With vacation now being over and my family back home to our normal routines, I have some time to reflect on the experience of camping in a Michigan State park (you know, with tents, sleeping bags and stuff). I have no other thoughts to give at the moment, and I also feel that it is time to give the egging on of Wabash controversies a break for some time.
With this article, I am breaking a staunch Wabash College Odyssey mandate set by EIC Steve Bazin '18. He once said something to the effect of "I will hunt you down like in the Hunger Games" if any of us ever wrote a "list" article. However, as this is my first and probably last one of this type, I want to put down my sentiments on some less-than-ideal elements of a camping experience, in all of their gut-wrenching horror.
One of my best friends, an Eagle Scout and, therefore, acquainted with "roughing it" in the woods, always said that, "If you are not roughing it, you are not really camping". This may be a little paraphrased, but it lets me know that for some, the horrors of filth and ill peace are meant to be. All of it is by way of negative states of nature: no civility and no modernity. At the least, I want the benefit of a clean bathroom instead of an effectual hole in the ground.
I now present the three elements of "roughing it" that I hate about camping, whether it be in a state park or other ground. As a disclaimer, I am basing some of this on encounters had with our recent camping vacation in Silver Lake, Michigan. However, the same complaints have been consistent with other camping experiences.
1. More often than not, the bathroom is a den of heathens.
Just imagine walking into the men's bathroom at a state park campground, it already being humid and sticky outside from a nice rain, and finding all of the toilets with feces in them. Also, bugs of various sorts have mysteriously landed in the sinks and shower floors and have remained there, dead. On many park camping trips, I have had to do my business, shower, and brush my teeth in this environment. Many times, I have to refrain from going into this place because of the stench, or because a toilet has flooded over. The tile is always soiled with dirt and whatever else, flies are everywhere, and the Satan's Spawning run through the bathroom like it is their playground.
2. Camping, especially in a state park, prompts you to despise children.
Also try to imagine hearing a 5-year old screaming that she stubbed her toe - at 11:30 at night, while you are inside your tent trying to sleep through the humidity. It then takes an hour for the brat to stop blubbering, only for you to be met with another child "getting it" because he dropped a candle. You almost wish you could chloroform these children to shut them up, or for them to grow up and not act like heathens (the same heathens that will flood the bathroom). Now, you may be thinking, "Oh, Brand is just being a hard-ass." I understand that they are only kids, and that I should not expect them to be totally mature. However, something's got to give for some of us to have a little peace.
3. You always wish that the weather would cooperate.
Typically after it rains for however many hours, the campground turns into a sticky, sweaty environment of near-sheer misery. You may be thinking that I just have to man up to overcome this inconvenience, but I would wager that a nice breeze every so often would be welcome to your camping experience. Even if there is ample shade, that still doesn't mean anything. I hate it when my shirt becomes an at-capacity chamois, when my tent is 10 degrees hotter than it is outside, and, because of the heat, when any ice in a cooler melts faster than Michael Phelps can swim a butterfly. Sweating all over yourself is a nightmare that becomes real. It drains your energy and your sanity.
Because of all of this, you can't wait to get out to civilization, find some air conditioning, or to be alone without this drama that accompanies camping. Camping itself does have some material merits, and there is plenty of opportunity for family bonding. But seriously, is a quiet, clean stay in the woods too much too ask?
