous marshmallows at that. We've both been working out to up our endurance for the hike. We are ready, and SO excited.

All that said, this trip holds some significance for me in another way. This is my chance to reclaim my identity as an "outdoor girl". I've been too Urban/Suburban for too long, and it shows. I have no idea how to commune with nature in the camping sense.

It's not like I've never been camping before. When I was little, my family used to go every year, up until about the age of 9 when my sister put her foot down and said she was NOT going to spend the night in the great outdoors when there were these lovely inventions called hotels, with bug control, indoor plumbing and cable. After that, family vacations switched from roughing it to restauranting it. We were typically on vacation for the beach and the food.

Still, those early years had established within myself the belief that I was an outdoor girl.  I was a camper, a tough chick, able to take on any leaf, dirt or element nature had to offer. I wasn't timid in the outdoors, worried about my nail polish. No, I was one of those girls who could match skill for skill with any boy scout.

I carried this belief all the way through college, until a couple of friends of mine and I went camping in the beautiful Red River Gorge in Kentucky. Just as I am now, I was so excited to go camping then. And I remember talking about how I wasn't one of those "girly girls", how much I loved getting into the earth, etc, etc.

Well, guess what? Years away from roughing it had made me soft.

Once we established our camp site, we all went off to gather firewood. My dear friends Hannah and Ruth grabbed up logs and timbers like they were stuffed animals, hugging them close and toting them off with amazing strength. I came upon a log, gingerly picked it up with two fingers so as not to get dirty or buggy, and walked it back. Half-way to the fire pit, I realized what I was doing, and was instantly shocked. This was what a girly-girl did. I was NOT a girly-girl. Still, I couldn't quite bring myself to wrap my whole hand around that nasty, dirty log.

"Starter stuff", I thought to myself, "I'll get leaves and bark to start the fire. The other girls are getting so many logs anyway. We need starter stuff." And, between you and I, it was much less messy. Away I went. I found a tree near our campsite that was just shedding bark. Easy. One giant piece in particular was hanging off the tree. I grabbed it, pulled it back, took one look, jumped back and gasped, too surprised for a scream. There, attached to the tree, hiding behind the bark, was this small, black ball of fur. It was breathing.

I just stared at it for a full minute, repulsed, before I slowly approached it to see what I was. It turned out to be a bat, hanging out, waiting for dark. It gave me the willies. I jumped back as soon as I had identified it and ran back to the camp site, afraid it would fly off the tree and into my hair. By then, there was enough stuff to start a fire, and the standard camping commenced.

We didn't get to finish our camping adventure. We woke up at 3:00 AM drenched. The tent was missing its rain flap, and we had assumed it wouldn't rain. Well, it did, and so in the wee hours of the morning we packed up all of our stuff, walked back to the car and drove home. I was cold, wet and muddy. When I got back to my dorm, I took the longest, hottest shower you can imagine, lathered myself up with sweet-smelling soaps and lotions, curled up in my cozy bed and slept like a rock.

That camping trip was the first time I realized that I was a girly-girl. All of these pre-conceived notions I had about my "rough and tough" status were broken, hour by hour. I was NOT a natural outdoorsy person. I was comfortable indoors, away from bugs and black, breathing things on trees. I liked long, hot showers, and as I learned, didn't like dirt as much as I thought I did. What had happened to me? I had gone soft.

But come to think of it, camping is much different when you're a kid. Who sets up the tent? Daddy. Who brings the food? Mom. My only concern was whether I was going to have a mini box of corn pops or a mini box of frosted flakes for breakfast, a luxury reserved only for camping. We were always on official camping sites, which meant there was a bathroom/shower area nearby. It was northern Michigan, so the only wild animal I had to worry about was the occasional skunk meandering through our camp site after dark, and the only bugs I had to worry about were daddy-long-leg spiders. And my father was always there to swat them away if need be.

I WANT to be a camping girl, though. I WANT that identity back. I have these grand visions of me scaling walls on the sides of mountains, kayaking down rivers and building my own fire as I warm myself after a strenuous day of hiking.  I want to be a rock climber, a hiker, a trail runner, spending my vacations in a tent.

Yosemite is giving me that opportunity. This is it, my chance to both redeem myself from the last embarrassing experience and establish myself once again in the outdoors. This is my chance to be who I want to be, dirt under the finger nails and all.
We'll have to use bear boxes to protect against Black Bear's wandering into the site. We'll be responsible for our own food, clothing, water and shelter. It won't be completely rough - we will be on an established campsite with bathrooms, and bless my friend Brittany for bringing her stovetop espresso maker - I can't give up all of life's luxuries all at once. Baby Steps.

But all in all, Yosemite will be more for me than just a good time with friends. I am prepared to come back a changed woman, one less interested in hotels, one planning vacations around places I can pitch my tent. I am ready and willing. Mother Nature, make me a real woman of the land.

Now if I could only decide whether or not I should bring my make-up with me...