Like a MAN.

I've never been the happiest camper. In fact, here is a picture that pretty accurately describes my feelings for camping:

I mean, I went to Girl's Camp every year from the time I was 12 until I was 17, and I always enjoyed myself. But let's be honest, I was sleeping on an air mattress in a cabin (with electricity for the last two years), and there were showers, real toilets, and a pool just up the hill. All this was enough to balance out the horror of all that.....nature with all it's bugs and meteorological mood swings. Besides which, I was with my friends, and there were no boys around, so I always ended up looking forward to it rather than dreading it.

However, some people don't consider this real camping. Don't ask me why. I wasn't sleeping in a real bed, and the bathroom was in a different building, so I think it counts. Well, haters, I went "real" camping yesterday. With a tent and a campfire and no pillow. In the wilderness.

The idea to go camping came up last week, and suddenly, Sunday arrived and I was packing an overnight bag and sleeping over at Jackie and Winnie's apartment. No boys were invited. It was just me, Jackie, Winnie, Suiha, and Ashlyn. Five girls. And we decided that, with no boys around, we would have to man up. This would be no ordinary camping trip. It would be a mancamping trip. We woke up on Monday, chose our destination, and went to the grocery store to get food for tinfoil dinners and snacks. The total came to almost $100, and as we were checking out, the lady ringing us up asked us how long we were camping for. "Oh.....just a day."

Getting all the food into the back of Jackie's car proved to be a feat in and of itself.

Rather than making our dinners at the campsite, where they might get dirt in them, we headed over to Coldstone and got to work, slicing potatoes, dicing onions, cutting up hamburger, and mincing carrots. We put everything together and covered it with canned cream of mushroom soup, all sorts of spices, some cheese, and a few tiny pieces of avocado.

The people actually working at Coldstone seemed a little confused that the back table was being taken over but professional chefs. They might have been further confused if they ever noticed that a ladle and cake pan went missing about the time that we left, but whatevs, I'm oves.

We went camping up AF canyon, where there was a nice little campsite all ready for us. We set up our tent on a nice hard slab of asphalt in a surprisingly short amount of time. We splashed through a raging river next to our campsite. We quietly shook our heads at the motor home set up next to us....some people just don't know what real camping is. Everything we did, we did like men. So far, this was easier than anyone had expected!

I guess we decided to put our tent up on the asphalt because we didn't want to accidentally set it up on any rocks or sticks. We wanted to be as comfortable as possible when we finally went to bed.

Our next task was to get the fire going. After a few minutes of gathering sticks and breaking logs with our bare hands, we arranged some of the wood in a tepee shape and sprayed it with lighter fluid. I think we may have used two matches and about twenty seconds to start the fire. So easy! Why do men think they have it hard? Everything was just falling into place for us when we were so much as thinking like men.

Tinfoil dinners are supposed to be cooked on very hot coals, but we were so excited to eat our miraculous dinners and on such a powerful high on account of nothing going wrong for us that we let the fire die quickly and then threw our tinfoil dinners over the barely heated coals. Before long, we decided that hunger trumped safety and we were ready to eat our partially cooked meals. They actually turned out quite delicious, if a little crunchy.

While waiting for night to fall, we played cards, read about animal safety, climbed up a mountain, scooted through a cool tunnel we found, and bought some more firewood.

Once it started getting dark, we went into our castle of a tent to get ready for our fire dance. We went in looking like nice, innocent girls, and emerged looking like primitive warriors. We had our hair done crazily and our faces painted with charcoal eyes shadow, aka war paint. We danced around the fire, blew flames from makeshift torches, and grunted in a very manly fashion.

When we were able to calm down from the fire dance, we sat around the fire and talked for a little bit before retiring back to our tent for bedtime. "What a great trip this has been!" I thought as I put on my leg warmers. "This is so fun!" I thought, unzipping my sleeping bag. "I love camping!"

Thunk. All of a sudden, my whole entire body was uncomfortable. I shifted around. I laid on my stomach, then my back, and then my sides. I did everything but stand on my head and could not get comfortable. I slowly began to remember why camping is, at most, a once-a-year event for me.

But, like a man, I made it through the night. I not only survived, but I also made it home in one piece and was able to clean my apartment, do laundry, and go to work.

Best camping trip ever? I think so :)

Some of my favorite quotes from this trip:

"Oh, thattt's why we brought Ashlyn!" (she pays the camping fee) "Okay, you can get out now."

"I don't fit in my Powder-Puff sleeping bag anymore! I think this was made for little girls...."

"Hmmm, what gave it away?"

"Tonight is going to be a great night!"

"No guys, you breathe it in. Just....here look. You breathe in - " (breath in.) COUGH COUGH COUGH! "Oh, that's how you do it Winnie?"

"We built this with our own bare hands!"

"Don't be jealous of our tent."

"You do realize that whatever food we don't eat, we're going to have to store in jackie's car. And that's going to smell greattt in the morning...." "Eat it ALLLL!"

"Okay, I'm full." "You're finishing your meal or you're not leaving this table!"

"Now I'm starting to get full." "Yeah, me too." "Ooookayyy, so when I say I'm full, everyone attacks me about how I have to eat more, and now everyone else is full and suddenly it's okay?" "Yeah well, we ate twice as much as you had when you said you were full."

"At the crime scene, lol."

"We're gonna sleep sooooo good tonight!"

"Heather, time to wake up....." "Ok good, cuz this is really really hard and I am not comfortable!"

"You look like a girly version of Ronald McDonald...."

"99 bottles of beer on the wall...." "No, we're not singing that." "How about five? You can start with just five bottles"

"Do you think that woman's hair is real?"

"She probably stores it all in her boobs."

"Who built this beautiful tent?? It looks awesome! I bet it was a bunch of men...."

"Do you guys take checks? Hahahahaha" "I love how we think we're so funny.....do you guys take checks......like how is that funny?"

"Will Ferrell, fart."

"Guys no one is allowed to be on their period because it'll attract bears and they'll eat us!"

"If you see a bear, do not make eye contact. Bears perceive eye contact as aggressive behavior. Throw sticks and rocks and make a lot of noise. Be aggressive!" .....Well which is it, are we supposed to be aggressive or not?

"Like a MAN"

"Be careful because that toilet like might suck you in. No I'm serious. Like I'm not kidding. If you go in the bathroom and put a piece of toilet paper on the edge of the toilet, just watch, it'll like sit there and blow a little, and then it'll just get sucked in. So be careful!" "Ok, if I don't come back, I guess you know what happened."