Seven Days With Nature

My family and I are about to embark on a seven-day crash course with nature.

I haven’t done a seven day camping stint since I was a teenager, so it should be interesting. Back in my day, we booked an entire multi-family corner at Papoose Pond and rode our bikes around the entire campground, searching for boys and searching for trouble. My kids are almost to the age where they will begin searching for trouble, so in this way I have to enjoy the next few years, after which I will turn into Robert De Niro, giving lie detector tests and making prospective dates very uncomfortable with my questioning.

I have to enjoy these next few years, because I know exactly the trajectory they are headed in. I can remember it so vividly in my mind.

I remember exactly the way I used to thrust my hips when it was dance night in the rec hall and Flamin Ramon and Sizzlin Susan were getting turnt. I remember paddling a canoe with my cousin Kayleigh and slamming right into a dock, because we were staring at a few muscley hunks in a separate floating device. Are these actions I hope for my 11-year-old ? The answer to that is no. Is this something I might still do at 34? I mean maybe? I am a cool mom after all, so I can’t say no.

One of the reasons I agreed to this seven day stint in nature rehab is because we will be staying in cabins at Hadley’s Point Campground in Bar Harbor.

First of all, tents suck and that is all there is to it. If you say you enjoy tents, you are one of two people: you are under the age of twenty or you are dating someone who enjoys tents and you are lying to yourself. Okay let’s talk tents for a second. First of all, if you are in a tent, you will inevitably be taunted by the camper people. It doesn’t make them snobby or mean, the camper people, but you will unzip your tent in the morning and you will look like you just left a dorm room somewhere at UMO, wearing someone’s shoes that you don’t know, scaring everyone away with your eye makeup that never got removed and your hair sticking straight up, held together by bug spray and dry shampoo. You will be both shivering and sweating, which is hard to do at the same time, but tents can’t maintain temperatures worth a damn. The camper people will walk rosily beside you, holding some kind of hand carved coffee mug, with perfectly messy bunned hair and no bags under their eyes.

Meanwhile, you will be swearing at all of your family, because even if you have the best air mattress that Amazon has to offer, with all the stellar reviews, it will have lost some of it’s air at 1 am and you and your spouse will be laying on top of each other unromantically, kicking each other in the ribs and gasping for new air that doesn’t smell like campfire or bug spray. Meanwhile your spouse, who suffers from OCD, will be shouting at everyone not to get dirt on the shitty air mattress, while you will shrug your shoulders and get underneath the sleeping bag, with dirt clumped feet, because as Moira Rose would say, “nail this coffin shut!”.

Inevitably, there will be four Daddy Long legs at each corner of the tent, just hanging out there.

They always get in. I don’t know how this is. I think it’s during the set up process, when you and your other half are arguing about where the poles go, at this time all the spiders look at each other and say it’s on bitches and they all climb in to their respective corners and wait until nightfall when it is time to scare the living crap out of the tent residents. It’s important to not ask someone else to kill the spider. You need to kill it. If someone else claims they took care of the Daddy long legs. They did not. All they did was remove it from it’s concert show and drop it into your sleeping bag. This is why I take care of the issue myself. I watch enough crime shows. I need to see a body, thank you very much.

Due to all the above reasons and many more, we will enjoy the air conditioned cabin, complete with beds, bathrooms and showers. I have learned that Hadley’s is going to open their pool to the public, with a bring your-own-chair, at-your-own-risk caveat and for us non-pool owning folk, this is exciting! I bought a twelve dollar chair just for me from Renys. I bought a new pack of those Truly lemonade seltzer hybrids from Hannufids and I’m just going to see where the wind takes me.

One downside of camping Covid style, is that the buses are no longer available to take me back and forth into town.

One upside, is that this is basically the largest event I have going on for the summer and so with seven days in the mix, I can really get down to the nitty gritty of beach time, hiking time, mini golf time, or wine tasting time. Last year, we noticed a wine tasting location right across from the campground. We met the most charismatic bartender man, I can’t remember his name, only his defined cheek bones. Let’s call him Ted. As Ted explained all the ins and the outs of the different varieties I nodded politely, taking in nothing and all the while, enjoying the respite away from all the kids who were left with my husband at the pool. I sat smugly in my chair, thinking of him reapplying sunblock and having to keep them from splashing each other and so I got very distracted. Suddenly when I came back too, I asked Ted what kind of wine i was currently drinking. Active listening is important to me after all and he said this wine goes great with cardio and lot’s of hiking. Huh? I thought?

My friend sitting to my right giggled loudly, whispering that it was water in my glass. Normally this kind of interaction would shame me greatly, but not on a seven-day-retreat with wilderness readers! I wear my ditzy crown proudly. I plan to find Teddy boy again and play the same mind games with him.

So there you have it, all my camping earnestness wrapped up into one post. I am 90% excited, 5 % nervous and 5% still can’t ride a bike as an adult woman. It’s going to a durrrn good time, good or bad weather, I just know it. I wish you nothing but the best on your nature driven Covid adventures in the coming weeks.