Yes.
There. I answered the question.
I realize that is not exactly the kind of rich, soul-searching reflection the WordPress prompt probably hoped to inspire, but the question was, “Have you ever been camping?” It was not, “Describe your most meaningful camping experience,” or “Explain how sleeping outdoors shaped your character,” or “Tell us about the time you discovered that nature has bugs, rain, mud, and a sincere lack of mattresses.”
It was a yes-or-no question.
And the answer is yes.
But since “yes” makes for a very short blog post, I suppose I should elaborate.
My first real camping experiences came during my very brief and not exactly distinguished career as a Boy Scout. I was in Scouts for about a year, which was apparently just long enough to go on some camping trips but not long enough to learn the actual basics of Scouting. I never even earned the basic Scout rank.
Lazy, lazy, lazy.
Looking back, I wish I had taken it more seriously. My brother, my stepfather, and my nephews all made Eagle Scout, and I probably could have at least made a decent run at it if I had shown a little more diligence. But at that age, diligence and I were not on speaking terms.
Still, I enjoyed the camping trips.
The first one happened on the same weekend as the Florida-Georgia game when the infamous “Run, Lindsay!” broadcast happened. I remember seeing scoutmasters from another troop huddled around a portable television, watching the game out in the woods. For about three hours, they were very happy men.
Then, in one awful instant, Georgia stole the game away.
I am assuming that was the moment the Lindsay Scott play happened, because suddenly the mood around that television changed dramatically. As a Florida fan, I have been forced to relive that moment every year since, because apparently college football believes trauma should have an annual renewal package.
On that trip, I shared a tent with my patrol leader, but somehow I was the one helping pitch everyone’s tents and cook the food. So, naturally, I did some actual Scout-like things while never bothering to become much of an actual Scout.
The next summer, I went to Scout camp. This time, we did not sleep in tents. We slept in shelters, which felt like a slight upgrade — at least until the week produced one of the stranger memories of my childhood.
Let’s just say there was an unfortunate incident involving a soft drink can, a Gatorade cooler, and a terrible decision made by another Scout.
For the record, I did not put anything in the cooler. I have always maintained that. Another Scout took it upon himself to “improve” the beverage situation, and one of our scoutmasters apparently drank quite a bit of the altered Gatorade before someone finally told him what had happened.
His response?
“It’s just spiced up a bit.”
That remains one of the more heroic underreactions I have ever witnessed.
Unfortunately, my fellow Scouts did not respond with the same calm maturity. That night, while I was away from the shelter, several of them decided to hold what can only be described as a deeply inappropriate “Murder on the Orient Express”-style act of revenge against the sleeping bags of both the guilty party and the unfortunate bystander.
I was the unfortunate bystander.
And somehow, I got the worst of it.
One Scout I had befriended took pity on me and helped me get my sleeping bag to a washing machine. We walked around camp for most of the night while the bag was being washed. The good news is that most of the damage was rinsed out.
The bad news is that the washing machine tore a hole in my sleeping bag.
It was never the same.
I never told my parents what happened. Later, when they found the damaged sleeping bag on a shelf in the garage, they assumed a rodent had torn it up.
And you know what?
That was fine with me.
My next major camping experience came with my best friend at the time, Paul Bass. Paul had a Hobie Cat, and he decided it would be fun to sail out to a little islet in the sound between Fort Walton Beach and Okaloosa Island and camp there for the night.
This was the sort of idea that sounds amazing when you are young, adventurous, and apparently not terribly interested in checking the weather.
We packed everything we needed, loaded up the Hobie Cat, and set sail. For a few hours, it really was a lot of fun. There is something pretty wonderful about being out on the water, heading toward a little patch of land, thinking you are about to have the kind of adventure people write fondly about years later.
Then the storm came.
An enormous thunderstorm swept through the area that night. It blew our tent down and left us sheltering under the Hobie Cat, which, for those unfamiliar with Hobie Cats, has a tall metal mast.
That is not the ideal accessory during a lightning storm.
There we were, soaked, sandy, sleepless, and questioning every life choice that had led us to that moment, hiding under a small sailboat while lightning cracked around us. It was one of those experiences that is terrifying while it is happening and funny only after enough time has passed for everyone involved to survive it.
The next morning, we sailed back home, with another thunderstorm chasing us across the water. We made it back just in time for Paul’s mom to make us pancakes.
And honestly, pancakes have rarely felt more earned.
My last real camping experience came in 2006 during the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day in Atlanta. We walked during the day and camped at night in an open field, with rows and rows of little tents set up for the participants.
I shared my tent with a stranger, which is not usually how I would design an ideal weekend getaway, but that trip may have been my favorite camping experience of all.
Part of that was because the camping was tied to something bigger than myself. I was walking in honor of my mother and her struggle against breast cancer. The weekend had purpose. It had meaning. It had a sense of community. Everyone there was tired, sore, emotional, and committed to doing something good.
Now, it was not all beautiful inspiration. On the first day, I had a horrible experience with dehydration, which at the time had me fairly convinced I was sick, dying, or possibly both. But once that passed, the memories I carried from that weekend were overwhelmingly good ones.
So, yes, I have been camping.
I have camped in the woods with Boy Scouts. I have camped on a little island after sailing there on a Hobie Cat. I have camped in a field with hundreds of people walking for a cause that mattered deeply to them.
Some of those experiences were ridiculous. Some were uncomfortable. Some were borderline dangerous. One involved a sleeping bag I still believe should qualify for hazard pay.
But I remember all of them.
And maybe that is the thing about camping. It is not usually comfortable in the moment. The ground is too hard. The bugs are too determined. The weather is too unpredictable. The bathroom situation is often best left undiscussed.
But years later, those are the stories you remember.
You remember the portable television in the woods. You remember the Scoutmaster calmly accepting that his drink had been “spiced up a bit.” You remember the destroyed sleeping bag and the friend who helped you. You remember the lightning storm, the Hobie Cat, and the pancakes the next morning. You remember the field full of tents and the reason you were there.
So, yes.
I have been camping.
And I suppose, if I am being honest, I am glad I have.
Man, those are some experiences 😀