As many of you know, I was born and raised in the Seattle area. The great Pacific Northwest, one of the only places on earth where you can spend the morning hiking on an ocean beach, do a little kayaking on Lake Union in the afternoon and head up to the mountains for a little night skiing – all in a single day.
It’s a sportsman’s and outdoorsman’s paradise. Unfortunately, I am neither. It was no paradise for a “hammock under a palm tree” kind of guy.
Lord knows, I’ve tried. I have camped, snowmobiled, fished, skied and hiked over the years, usually in a fruitless attempt to make a significant other happy. It just isn’t me.
Mind you, I love the idea of roughing it. Just not outdoors. For me, roughing it is a hotel that doesn’t serve continental breakfast. I like to fish at Lake Publix or Safeway. Snow is good with cones. Ice for a tall, boozy drink on the patio. The woods? Well, let’s just say I feel no need to live in some other creature’s home when I won’t invite them into mine. I think it’s not very neighborly.
The problem is, I am still in love with the idea of being sporty. In fact, when I moved to Florida I bought an 8-man tent at Costco thinking that camping here would be fun compared to the Northwest. After all, the weather’s better.
The first and only time I used the tent was in the Florida Keys. We had a performance to do down there and to save a few bucks, I booked a campsite at the local KOA and got ready to “rough it” Florida style. It took the four of us a couple hours to figure out how to assemble the tent. This included a former Marine who lived in tents most of his life. Finally, the tent was up. We then headed down the road to Key West for a little fun on Duval Street. When we returned, it was late, so we decided to go to sleep. That’s when the horrors of camping reared their ugly head.
I slipped into the sleeping bag. Within moments I was itching. I didn’t know why. Then one of my tent mates turned on the flashlight. The once green roof of the tent was black for some reason. And it was moving.
On closer inspection, it turned out to be literally thousands of no-see-ums. If you’ve never had the pleasure of enjoying the hospitality of these critters, they are like mosquitoes, though much smaller. Their bite is just as bad and there’s no way to swat at them, since you don’t know where they are.
We had been invaded. The only option was to flee to the car. On the count of three, my son, my tent mate and I fled to the car, with the no-see-ums in hot pursuit. The next morning we left the KOA. The tent stayed behind. The no-see-ums of Sugarloaf Key had foreclosed.
I had had enough of the outdoors. Or so I thought. About this time my now ex-wife had decided it would be fun for us to do period re-enacting as pirates. If you’ve never done this, let me explain what it is. Basically, you take every modern convenience ever contrived over the last 400 years and leave them at home. You can only take things that existed in the late 1600s. Oh, yeah, that sounds like fun.
One of our first encampments was in St. Augustine. Even though this is Florida, it can get cold here. Of course, that night, a low rolled in and we were immersed in a freeze – well, a freeze to us. It was in the 40s that night. I, of course, think like a Floridian and didn’t pack for cold. Besides, they didn’t have Goretex or even sleeping bags back in the 1600s. So I just laid there, shivering, wishing I could just die.
Then the rain started. Slowly at first, then increasing rapidly into a monsoon. Being a period tent, the seams aren’t waterproof. Neither is the tent. Water started to drip through the seam over my head and like an ancient Oriental torture, pounded on my forehead. I got up to relocate the bed. As I did, I briefly touched the wall. Big mistake. Water came seaping in through a now hand-shaped breech.
To make matters worse, there was a big fly on the tent. No, not the black insect kind. That would have been actually welcomed. This fly was a 10 foot wide stretch of canvas over the front designed to protect us from the hot Florida sun. It was now filling with water and beginning to sag. So now I have to not only move the stuff in the tent away from the leaking seam, but occasionally push the fly upwards to drain the pooling water before the poles snap.
Did I mention that Florida has a really high water table. If you dig a foot into the ground, you get water. When it rains heavily, there’s no place for the water to go. It stays on the surface instead. Eventually, it finds its way to the low ground.
The tent was on the low ground. As I’m draining the fly, I see the river coming towards my tent. Suddenly, the leaking seam and the overflowing fly don’t seem so important. In re-enactment world, an integrated floor on a tent isn’t period. All your stuff sits on the ground. This includes my clothes and bedding. I make a mad dash to save them. Too late. Everything is already wet.
Needless to say, I hated re-enacting from there on out. At least the whole camping aspect of it. I just couldn’t see the fun of roughing it in a world that has given us so many thoughtful conveniences, like, I don’t know, indoor plumbing and a dry floor perhaps?
I am through with my sporty, outdoor life. Nature got the best of me. My he-man, macho outdoor life is done. I willingly surrender my plaid shirts, the badge of honor of my being from the Pacific Northwest.
Well, almost all of my plaid shirts. I still have one, just in case I decide to start a grunge band someday. Now that’s Northwest.
Roughing it here on the Treasure Coast with indoor plumbing and fresh Seattle’s Best coffee from my electric coffee maker,
— Robb