Camping

My First Real Camping Experience


I will be the first to admit that I am not a camper. My idea of camping is two queen sized beds, four fluffy pillows on each bed and the sweet sounds of Sportscenter anchors such as Stewart Scott and Dan Patrick serenading me to sleep. So as you can probably imagine when my new girlfriend of a month and a half asked me to go camping for the weekend, I thought to myself, “ohh boy.” But as any guy can attest too, when your girlfriend wants something, you most of the time make that happen for her. It’s never been because I don’t like camping, or that I think that people that do camp are stupid or dumb, it’s just that I don’t enjoy laying on the ground outside in the cold for the whole weekend. I would rather just stay home and relax and watch the occasional Seattle Mariners game. But it wasn’t it up to me this time, so on Friday night after my girl got off work, we headed out to Dash Point State Park for a two night stay before heading back on Sunday morning.
So we get there at about 10:30 on Friday night and we unpack all of our food and supplies for the week and then set up the tent. Tara, my girlfriend, works at REI so not only is she a guru when it comes the outdoor camping stuff but she was able to borrow a tent from REI for the weekend so that she can see the features and when it comes up tell her customers about the pros and cons on the tent. So we set up this huge 4-person tent in the dark with these little head lamps on our head to provide our only light. Tara, unlike me, knew what she was doing when it came to setting up a tent so it was no problem at all once we found where we wanted to put it and what direction we wanted it to face. So the tent is set up, and we decide that were going to cook some hotdogs over the fire before we head to bed. So Tara has purchased some little metal sticks that you put a hotdog on the end of it (I don’t know the correct terminology) and we cooked some fantastic hotdogs over the fire. I don’t know if they were actually that great or if I was just really hungry from not eating most of the day, but they were spectacular hot dogs. About the time that we were done eating and just getting ready to wrap it up for the night we hear, “Uhh, Ohh baby…Ohh baby, keep going, keep going.” At first I thought it was a joke that some kids were playing around, but under further interpretation, that was not it. Apparently there was a couple there that didn’t have enough sex at home, so they found it necessary to get rowdy at the campground. These people must have been four or five campsites down from us, but you could hear them, well actually just her, loud and clear. We never saw these people because we didn’t know who they were or how far away they exactly were but I can imagine for the people camping right next to or across from the baby making tent it would’ve certainly been awkward the next morning. After the fun and excitement was over for that couple, we finally managed to fall asleep in our high-tech sleeping bags and nice air inflated cushioned mattresses, courtesy of my lovely girlfriend.
Ahh, the sounds of birds chirping to wake you up is something that cannot be duplicated in the hotel room, it was very nice. It certainly beats waking up to the sound of a rumbling ice machine down the hall or the sound of a 12-year old baseball team making noise in the room directly above you in which the front desk so conveniently gave them. So camping definitely has that over the hotel room. So after some nice Honey Nut Cheerios me and Tara decided to break out our camera’s and head down to the Sound to walk along the beach and see what the ocean blue has to offer. Little did we know that there was the annual DB Skimboards (dbskimboards.com) competition down on the Dash Point Beach. I have heard of the term skimboarding but I didn’t really know anything about it, let alone have ever seen it in person. Tara and I were both pleasantly surprised when we saw the skimboarders for the first time. We got down there a little before the competition so we wandered down the beach to take some pictures. I was desperately trying to get a picture of a seagull standing on the shore of the water and finally got one that I wanted after a good half hour of tip-toeing up to these birds in attempt to not let them fly away. After drawing in the sand, letting the waves get our feet wet, and taking pictures of different kinds of shells we finally made it down to a dock that was crowded with people fishing and crabbing. As you know by now, I’m not exactly an outdoor kind of guy so I have only been fishing once in my life so it was very interesting to watch these fishermen pull up fish on their poles, and pull up crabs in the crab nets. It was kind of yucky to see the fish get gutted but I guess that is part of the fishing experience. Shortly after that Tara and I continued to walk farther away from the competition, and we didn’t realize that we were on a private beach until somebody came out on their front porch and not so politely asked us to leave. Oh well, he got over it, unfortunately. By this time we started to hear an announcer and some music off in the distance so we started to head back towards the skimboarding competition. I have never seen any competition like this before, it was very new to me and also very impressive with the things that these guys can do with a skimboard. Basically the way it works is all of the people competing in any one division line up at one end of the stream and they go back and forth for about eight minutes with some nice old school R&B going the whole time. The most interesting part of the competition for me was the styles of each of the riders. They all had their own style and own nicknames. There was Luda, Jesus, and Skin Louie just to name a few. After this new and different experience for me, we went back to camp and participated in two things that were not new and different at all, we ate lunch and we took a nice one hour power nap.
What has everybody done at least once every single time they go camping? I have been camping one time now, and every single time that I have been camping we have eaten some S’mores. Tara had some friends that wanted to come camping but something came up, but at least they were able to meet us for a few hours around the campfire to eat some S’mores. This surprisingly was my very first time, that I can remember, that I have ever eaten S’mores, and I must say, what’s with all of the hype? They are ok, and I guess it is the whole idea of just being a camping tradition, but I was not all that impressed. After a four hours around the fire that absolutely flew by (I wish the hours while I’m at my work would fly by that fast), it was time to hit the hay and go to sleep in our 19-person tent. This time there was no yelling woman down the street so it was a little easier to get to sleep, and before I knew it the morning was upon us. We packed up all of our stuff, had a little cereal and we were off. Leaving the campground I realized that while I still wouldn’t consider myself a camper, it was still a very fun weekend where I got to experience some things that I would not have gotten to experience anywhere else that weekend. Through the girl yelling at the top of her lungs, competitors like Skin Louie, and sitting around the campfire roasting marshmallows, I would say that I would be interested in going camping again sometime, any takers??