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Car camping and the kitchen sink

You have to admit there’s a certain serenity that comes from the sound of a frustrated slap on the skin as a mosquito draws blood for the umpteenth time.

Yep, serenity.

Sitting in a deck chair looking out at Lillooet Lake and slapping off another mosquito this past weekend I thought to myself: does it really get any better than this on a steamy Sunday afternoon when you live in B.C. and you don’t have a lot of money?

I don’t doubt that I could find serenity on a beach in Thailand or a five star resort in Mexico but it’s not really the same thing.

I’m talking of course about the kind of serenity that comes with that great Canadian pastime – car camping. That’s when you actually believe you’re roughin’ it in the Wild West, forging new trails, at one with nature.

You have to find a place to sleep, set up your shelter, make a fire, cook your food over an open flame, protect yourself from animals, and pee in the bush. It’s all very primitive. Isn’t it?

It didn’t seem very primitive two weeks ago when I was scarfing down crackers, cheese and mussels by the campfire. In fact, it seemed quite decadent.

The more I go camping with different people, the more I realize that there are professionals out there and we are still mere amateurs. Car camping is a fine art, if you do it right.

We’ve gone with pros for the past two weekends and they weren’t messing around.

To begin, our camping buddies at Lillooet Lake had a list, which they produced in Pemberton when we were getting the groceries.

This wasn’t just any kind of list, hurriedly thrown together on a scrap piece of paper minutes before you leave for the weekend. This was a list from the computer, divided into different categories, for food and clothes and gear etc. Beside each item was a checkmark.

It was only when I was craning my neck over their list that I realized I had forgotten to pack any clothes except for a pair of black pants in case it got cold. Black pants in Lillooet in July? That wouldn’t have happened had there been a list.

Now I’m not a big believer in lists. They tend to depress me. I find that I rarely check things off and as a result the list just gets bigger and bigger until it’s too overwhelming and I throw it out.

Then again, as I went for a swim in my clothes, I could see the importance and relevance of having a list for camping.

But the list wasn’t the only thing along for the ride this weekend.

Take the food for example. We’re used to eating hot dogs (plain), marshmallows (on a stick) and porridge (instant) on camping trips.

These guys woke up and made sausages and scrambled eggs for everyone on Sunday morning.

They even brought the kitchen sink. By that I mean that there was a bowl for washing up, dish soap which was biodegradable nonetheless and a tea towel for drying up.

A tea towel! And after witnessing the many uses of the tea towel this weekend, you can rest assured I will be bringing one along on our next trip, provided we remember to pack it.

We’re used to giving our cups a quick rinse and trying to stomach the distant taste of coffee in any drinks after the morning.

There were deckchairs for everyone. No one had to spend the night propped up against a log or a rock.

There was a five gallon blue plastic jug filled to the brim with fresh tap water. Forget boiling. Forget purifying. Just turn the nozzle and pour.

There were also three coolers filled to the brim with beer.

The only things that made this camping in any kind of sense were the mosquitoes and the campfire.

These people really know how to do things right, I thought to myself. All the comforts of home, right there at their fingertips.

We’re slowly getting the hang of car camping, especially with our latest purchase – the Tarn 2.

The Tarn 2 is our new tent. It’s shiny and clean, it’s waterproof and mosquito-proof, and it’s light and compact. It’s practically palatial compared to our old tent. The best thing about the Tarn 2, as the name implies, is that it’s designed for two people or three people if you’re in a jam.

This simple fact brings camping to a whole new level for us.

Our old tent had just enough room for one.

Now I like to snuggle with the best of them but any one-man tent can be a recipe for disaster in the closest, most compromising of all relationships.

Sleeping on the ground is challenging at the best of times but when you have to roll from your left side to your right in a collective effort, it can start to get a little tiresome.

True, it was very romantic at the start of our relationship but after a year and a half, it’s just not so cute anymore. There were too many lost hours of sleep and too many sore backs.

Somewhere along the way we also lost the fly for that one-man tent so we had to truck a tarp with us everywhere we went to ensure we didn’t drown in the middle of the night. This meant we couldn’t just pick any old site to set up camp. We had tree and rock requirements to consider very carefully.

The funny thing is after all those painful cramped nights, spent tossing and turning and disturbing each other, I thought I would miss that old tent this weekend in the inaugural trip of the Tarn 2. Turns out I didn’t think about it once.

Still there will be other camping trips when the kitchen sink won’t be as welcome, unless some gallant person opts to carry it on his back.

The first three-hour hike to Joffrey Lake or a trip over the Musical Bumps to get to Russet Lake will come as a rude awakening this year I’m sure.

I’m not carrying any dish soap or even a tea towel when it’s hard enough to carry myself to Russet or Joffrey.

That’s when you have to forgo the deck chairs, the cases of beer, the six bags of ice and the water jug.

The only thing you don’t have to give up is the serenity.