Kooky Kamping

A few years back, Wendy and her boyfriend, me and my boyfriend and another couple went camping over Memorial Day weekend on Lake Michigan. Those people who know Michigan, know that this was a risky proposal. Depending on Mother Nature, you could either have 80 degree weather or 30 degree weather. Well as was our luck, we got the later. We got to the campsite on Friday and were of course, way under dressed. So as we set up, we sent to guys to the local Kmart for the 15 things we had forgot and instructions to buy gloves and hats for us since we were freezing. This trip took over an hour. As we sat there shivering, the guys at the campsite took pity on us and asked us over to their fire. Of course, we said yes, and by the time the guys got back, we were drinking with our new guy friends, and eating strawberries around a campfire. Needless to say, we had some unhappy boyfriends.

The gloves turned out to be a disappointment as well. Given it was May, the only gloves they could find were gardening gloves so the 3 of us walked around with huge, man-sized gloves for the rest of the weekend. Next up, getting the tents set up. My boyfriend had purchased the Taj Mahal of tents, that you could stand up straight in and had 3 rooms. We were like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears, ours was too big, our friend's was too small (their feet hung out the tent) and Wendy's was just right (a proper size tent for 2 people and a little crowded with their dog).

Dinner was next and the wind was making it hard to cook the food on the fire. My engineer wanna be boyfriend decided to build a heat shield out of aluminum foil to encircle the fire pit to direct the heat to our food. What is it with men and fire? Really? They were so proud of this heat shield, they took pictures of it! At least our food cooked finally.

As we lay there the first night looking like the Michelin man, I could not help to fantasize about my bed. I was in the sleeping bag with sweat pants, a sweatshirt, 2 shirts, socks and my man hand gloves freezing. Then Wendy's dog Chelsea started snoring, LOUD! I mean we could hear her across the campsite in our tent.

As we rose for day 2 of this camping adventure, we decided we were going home that night. No more Arctic camping for us!