Tag Archives: camping

Walking, Running, Bicycling, & Camping:  What to Do in the Summer

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You won’t believe this – how could you, after all? – but Captain Nemo and I once bicycled from Conneautville, PA, to Geneseo, New York, and back. 

I trained for the ride for months. Well, perhaps one month. We were young, and we were fit;  we were both runners. He ran marathons, I ran 10Ks.  I ran a half marathon once, and promptly threw up.  My favorite race was The Don’t Fall Run.  No one seemed to know about the race, and hardly anyone signed up. We got lost, because there were no signs, so we all chased the leader, who was lost, too.  If our times were slow, it’s because we ran much farther than intended.  A half marathon?  No, not that far, because I didn’t throw up.

Anyway, I wish I still had the Don’t Fall Run T-shirt. 

Bicycling is much easier than running. We didn’t buy special gear for our bike trip. We wore gym shorts, t-shirts, and sneakers.  And, since of course there were no vans to carry our gear, we stowed it in panniers or tied it to the rack on the back of the bikes.

Before we left, I took my old Schwinn 10-speed in for a tune-up.  The shop employee said the Schwinn wouldn’t make it and tried to sell me a Japanese bike.

“No, thank you!!” I  had no trouble with the Schwinn.  (N.B. The company is no longer based in the U.S., and the quality of Schwinns has gone down, I hear.) We traveled up the green hills of Pennsylvania (miles and miles uphill, and where was the downhill?), then up more hills in New York (the worst was from Jamestown, NY, to a campground at at the top of a hill peak: I was assured it wasn’t a mountain peak.)

After all those miles, I lost – one pound!  Pathetic.  Biking isn’t for weight loss.

WALKING IS CHALLENGING, TOO,

 It is my goal to take long, long walks with Captain Nemo. We love the  challenge of a four-mile trail around a beautiful lake in a park in the midwest. The gorgeous, hilly woods are shady and cool, the rhythm of walking calms us, and we had glimpses of the blue lake as we walked.  I felt like a character in Conrad Richter’s The Trees,  or perhaps Louise Dickinson Rich’s We Took to the Woods.

There were few walkers.  Most people were fishing. And most of them were overweight: no body shaming, thank goodness!  There were people fishing in kayaks, people fishing on the shore, and a very thin cool guy fishing in a boat with a hushed electric motor.

Motorboats are banned in the park, says Captain Nemo, but some of the electric motors make almost no noise.  This man seemed to have no oars.  He turned the boat with what looked like a TV remote.

The hilarious thing is that no one caught any fish.  The cool guy caught no fish, the fishermen and fisherwomen on the shore caught no fish, and the Kayakers had no room for fish.

“Where’s the fish?”  we kept asking.

I was doing fairly well on the walk until we reached the campground about two miles from the beginning. 

 The campground was a giant parking lot.  No trees, just hot sun and concrete.  One couple huddled under an inadequate RV awning, but everyone else was indoors. 

It was dismal.

I should be used to RVs by now, but it’s such a waste of gas.  Why go camping if you’re not outdoors?  Do you have to replicate all the comforts of home?  If you need the amenities, most parks have restrooms and there are often showers.: And if the mosquitos are terrible, you crawl into the tent at 7 and read a book by flashlight.   It’s just sad to go camping in an RV. 

And yet some camping trips are more fun than others  Once, in northern Wisconsin, a storm knocked over our tent, and I had to lie down and splay my arms and legs to the corners to make sure the tent didn’t blow away. After we put the tent back up, we sat in the lodge till the rain was over.

The walking trails at this park were beautiful, in the deep woods, but it is very buggy in the summer.  The best time to camp in northern Wisconsin is in the spring or fall.

We had a mellow camping experience near Thunder Bay, Canada. We camped next to a pebbled beach (well, perhaps they were rocks; it was in the ’90s so I don’t recall exactly), and there were birds everywhere, and placards about the birds.  It was silent except for the birds  It was the most silent place I’ve ever been.

On some camping trips in state parks  noise has almost defeated us. The people in the next tent at one park were drinking and playing loud, bad music all night. We politely asked if they would turn the music down so we could sleep.  They said Yes, but of course they did not. We had to lie there sleepless all night.

 The next day, I sat bleary-eyed by the lake reading the latest Oprah Club selection, and by the time I finished it, I was ready to hike again.

Lost in the Forest with Natty Bumpo 

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“Where is Natty Bumpo?” one of us asked at one point.

Of course you’ve never heard of Natty Bumpo, also known as Hawkeye.  No one reads James Fennimore Cooper’s dense historical novels anymore. In Cooper’s alleged masterpiece, The Last of the Mohicans, Natty Bumpo knows woodcraft. He is a white man raised by Indigenous people. 

The book is 350 pages long. The movie, however, seemed to last about four hours.. In reality it was only an hour and 52 minutes. So perhaps we were lost in the woods for only an hour and 52 minutes. 

“Oh, look, a goldfinch!”  “Oh, look, purple wildflowers!” 

Captain Nemo and I were ecstatic to hike in “our park” again. In our youth, we romped amorously in these woods and meadows.  And this week the park was green and lush after days of rain. The tall, dense trees kept the limestone paths dry.

Like Natty Bumpo, Captain Nemo knows woodcraft.  He can blaze a trail, make a campfire, camp off-trail, and dig a latrine (though the latter hasn’t been necessary – yet). 

I used to know this park backward and forward. I once camped here (illegally) off-trail with a friend, My aunt gave me a heavy canvas tent she no longer used, and we thought it would be fabulous to spend the night in the woods. We were impractical, indoorsy girls: we didn’t have a lamp, nor did we bring a flashlight. We hated going outside to pee, because every time we opened the tent the bugs attacked. As soon as the sun rose, we walked home.  We didn’t take down the tent. That job was for our adult relatives, none of whom had ever gone camping.

Today Captain Nemo and I set off happily, but we were unaware of one crucial detail: the city has acquired many, many acres for the park since the days we walked here. We started up a trail that used to lead to a woodsy cemetery: I wanted to visit a friend’s grave.  Bizarrely, the trail wound back, veered left, then right, and took us to another winding trail. We had also intended to cross the creek and circle back to the northern entrance, but in fact the trail kept winding, ever winding, branching off, then winding back– and the creek was almost dry.

Occasionally we found a bench to sit on.  At one point, I sat down, exhausted, in the middle of a hilly trail. And then I chose a trail across the meadow, which led nowhere. Finally, Captain Nemo went ahead to “scout.”  If not for his woodcraft…

Honestly, it was a long, beautiful walk. When we finally emerged from the woods, we stank of sunscreen and sweat. We had survived!

This park has its own hipster vibe, but I do wish there was a map. I’d still be sitting in the middle of the trail if Captain Nemo didn’t know his woodcraft. I imagine that people who get lost must yell for help, or calm themself with controlled substances, like coffee in a thermos, or gummies (still illegal in this state), before resuming their search for the exit.

“Three Men in a Boat”: Jerome K. Jerome on Camping & Boating 

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If you have not read Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, pack it in your backpack this summer.  Peruse it in the Michigan Woods, or on a white water rafting vacation, or Yellowstone Park – wherever.  But don’t read it while you are drinking aperitifs in a cafe, because your laughter will send the drink fizzing out of your nostrils. And don’t read it at your posh relatives’ elegant McMansion, because they will press all the posh new literary novels and biographies on you, and not understand your silly book.

Three Men in a Boat is an English classic, published in 1889, so it doesn’t come up in conversation much anymore . In this comic travel novel, Jerome K. Jerome, the author and narrator, decides to go boating with his two hypochondriac friends, for the sake of their health, and brings the dog. And, if I may say so, their adventures are often what used to be called “madcap.”

The guys ponder the question of camping vs. hotels.

Should we ‘camp out’ or sleep at inns?” 

George and I were for camping out.  It would be so wild and free, so patriarchal like.

The first night is dreadful. They hadn’t counted on heavy rain.

Illustration by Peter Woolcock

[The tent] is soaked and heavy, and it flops about, and tumbles down on you, and clings round your head and makes you mad. The rain is pouring steadily all the time.  It is difficult enough to fix a tent in dry weather; in wet, the task becomes herculean.  Instead of helping you, it seems to you that the other man is simply playing the fool.  Just as you get your side beautifully fixed, he gives it a hoist from his end and spoils it all.

“Here! What are you up to?” you call out.

“What are you up to?” he retorts. “Leggo, can’t you?”

“Don’t pull it; you’ve got it all wrong, you stupid ass!” you shout.

And on and on. Finally they get the tent up. 

Rainwater is the chief article of diet at supper.  The bread is two-thirds rainwater, the beefsteak pie is exceedingly rich in it, and the jam, and the butter, and the salt, and the coffee have all combined with it to make soup.

They do get the hang of boating and camping, eventually.

Left: Taken in a photo machine of spouse and me on the boardwalk, during a break from camping, (late 80s).

We go camping, and sometimes enjoy it. Some people are natural campers, some are not. Each day of primitive camping (pit toilets, no showers, perhaps a trickle of water from a single faucet, but fortunately at least we’re by a lake) refreshes and delights my husband; each day of primitive camping makes me listless, cranky, and eager to return to civilization.

He is an experienced camper, and so he spoils me. He makes oatmeal and coffee on the primus stove and lights the lantern at night.  During a dreadful storm, I had to lie inside the tent with my limbs splayed to the four corners to keep it from blowing away while he secured it from the outside with some peg combination or other he designed on the spot.

Next time I go camping I’m taking Jerome K. Jerome and any comic novels or silly travel books you recommend. I do think I might need a dog, too.

Because believe it or not, I have the urge to go camping.