Camper Confessions

You are doing something wrong if your camping trip doesn't end with a visit to InstaCare.

Cue why I don't particularly like to camp. Camping does not bring fond memories of my childhood back to me. We went three times growing up. Once, when I was about 18 months old, and I touched all the dead fish that had washed up onto the shore and then subsequently spent the next two days puking my brains out. The experience scarred my mom so bad (since my twin brother was doing the same thing on the other side of the van on our way to the closest motel) that we didn't go again until I was nearly a teenager. Then we went twice in consequtive years. I don't recall anything bad happening. It was a lot of fun. But my dad isn't much of an outdoors kind of guy and my mom hated the organization of it all and the rest of us just didn't care that much and so we didn't go after that. We went to Europe and Mount Rushmore and Nauvoo instead. Much more my type of vacationing.

When I married Wade, we spent a lot of time backpacking, though we did do some car camping on occassion. And, since starting to have kids, we've fallen into a routine where we get out once a year with friends. It's plenty for me.

Four things that I hate are being cold, not feeling well, lack of sleep, and all of the above happening at the same time.

Thursday, we headed up camping with Wade's brother, his brother's family and some mutual friends of which we all have an intertwining friendship with. Despite my misgivings with camping, I realize that it was an important part of pretty much everyone else's life growing up and so I try to go along with it. I like what Wade's co-workers from India say: You spend all this time and money to get a good job so you can get a good home and then for fun you want to go spend the weekends living in primative conditions and sleeping in tents?

Thursday, during the day, I felt the beginnings of a bladder infection coming on. I get them fairly frequently and I know of a few tricks to keep the symptoms at bay. Unfortunately, it had already progressed past that point. However, we've been planning this trip for a while and I had spent a lot of money at Wal-mart (camping isn't cheap, no matter what anyone says) and I didn't want to disappoint, so I kept my mouth (mostly) shut. I thought maybe I could flush it out with a lot of water.

Um...no.

At the risk of sounding a little like grandma's monthly newsletter that goes into a lot of detail about these kind of things (hey, it's a small town, she's 89, there's not a lot going on. A bladder infection could really be the highlight of the month. Don't judge) I'll spare you the details except to say that the symptoms only got worse when I was sitting, standing, or laying down. In short, I was pretty miserable.

I awoke yesterday morning after not having slept all that much (note to self: don't wear watch to bed when camping) and stumbled my way through the day. The rain (lots and lots of rain) didn't help my mood any and I was only feeling worse by the hour. Come nightfall, coupled with being cold and wet and already tired, I was not a happy camper. At 3:15 in the morning, I sat up in our tent and annouced to Wade that I hated camping and I was miserable. Wade, to his credit, sweetly replied, "what's wrong, honey?" I, taken back by such a sweet-natured response to his obviously crazy wife, calmly replied back that I was done with the rain (hello? Three weeks of rain?), I didn't feel good, and I wanted to go home. I stopped short of crying for my mommy, but don't think the thought didn't cross my mind. I believe Wade even muttered something about my hormones, which deserved a smack at the least, but I was too cold and miserable to venture over to his side of the tent.

Come to find out, Wade doesn't even remember the conversation. He was apparently sleep talking, which would explain his sweet reply to my crazy rant. But not his "hormone induced" comment.

After another sleepless night, I emerged from the tent and made my way for the upteenth time to the bathroom. My body finally screamed "you nimwit, get some help before I really make this miserable" (details aren't necessary, but it was blatantly obvious things were in fact going to get a lot worse) and Wade and I scrambled to get our gear packed and home. We would've stopped at InstaCare on the way, but remember how bad you smell once you leave the campsite? You love the smell of the campfire when you're sitting in it's wake, but as soon as you're packed away in the car, you realize that it's a very revolting smell. So, after showering, I made a trip back into Salt Lake and InstaCare and now get the added benefit of orange sweat, and pee--a side effect of the medication.

A note of apology to my fellow campers, of which I was especially cranky with this morning. Wade knew I was having a bit of a problem, but I don't think he realized how bad it really was. Other than that, I'm not sure anyone else picked up on it, and just thought that I was having a terrible time with camping in general. Which I wasn't. I was actually having a lot of fun except for this minor wrench in the plans. And so an apology for being the wet blanket on everyone's morning.