roughing it

"I've been thinking and I'd like to try camping."

In the decades we’ve been together, rarely have I surprised my husband more than when I uttered the sentence above. He had been mentioning camping off and on for years and never once had I agreed to go.

The closest we had come was renting a small RV in New Zealand a few years earlier. It was winter there, and really chilly and rainy, so while we stayed each night in gorgeous campgrounds around the middle of the North Island, we didn't fully live the experience the way we might have had it been warmer. We spent our evenings snug and warm in our metal cocoon, well away from the rain and cold air.

As for tent camping, I had never been willing to try spending the night in a nylon shelter out in nature. I had gone tent camping twice with my family when I was a child, and one of those excursions had involved a leaky tent, a massive rain storm, and a looooooong wet night.

Also, I am terrified of snakes and have heard many tales of snakes crawling into tents and sleeping bags. So any time my husband mentioned us going camping, I was not one bit interested in his plans because I was sure a snake would want to cuddle with me.

This is all to explain my guy’s surprise at hearing me say that I'd like to try camping. In fact, because we were at that moment sitting in a bar on a beach in Barcelona and celebrating his 50th birthday, he was pretty sure it was the alcohol talking, not my actual thinking brain.

But I was sincere in my interest and not at all inebriated. In fact, I had been considering this idea for months.

What had started me on that mental path was a conversation with friends about saying yes. Saying yes to new things, saying yes to last-minute opportunities, saying yes to ideas that I hadn't considered. In short, having a growth mindset.

For some reason, camping came to mind as something I really should try. Of course, me being me, I had to quietly overthink this idea for a while before presenting it to my husband.

But the words were now uttered aloud and the birthday drinks were flowing, so we started talking about the possibilities. The conversation continued throughout our vacation as we considered various ideas for an easy first camping attempt when we got home.

We decided to start with a weekend at a state park a few hours from our house. Our trip to Barcelona was in early September and because of our schedules, we couldn't get away until late October or early November. This meant the likelihood of cold nights, but we were game. We’d just pack more blankets.

Now we needed to decide WHAT we would camp in. A tent? Our minivan?

As it happened, after we had returned from that New Zealand trip, my husband had bought some basic camping gear, including a tent that he optimistically bought, but no neither our teenagers nor I were interested in sleeping in it. And as we considered our forthcoming autumnal camping adventure, I was still not at all interested in sleeping in the tent.

We compromised -- we would pack the tent but also be prepared to sleep in the back of our minivan. With the seats folded down, we could create a cozy sleeping area that would fit both of us.

We spent the next six weeks making lists and gathering gear. Since this was the first foray, we decided not to buy anything else camping-related. We would borrow a few things but would otherwise make do with what we had (which was plenty).

On a sunny Saturday morning on the first weekend of November, we loaded the van with way too much stuff and set off. The temperatures were in the upper 60s and it was a beautiful day. We got to the campground mid-afternoon and set up the tent. I was still dithering about where to sleep but we decided to inflate the air mattress in the tent and make up the bed. We could always move things to the back of the van later.

We set up our camp kitchen, pulled out our comfortable seats, and generally played house at our campsite with great enthusiasm. As the sun set, we ate dinner and added more layers of clothes for warmth. We had a pleasant evening looking at the stars and talking quietly. Bedtime was at 9:00 because we were tired and because it was getting damn chilly.

Let me tell you about our bed setup: We had put a doubled-up tarp under the tent as a tiny bit of insulation. Then we put another folded tarp under the air mattress for the same reason. We spread out a sleeping bag under the fitted sheet for even more insulation, then made up the bed with the top sheet, two quilts, another unzipped sleeping bag, and a wool blanket on top.

At no point did it ever occur to us to either sleep individually in the sleeping bags or to zip them together into a big double-sized one. Yes, we’re amateurs.

We got into bed and fell asleep quickly. The outside air temperature was still in the mid-50s, but over the next few hours, the temps fell into the 40s. Around midnight I woke up shivering from the cold. I rolled closer to my husband, who is basically a human furnace, and dozed off.

A short while later, I woke up shivering again. My husband had rolled away from me, so I scooted closer. Again, I dozed. When I woke up, every part of me touching my man was sweating, while every part of me not touching him was as cold as I had ever been.

This went on all night: I would sleep for maybe 30-45 minutes, then wake up freezing, except where I was snuggled up against my husband. I'd turn over to thaw out my frozen parts against him and doze off, only to wake up again absolutely freezing. And every time I did this, he woke up too.

And at some point, we realized that the brand-new air mattress we were sleeping on for the first time had a slow leak.

It was a long, somewhat miserable night.

Oh, and remember how it was the first weekend of November? The time change was that night, so we gained an extra hour. An extra hour of cold body parts and poor sleep.

By 4:15, I was on my phone looking up the closest Walmart because I was determined to buy an electric blanket and extension cord for our second night of camping.

The sun rose around 7:00, at which point my husband got up to make coffee. As he crawled out of the tent, he noticed something rather important: The second sleeping bag and wool blanket were piled up at the foot of the mattress where he had kicked them off early in the night when he got too warm.

We had been shivering all night under two highly insufficient cotton quilts.

My wonderful husband spread out the blankets on top of me and continued outside to make coffee. I eventually thawed out enough to emerge from my cocoon.

Considering the night we had just had, I was in a great mood and surprisingly not at all upset about the blanket fiasco or the lack of sleep. Our second night in the tent would be just fine; we'd just reconfigure the blankets a bit. I wouldn't even need to go to Walmart.

Again, not once did it occur to us to zip the sleeping bags together.

As we sat outside the tent and drank our coffee, we considered the day ahead. We had brought our bikes and were planning a 20-mile ride with a lunch stop in the middle. Then we'd come back to the campsite and enjoy the beach a bit before dinner. We weren't at all worried about a second cold night.

Then I glanced at the weather app on my phone and made an unpleasant discovery: A huge storm, with heavy rain and serious wind, was expected the coming night.

After some discussion, we realized that we could not risk camping in a storm like that. We completely packed up our campsite, then went for our bike ride. By mid-afternoon, we were back and loading our bikes onto the back of our minivan. We made the drive back home and slept in our own bed that night.

In spite of the long, cold night, we had a great mini adventure. We haven't camped since then, but that's partly because life has gotten in the way. We’ll do it again sometime.

But so help me, we’ll rent a little camper or teardrop trailer next time.