this past weekend, we went camping with a big group of friends. we biked about 30 miles to get there and when we arrived, we discovered that the campsite that we had reserved was completely treeless. i had never specifically realized how important the presence of trees are to the atmosphere of camping. especially when the temperature soars into the 90’s. while some of the boys started trying to rig up a tarp between two cars (some people had driven down), someone else noticed that one of the wooded group campsites nearby had a reserved tag, but no one actually camping on it. we asked the rangers and after a little research, they told us that the boyscout troupe camping on the treeless site next to us had actually reserved two sites but had ended up with a smaller group than they had originally anticipated and so they would not be needing the wooded site. the boy scouts said they didn’t mind if we used their site. then, the boy scouts even helped us move our already-pitched tents to the new site. it was very sloped ground, but was covered in trees (and shade) and although the campfire ring was more primitive, we thanked god for the boy scouts a few times that weekend. we all agreed that if we had stayed on the original campsite, we would have all packed up a day early and headed home. as one friend put it, “forget this! i can sweat on my own front lawn.”
it was a wonderful weekend of jokes and grilled food and just relaxing as hard as we could.
