Te Joys of Camping
About 12 years ago—when our son McCoy was just a baby—Anika and I decided we’d supplement our sailing adventures by exploring the Pacific Northwest via high- ways and backroads as well, so we purchased a tiny teardrop trailer.
Te trailer was white and red with a pair of tinted sliding windows. A decal with the words “Little Demon” emblazoned the front. Tere was a comfortable double berth, some stowage beneath the cushions, and the whole top of the camper popped-up to afford standing headroom. It was a pretty neat little rig.
On our first outing we managed to get ourselves caught in traffic before finally land- ing at an expensive campground where our reserved spot turned out to be a cement pad with a sparse row of shrubs separating us from our neighbors five-feet away on either side. As we sat at the picnic table swatting mosquitoes, I kept thinking about how we could have avoided the traffic and launched our little sailboat just down the road from our house. Within an hour, and at no expense, we could have been anchored, alone, in a far more inviting setting.
I don’t remember now—probably because I’ve blocked it out—whether it was spring break or some other “holiday,” but one of our immediate campsite neighbors was a car full of eighteen-year-olds. I tried not to listen to their cussing and bragging as they set up their tent, or to their awful music, but it was hard to ignore given our proximity.
Aſter the sun went down we retreated to the trailer and I turned on an AM radio in an attempt to camouflage the drunken revelry taking place footsteps away. It was sometime aſter midnight when I heard one of the campers, presumably urinating on the bushes between our sites, boast to his buddies, “No sleep for me—I’m going all night!”
Aſter trying unsuccessfully to contact the campground host, I began to imagine my- self walking over and doing some horrible things, but Anika helped me regain some perspective by pointing to our infant son asleep between us.
Mercifully, our neighbors passed-out sometime in the early morning hours—not long before our baby began to cry. Of course we didn’t make any effort to quiet him. In fact we decided 5:30 am was as good a time as any to pack-up (we were especially thor- ough with pots and pans) and hit the road. As we drove hastily from the campground I saw a couple of cyclists headed the opposite direction. As we passed I watched their eyes grow big as they suddenly swerved onto the opposite shoulder. I looked in my rear-view to see the words “Little Demon” swinging wildly side-to-side. Functioning on an hour of sleep I’d failed to fully attach the trailer hitch coupler. My next move, predictably, was to hit the brakes, sending the trailer tongue slamming into the back of our Subaru. Boat camping never looked so good.—Joshua Colvin
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Coming soon: James Watson on his cruising sharpie. 8
Disclaimer: Although we try to provide accurate information, we make absolutely no warranty that anything in the pages of SCA is completely accurate. Tis is also true with re- gard to equipment, technique and especially safety. While we all enjoy reading the adven- tures of contributors and interview subjects, readers should not take this information as an implication these activities are safe. Please exercise good judgment.
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