Camping or Glamping? It’s all a matter of perspective.

I wasn’t going to go. Then I was. Then I wasn’t. Then I found myself going.
It was the kind of camping that is really easy. We weren’t going far. There was a store and pizza and liquor 6 miles away in SeaBeck. There were lots of people around, hidden in the undergrowth and overgrowth. You could hear them, you just couldn’t see them.

Hugo

Chinese, Spanish, English accents, some kind of Norwegian? Dutch? Plain old American English…dogs yipping, car horns blasting briefly when someone leaning into the truck accidentally pressed the horn and scared themselves and everyone in their campsite. There were grumpy guys in golf carts roaming around with brooms and rakes and garbage bags-pissed that we were all wrecking the pristine beauty of Scenic Beach. There were kids on scooters- the kind you have to push with your foot-remember those? Elderly ladies walking Shi Tzu dogs, giggling teenage girls carrying bundles of kindling and lots of people down at the beach swimming and gingerly picking their way into the water over the rocks and oyster shells.

It was not my ideal campsite. I usually prefer a little more privacy, meaning you’re way the hell and gone up in the bush, no one around for 50 miles to complain about the noise and music. The chance to really let ‘er rip, as it were. Get the fire going, paintball guns loaded up, someone else cooking, tons of quads and coolers and coolers of beer and adult beverages. Fishing poles, a big ax stuck into a chunk of wood, fresh kindling, not enough chairs, someone falling into either the river or the fire. That’s camping.

This was nice though. For someone like me, who can’t walk all that well, it was pretty good. We set the tent up and got the food put away, drank some wine, talked, took a walk to the beach and then played badminton at the volleyball net they had set up down at the grassy sward. Someone was getting married at the pretty old house that is now the Seabeck Community Hall, so there were people trekking back and forth, getting it set up for the big day.

Mom and Richard and the boys all went back to Bainbridge Island (see what I mean by close? It’s only an hour from home) and Liza and I just sat around in the dark, looking at the fire and remembering the days of the crazy ass camping. I guess we miss it. It was terrible sometimes. Really. But you miss it when it’s gone. So, as a matter of perspective this WAS glamping for us. We had a real mattress to sleep on, thanks to Mom driving it out in her VW van, we had lots of good wine, down blankets, flannel sheets, goat cheese and gouda.
I picked a good spot last April when I made the reservation. But…

It was nice.

Dawn and Cashmere came out for night two and Liza went home. It was another nice day. Swimming, talking, a little wine, early to bed…

It was nice.

Mom and Chubaca

No one fell into the campfire. No one got drunk and picked a fight with their girlfriend and lost it. No loud music or worrisome moments when you realize it’s getting dark and someone still hasn’t come back from quadding or fishing or whatever they were doing. The kind of camping where you are out there and you aren’t going anywhere. The roads are too treacherous in the dark and it’s too far to go home, anyway. Even when you think there’s a bear roaming the camp perimeter and the dogs hackles are up. You are there for the duration.

The point is that I went. I got out there with my stinging hurting feet and my numb fingers and my waddling walk and I DID IT! I bloody well went camping…girly, glamping camping. The kind where you think “What am I doing here when my comfy bed is an hour away. What’s the point of this?” But I battened down that kind of negative thinking and ate some goat cheese and drank some delicious piesporter and bloody well enjoyed myself.

Bella

It was nice.