Recently, my wife and I were chatting with one of our “couples friends”* about camping. The ladies were all excited about the idea, to the point of looking up the cost of new tents, but soon realized the husband and I were trading skepitcal looks.
CobraMrsFit: “What?”
Me: “Nothing.”
CMF: “Oh no no no. That’s your Cold-Day-In-Hell look. What gives?”
Me: “Perhaps you aren’t remembering our last camping experience?”
CMF (after a slight pause): “Oh yeah. The Camping Incident.”
The Camping Incident reamains to this day the most colossal failure of weekending in The Great Outdoors and our last attempt at doing so. It had started out innocently enough with a plan to drive into the Shennendoah and spend a couple days hiking the local trails and the nights cooking over a campfire. So Cliff, Shannon**, CMF, and I picked a Friday, loaded up Cliff’s SUV, and sang off-key to Journey for several hours. By the time we arrived at the campsite, we were hungry for Mother Nature and some pancakes. We unloaded the car and began setting things up.
Then the rain came.
There are few things as annoying as trying to set-up a tent in the rain. Rabid, angry geckos, I suppose. But this was a cold rain and not the one-and-done type, but the unleash-hell-ever-10 minutes type.
*Those in long-term relationships know what I’m talking about.
**Fake names to protect the awesome.