Cub Scout Camping Trip - Yay! (Read with Sarcastic Inflection)

I hate camping. Period. End of sentence. Outdoorsman is not the first, second or 30th word people use to describe me. It has been over 25 years since my last camping trip. That last line kinda sounds like something from an AA meeting doesn't it?

My first (and only) experience camping before this past weekend was when my parents took me to Maine in the summer for a nice rendezvous with nature. Sounds nice except for the fact that we suffered through two days of torrential rains in a Caldor tent. Of course the tent flooded and we ended up sleeping in my Dad's van for the entire weekend. Once the rains subsided and the sun came out we dried off. That was fine until mosquito's the size of Volkswagen's showed up to turn my pre-teen body into one giant itchy bug bite.

With that back story how could I say no to my son when he expressed great interest in camping out with his Cub Scout Pack up at the lake in town? So with my emotional and physical camping baggage packed the kid and I headed to the lake with my fingers and toes crossed that it wouldn't be too terrible.

Sometimes it pays to be guardedly pessimistic. Because my expectations were so low - the camping trip actually turned out to be almost OK. The kid had a blast - learning to lash together a wood stool, running around the woods with his buddies, roasting marshmallows by the campfire.And I must say I had an OK time too talking to some of the fathers and hanging out by the campfire.

But it wasn't all male bonding and kumbaya. The problems started when it was sleepy time. As soon as we retired to the faux-chateau it immediately started raining. Oh - and it got pretty cold. Certainly colder than my Walmart special sleeping bags could handle (you would think I would have learned after the Caldor tent, right?) And then there's this newsflash - the ground is hard. Really hard. I don't recommend sleeping on it directly. There are reasons why the mattress and box spring were invented.

So I woke up around 6:30 the next morning feeling every second of my 38 years. My son awoke a little cold but very pleased with himself. I could tell he felt he had accomplished something. He had braved the wilderness with his old man and lived to tell the tale. It was quite an exciting adventure for the little man and that made my minor discomfort worth it.