My Experience "Camping"

My first "camping" trip was in my front yard. My dad set up what seemed to be a GINORMOUS tent (cause I was so small) in our front yard when I was knee high to a grasshopper, and my sisters and I all slept in the front yard…at least until I couldn't sleep from all the noise from the bugs around us. The sound seemed almost deafening, and I went back inside the house to actually sleep. The sound was too distracting.

I grew up camping with my grandparents. We'd haul a trailer camper out to Shawnee Forest and set up by Lake Roosevelt, roast hot dogs over the fire, swim in the lake, bike around the camping loops, and "creek crawl". We had some fun times, but it all seems so luxurious and typical of a modern camper. I'd take along every modern convenience I could fit, including battery powered racing cars that I inevitably left out in the rain to ruin. We weren't "roughing it", we were sleeping outside surrounded by modern convenience. I didn't learn a thing about being an outdoorsman from these trips.

I would also camp with my dad in various locations, usually outside of amusement parks we were visiting. I learned a little more from him, but he still did most of the work. I was a teen, and totally didn't mind that arrangement.

At one point when I was 22 years old, I moved into my (then late) grandfathers camper for two weeks. I would rather have lived in a camper than in the situation I found myself in at that time. I stayed there til I could find a place in Columbus, 2 hours north, and escape Scioto County once and for all…

But through those experiences, I never learned to start a fire, or how to live in the woods if need be.

Over the next decade, I'd take a dozen or more camping trips with my then-significant-other. We bought a tent at Walmart for around $40 that fit two people, and we got some hardcore use out of it. We camped in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, at various places in Ohio and Indiana, quite often at Twin Knobs and Zilpo at Cave Run near Morehead Kentucky, once in Salina Kansas on our way through to Colorado, and the most memorable was camping in Yellowstone National Park.



Our (now deceased) golden retriever pup Olive was our shipmate on the Yellowstone trip (photo on the left taken at our Yellowstone campsite), but her yapping got us kicked out of the campground. That's ok, because we had both contracted swine flu and needed to not spend another night in temperatures below 20F. It was fun and totally worth it getting caught and nearly trampled in a bison stampede late one night. It was also the only time I've camped where food had to be put in a steel lockbox to deter bears. It was an intense feeling to think we could be visited by a bear in Yellowstone, and I hoped we wouldn't become a late night snack.

Through my camping experiences with my ex, I learned a lot that I didn't learn as a kid. How to start a fire, how to quickly pitch a tent, etc. We had camping down to a system, and had a big grey tupperware tote always at the ready in case we (she) decided to take a spur of the moment camping trip (they were always her idea, I never planned our trips).

We had a lot of cool camping gear, including a camp stove, the aforementioned tent, a small grill, lanterns, flashlights, and other necessities. But all of that somehow went with her when she left. Not dwelling on the past, this all has a point. Read on.

I'm experienced enough now to know the basics of camping, but have never really challenged myself at it. I've always done what I now see as a modern bastardized version of camping, where you pull your car into a concrete pre-designed lot that is 30 (often less) feet from the nearest neighboring camper (who was often loud and obnoxious). We had plenty of running water, showers, flushing toilets, and many camp sites had electricity. I've never truly experienced life in the woods in its primitive form…and I want that.

I find myself now fantasizing about taking a trip camping in complete isolation from society, where I can truly be alone in the woods for a few days and just take it all in. No modern distractions, nobody's stereo playing fucking Lynard Skynard for the zillionth time, no motor boats on the lake, no engines at all unless it's a plane overhead, and if I don't see another person at all while I'm out I'll be perfectly ok with that…ecstatic even.

Why? It would seem that since I moved away from the natural paradise of the Rocky Mountains, my love for the natural world has grown thousandfold. Not to mention the influence of people like John Muir and Stephen Mather, the Sierra Club, and others, I've found myself finding something in nature I've never really found in a church and have only otherwise found in the arms of the woman I love (my fiancé Laura). What I've found is a spiritual connection that goes deeper than any other connection. I've never found that connection in a church or brick-and-mortar manmade institution. I've only ever found it in the things that come naturally to us as humans. This includes the deep love I have for Laura, the deep love I have for our two daughters, and in getting back to the natural world and away from distractions and stresses.

I find myself desiring some time away from the world as a whole. I have some big decisions on my plate to wrap my head around. After my exit from the label I founded, and with the possibility of closing my studio, what is to come next? Who am I? What do I want? I know where I want to go, but that's a long term goal. How do I want to get there? Do I even still want it, or am I just clinging to a perceived goal and telling myself to push forward without analyzing it to see if it's still logical? If not, what DO I want? How do I get there?

I also need a break. I'm far from the point of being stressed out and frazzled by my girls, but with teenagers on the autism spectrum life can get stressful. Although I don't equate the two, some studies suggest that the stress level of autism parents is paralleled by that of combat troops. While I'm not facing bullets, I am always needing to be on the ready and act at a moments notice. I've got to triple check locks to ensure they can't get into things that could hurt them, or escape the house and be lost to us forever. A lot is riding on my shoulders, and if I screw up it could be a HUGE deal.

So we've both opted to try to keep something for ourselves that we can use as a decompressor, a hobby, or something to work toward that doesn't revolve around the girls. We have to be on guard all the time, and it's nice to have an escape. For Laura, it's the gym and figure competitions. For me, it was supposed to be the studio and the label. The label is gone, and the studio may be next. This has me trying to latch on to things quickly, and moving on from them quickly, while I scramble to find something for me to occupy my time and my brain.

…which is what led me to camping. After discussing it with Laura, we decided that I should have my little weekend oasis trips to escape life and refresh myself every once in a while. I need the chance to decompress, think, and reset my psyche. After all, I need to be on my A-game for my girls, but the A-game starts playing like a C or D-game if you don't take a break from it now and then. Nerves can be pushed HARD by autism, and if nerves are already pushed hard it can wear a person down.

So we've decided that I should go ahead with my idea of camping by myself for a few days. We talked it over, and since this would be my first ever backcountry camping trip, we decided it shouldn't be somewhere drastic. For example, I wanted badly to go to North Manitou island in Michigan, but the area I wanted to camp is on the west side of the island and the ferry goes to the east side. This would mean I'd have to walk all of my gear across a sandy island, and be completely cut off from society for two days as the ferry only runs every two days, and I'd be 10 hours from home. There would be absolutely nothing I could do if something happened at home and I needed to leave, and I'd have no way of knowing.

So we picked Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky. Laura and I took a cave tour there earlier this spring as a mini getaway before the girls started a stressful behavior plan. It's less than 5 hours away, they have plenty of backcountry options, and the terrain is similar to where I grew up. Despite the fact that the worlds largest cave system would be hundreds of feet below me, odds are good that unless a new opening sprouted right under me in the form of a sink hole, I'd likely not fall into the cave and die. The wildlife there is pretty tame, just the typical Kentucky stuff. The park tells me no bears are in the area, but they have had very rare reports of big cats. They say they are so rare, they don't consider them an issue in any capacity, and they implied that the likelihood of me seeing a big cat would be less than winning the lottery.

Combine that with the peace and quiet I experienced there this spring, and you have a perfect environment for my first ever backcountry camping experiment. So now I'm planning, and training myself for carrying a backpack over a long distance (cause I've been quite lazy as of late), and am piecing together a new camping rig. I got a single person air mat for $8, and tents are cheaper than they were a decade ago! $25 will get me a decent two person tent at Meijer, and I'd prefer to get a two-person tent so that now and then Laura could join me on a camping excursion.

But this one will be just me. I don't know what I'll experience yet, but I'm looking forward to it pretty hardcore. I'm starting to walk on our treadmill while wearing a weighted vest, looking up all the backcountry camping tips I can absorb, and trying to figure out the right fit for me.

The biggest challenge I'm facing is coffee. I have an adult case of ADD, and I'm not on any medication to treat it. This is something that I've been self medicating with caffeine, as the caffeine acts like a stimulant in my brain to keep me focused. Because of this, I've accustomed my body to obscene amounts of caffeine, which leaves me feeling lethargic and prone to headaches if I don't get my fix.

"So boil some water and make some coffee!"…yeah, but I'm seeking isolation on this trip. The fire rings are only in designated areas, and I don't wanna be around people, so I'm doubting I'll be building any fires. This means the prospect of brewing coffee on site might be challenging. So I'm trying to devise a solution, and I've come up with the following…

The park as a whole isn't a vast array of hundreds of miles. The surface area of the park as a whole is 82.63 Sqare Miles, but lets face it, I'm not gonna be covering near that amount of space. The place to park the car is not a horrible distance from the place designated for backcountry camping, and walking through the woods is a pleasing enough prospect. According to the map, the places to park are within 2-5 miles of the backcountry camping areas. So at the very least I plan to have backup supplies that are kept in a cooler in my car. This should allow me to travel light to my campsite, meaning I can take enough water, food, and cold-brewed coffee concentrate to last a day and go get more from the car the next day. I'm only planning 2-3 days after all, and I'm admittedly a novice, so having backup supplies at the ready in the car will help me avoid miscalculating and carrying more weight than is necessary.

So to summarize, it would seem that Backcountry camping at Mammoth Cave will be a great way of getting my feet wet with regards to backcountry camping. I'm planning a backpack hike through Hocking Hills with Laura later this week to help me prepare physically, and to help give me an idea of what to expect. We'll see what happens, but I'm pretty stoked about the whole prospect. It's a chance to test what I'm capable of, and embrace a new hobby, while giving myself a chance to clear my head without distractions.

Happy camping.