Little Tent on the Prairie

Fishing isn’t easy. It’s fun most of the time, even when you are just “fishing” and not “catching”. But easy? I think not for a woman. It isn’t the sitting in a boat for hours until your rear end is sore, or having to put squirmy little things on your hook, or taking scaly, slimy toothy critters off of your hook, or tying knots a particular way. That’s the fun part. It’s everything else!

When we bought our first boat, we felt the freedom to go anywhere to fish. But where to go? We had no idea. But we put a tow package on the SUV and we were ready to go. Or were we? Where are we going to stay on these trips (read: sleep). Okay, the first year we got some motel rooms, when we were lucky enough to find one with room to park the truck with the boat attached. We decided that camping would suit us better most of the time.

Camping?

Sleeping is always an adventure. We started out with an ordinary air mattress in the back of the SUV. Not bad, unless it leaks. We once went looking for a store to purchase a new one...and we had no idea where we were! But after driving around for over an hour we found a Kmart and sat in the parking lot blowing up the queen sized mattress with our own breath. We got back to the campsite, made up our bed, and almost immediately got a hole in the new mattress. Oh, my aching back from sleeping on the floor of that truck! Like concrete! Dressing and undressing laying down in the back of an SUV is something you just have to try to be able to understand! If you wait until after dark, you may be able to open the truck doors, duck in between them, strip off your clothes, change quickly, and jump back in the truck and try to get tucked in your sleeping bag. Or, you can do what we did and get.....a tent! Not just an ordinary tent, but one that attaches to the rear compartment of the SUV allowing you to move from the tent to the truck and vice versa in complete privacy (as long as the lights are out at night). Heaven! I can get dressed standing up! Even have a chair in the tent! All of the gear that used to get stored in the front seat is now in the tent since we still sleep in the truck. All of the comforts of home - almost. No bathroom for those middle of the night interruptions!


Ladies room? Okay, some weren’t bad. We found one in a state park in Virginia that was great! Unisex showers (separate from the toilets) large enough for two if necessary, with a nice sized bench for whatever you need a bench for, free hot water, and even little wire shelves for your toiletries so you aren’t digging into your stuff with water dripping from your hands and your hair and soaking everything you brought with you. Then there was the shower house that hadn’t been cleaned in years...spider webs everywhere, holding spiders and other creepy things. There were holes in the floor boards where you could see the ground! I was concerned about snakes! Most showers are somewhere in between, and I have learned to also judge them by the proximity of electricity to a mirror. There was one that had the outlet located away from the mirror...about one foot further than my hair dryer cord would reach. Lighting is important also, imagine being in a dim, wet bathroom for any period of time, wanting to have styled hair and applied makeup, and you’ll know what I mean. Makeup just doesn’t look the same when applied in daylight (at the picnic table in the campground for all to watch) or by car-light and visor mirrors.

There is no ladies room on an 18 foot boat. What do you do when nature calls? Thankfully you are required to carry a bucket (all the better to bail with, if necessary) which can double as a makeshift potty. Dump it over the side and rinse, stick it back in storage. Be discreet, don’t do it when there are people sitting on their decks 5 feet away. Don’t use it when there is a sailboat just drifting past. No, wait until you are in the middle of the lake with 3 foot waves and try to balance in a squatting position shooting the moon and hit that little bucket. Go ahead, I dare you. It’s different at the campground...you can go to the shower house/toilet that is probably only about 500 yards or so away. How fast will my little legs go? Pretty fast for an old broad! What about at 3 a.m. when you are all snuggled up, nice and warm, and you get that feeling? Try not to think about it and go back to sleep. Or just get the heck up and decide whether or not you should put shoes on before leaving the tent to do what you have to do just outside the door. We did get smarter last year and got a port-a-john with a female adapter. It’s a pee bottle with the most unusual looking adapter you have ever seen. At least you don’t have to go outside. Crawl back into the sleeping bag and get comfy, close your eyes, and about that time, since he is awake anyways, he will decide to make the same trip. Oh, and did I mention....no toilet paper?


Food? I do not cook when camping. We eat out locally at some of the most unusual places. How about the quaint little tavern that had no screens in the windows and no air conditioning? Actually they didn’t have much food either. We thought a burger would be a safe choice, but we were so busy swatting the hundreds of mosquitoes we could only imagine what was happening in the kitchen. Oh, and no draft beer...only cans! Now that’s roughing it! We have found a couple of little gems, like the diner that boasts a 10¢ cup of coffee, where we ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, meat, potatoes, OJ, and toast for about $4. In our favorite camping places we know the restaurants we like, what and when their specials are, and whether or not they have a bar (and Miller Lite). Subway sandwiches for lunch hold up well on the boat, and we have had some other sandwiches that were nearly inedible (mayo = soggy) with mystery meat, orange cheese, and brown salad on them. Again, we can usually find a decent sandwich or at least some chips and candy bars to keep us upright until dinner. Dinner? Did someone say dinner? We look for a good steak joint or an Italian restaurant. Or anyplace serving food. We always visit a nearby Red Lobster, if available, for the Ultimate Feast, yum. Crab legs (all you can eat on Saturday) at Cinderella’s. We eat very well wherever we go.

Weather? This is a very important consideration! I would advise against going camping if a hurricane is expected. We’ve had some high winds, but nothing damaging. It helps if you have a teenage boy sleeping in the tent like we do now and then, but sometimes they are hard to rent.

The sun is not my friend, except when the temperature falls below freezing and there is a 40 mph wind blowing across the lake. Dressing up like a toddler in a snowsuit makes fishing a little tough. If truth be told, when the water is very cold I really don’t care if I catch anything since my fingers will freeze taking my catch off the hook. (“oh honey, can you help me for a second?”) There have been times when we have searched for a place to get out of the wind, if only for a few minutes to eat a half-frozen sandwich.

The sun is not my friend on the boat when its 95 degrees and the air is totally still. That is, of course, until I get out my large umbrella made just for the occasion, attach it to the base to my seat, and pop up the umbrella and get it situated to allow me enough shade to strip off the long sleeves and long pants that I always wear. (Don’t get excited, the pants zip off at the knee and I always wear a tank top also). As soon as I begin to feel my body temperature begin to descend towards normal, a gust appears, blowing the umbrella to where I am not sitting and placing me squarely in direct sunlight, and usually turning the umbrella inside out and rendering it absolutely useless. Forever! Or at least until another one is purchased for another $50.

Rain isn’t my friend either. Well, actually the rain isn’t bad when fishing because I have rain gear to take care of that. Frog Toggs. Lightweight. Breatheable. Yeah, right. Okay, they work. Usually. But often with rain comes thunder, and with thunder comes lightning. Do I want to be the highest thing on the water in an aluminum boat in an electrical storm? Not likely. I can’t tell you how many times we have had to outrun the storm. Once we didn’t make it. I couldn’t even see my feet, let alone where we were headed. He drove, I prayed. I really prayed. For my life! Naturally by the time we got the boat out of the water the sun was making an appearance, but we were drenched. Our campsite was a mud hole. I couldn’t get to the hot showers quickly enough. It was days before the mud under my toe nails disappeared.

Once it rained for practically the whole trip. Mud everywhere! In the tent, in the boat, in the truck...you get the picture. What in the heck are you going to do? It isn’t easy to build a campfire in the rain. So you can just sit in the tent and drink yourself silly...if you put the cooler inside the tent. If it’s outside...yup, you get drenched again. Hot showers are good, but you’re going to get wet or muddy (or both) on the way back to the campsite. Or you can try mud wrestling, or go to sleep or .... yeah, that.

Miscellaneous
There are always those unexpected little things that make the trip memorable. For example, once we had a problem when the cooler which was full of ice (and beer) got tipped on the ride to the campground and we ended up with a wet sleeping bag. Of course it just happened to be the coldest weekend we had ever tried to camp, with low temps heading into the sub-freezing range. Fortunately the campground had a washer and dryer, so we spent an hour or so, at 11:00 p.m. pumping quarters into the dryer and laughing like hell.

Then there was the time we left home early in the morning...like at 4:00 a.m. That was fine. We got to the campground and set up the tent. That was fine. We got the boat in the water and fished for a couple of hours. Fine too. By 4:00 p.m. we were pretty tired so we pulled the boat and headed for dinner. By 6:30 we were back at the campground. Now what? No TV, no newspaper. Broad daylight. Little kids squealing with delight as they enjoyed the playground. We went to bed! Well, we were pretty tired.

Laughter. It is essential. If you can’t laugh together at situations that befall you, don’t go camping. If you can’t laugh at yourself, forget it. If you are a fashionista, don’t bother. Don’t take new clothes, and under no circumstances take anything white. If you are high maintenance, better find another hobby. This is not the place for new sneakers.

Neighbors in the campground can be interesting. We once had a coven of a dozen or so witches and warlocks camping next to us. Actually, they stole our site, but we weren’t about to ask for it back. They were all dressed in black, except for one woman who was all in white. At night they sat around the campfire chanting, playing music and singing, although we couldn’t hear the words. When I would see them in the ladies room they looked like normal women, except for their dress.

Once we had a whole bunch of college guys taking up 3 or 4 nearby sites. Now that was fun. Not that we joined them, I just looked at them. Okay, I leered at them. With binoculars. Oh, they were naughty and beautiful, and they knew it. Quality men! Rippling muscles by firelight. A little noisy when you are trying to sleep, but we solved that. Somebody (who shall forever be anonymous) told them that I had quit smoking a couple weeks ago, was off my meds, and that I had a gun. They were really very nice, respectful young men that would make a mother proud. Yeah, right. I made my mother proud, but my man just shook his head.


Well, that’s the story. I know I have plenty more chapters to write with each trip. Things are going to get easier...we are going to buy a camper eventually. You know ... the redneck kind that slide into the back of a pickup truck. First class all the way!

Stay tuned.....