Posted on by Jacquie Biggar

Camping Woes


In Canada, it’s the Victoria Day long weekend. It’s finally time to get your planting done.

It’s the first weekend of summer, so camping is a must for many families. On our very first camping trip, we’d bought ourselves a supposedly idiot proof tent and headed to the beautiful Rocky Mountains, Jasper, Alberta.

First off, I’m scared to death of bears, so why I thought I could stay in a tent, IN THE WOODS, I’ll never know.

We get to the campsite around lunchtime, and thinking the tent would take an hour at the most, decide to have lunch and do a little exploring first. If you ever get the opportunity, go see the Athabasca Falls, beautiful.

But I digress. Arriving back at camp around three, we proceed to open the box holding the tent. There were an awful lot of pieces in that box. No problem, my DH says, we can do it.

There were problems, many problems. Soon steam was rising from both our ears as ‘a’ wouldn’t quite fit into ‘b’ the way it was supposed to. So I must have read the directions wrong, right? He wasn’t listening to my clear directions, correct?

Some kind neighbouring campers, overhearing our bickering as dusk fell, took pity on us and came over. They put the tent together in two minutes flat. We must have been close,

When it turns dark in the mountains, it’s really dark. There were No street lights, why were there no lights? The tent had No solid walls to protect us from whatever was rustling those bushes at the edge of the campsite.

Then I had to use the washroom. Everything, EVERYTHING, throws a shadow when you’re using a flashlight. I swear to God, my life flashed before my eyes so many times on that trip to the outhouse, I grew a head of grey hairs.

Back in the tent, I tossed, I turned. Hubby snored. I froze, I’d never been so cold in my life.

Tenting was not all it was cracked up to be. I slept in the car. With the doors locked.

IMG_1389

This is more my speed, 🙂

How about you? Any camping trips you’d like to share?

4 Replies to “Camping Woes”

  1. I was living in southern Alberta when my dear bff and hubby said they were coming to go camping at our usual spot. Beautiful scenery, I took some time and started teaching me adorable god daughter how to swim. To this day she loves the water! It was a beautiful week end except very very hot. No shade as we are in southern Alberta. Bff’s hubby sunburnt, and I don’t mean just a slight burn. I have never seen anyone turn purple from a sun burn until that week end. I cried for him it looked so painful. Now, you all must note that bff’s husband and I we have a love hate relationship, we love to drive each other crazy so of course, I couldn’t tell him I felt bad for him. He spent the whole rest of the camping trip either sitting in the shade of their tent trailer, sitting inside their tent trailer or in the water completely covered by water to his chin. Miss those camping trips, so many memories!

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Lol, this made me smile. I’d forgotten how burnt he was that weekend. Poor guy. To this day, he looks for the shade before we set up camp, 🙂
      Thanks for the memory and have a wonderful weekend, my friend.

      Liked by 1 person

  2. Tent camping is often romanticized by those who have never gone — and I believe it is best experienced by the very young. Years ago my husband and I, along with our kids, spent nearly every weekend volunteering with a rafting company. Beautiful scenery, great camp food (everything tastes better with a hint of wood smoke), and lots of fun, until it came time to go to “bed.” No one else seemed to have trouble sleeping, but I couldn’t escape my husband’s snoring or the cold. I spent my nights shivering in the sleeping bag and praying for the dawn. I thought of it as an acceptable trade-off to spend time with the family, but I was also happy to get home to my cozy, comfy bed.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Totally agree with you Cate, my enjoyment came from my family’s enjoyment. I was okay as long as we camped somewhere I thought of as ‘safe’ such as big campgrounds or southern Alberta, but whenever we went out to the bush, my DH’s favourite, I lived in fear. I developed a whole new appreciation for my bed when we went home, that’s for sure,
      Thanks so much for sharing your story, take care.

      Like

Comments are closed.