It’s inevitable that at some point during a camping trip, I begin to do math. The math goes like this: tent site $25 a night, firewood, $4 a bundle, $x ice, $x propane for the stove, $x food, $x gear that needed to be replaced, gas, quarters for the showers, etc., etc. all of which lead to an equals sign on the other side of which is the cost of staying in a cheap roadside motel. At some point shortly thereafter, it usually begins to rain.
So why do we do it? I reflected on this during three nights of camping with Kris and our three kids in Franconia Notch last week (today’s my last official day of a week’s vacation). The reflection was especially potent as the first night of camping coincided with my 40th birthday, a milestone at which questions like “Why do I do X?” become especially significant. There’s a sense here of time beginning to tumble a bit more wildly, of the slope getting steeper, and the bottom coming on up a bit faster than it ever has before. Given that, it seems more important than ever to know why you do the things you do, and whether they are really things that you want or have to do.
So given that camping’s not a heck of a lot cheaper than a cheap motel, and it’s about a hundred times the work, and it requires a degree of abandonment to dirt and discomfort, to being too cold, or too warm, etc. what’s the point? I think part of it is the work itself. The rhythm that you begin to pick up around the camp site as you attend to the business of cooking, of cleaning, of setting up and taking down, of splitting wood and building fires and hiking off to the bathrooms or the showers or the camp store for some forgotten implement. The work connects you with the place and lets you become a part of it in a way you don’t if you just get out of a car and look at it. It connects the way a long run down a stretch of back road connects you in a way that a drive does not. It connects you intensely with the people you camp with, and provides countless opportunities for instructing the children, not only in the skills of outdoor survival, which are useful, but also in patience, fortitude, courtesy and active detachment from the blobs of data that cable lines stream into televisions and computer screens back home.
In any case, we had a lovely, if at times challenging, trip to Franconia Notch, at it was eerily beautiful to feel the kids laying up memories in their own skulls that must have so many common images of stark mountains and blue skies with my own, hardly faded, childhood recollections. The White Mountains are one of most beautiful places in the whole country, and I swear the hair on my arms raises up a bit in an almost numinous sort of awe whenever I pass that spot around Plymouth, where the land really begins to change. One of the great pleasures of parenthood is sharing the things you love with your children, and an even greater pleasure is when they respond to them the same way you do. At one point we were walking up a path and I heard Sofia stop behind me, and then gasp. I thought she’d been stung by a bee, or walked into a clump of nettles. I turned and saw her staring up at the great, sheer faces of the mountains around us as though she’d just noticed them for the first time. ”Look,” she said. ”Look at the mountains.” And that’s why we camp.
Worth noting that we stayed at Lafayette Campground, which I highly recommend for those looking for a less commercial-feeling, more rustic-style camping experience. No arcade or tennis courts on site, no RVs set-up for the whole summer with little gardens and outdoor lighting, etc. The sites are in the woods. Only downside might be the unpredictable weather in the Notch. Of course that provides its own share of opportunities as well.
More pictures from the trip here.
Tags: camping, Franconia Notch, hiking
