Incongruous Terms: Lisa, Camping

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Feedback I’m getting proves that my readership is unable to reconcile the use of the words “Lisa” and “camping” in the same sentence.  So, before I tell you how the trip went, let me tell you how this unlikely confluence of Lisa and camping came to be.

When we moved to the Northwest, we found it interesting that our new church had annual men’s and women’s campouts that were very popular among the members.  Camping was not something we had ever done, though I remember as a small child staying in a pop-up camper when we would travel and piling into an eight person tent with fifteen other teen girls on youth group canoe trips.  I’m just not particularly outdoorsy.  Why brave the elements when you have perfectly suitable shelter under your own roof, complete with air conditioning?  Or, if you really want to get away, why choose a tent when there are perfectly good luxury hotels available?

At first, I was able to avoid going on these campouts by being out of town, having company, etc.  But people caught on to my reluctance and it became a matter of sport to try to talk me into it.  At least the secret was out and I could just give a resounding “no” and not have to bother coming up with a good excuse for not going.

So last year, the powers that be decided that camping would be a bigger draw if they structured it as a family campout instead of separate men’s and women’s campouts.  A dirty trick, really, if you think about it.  All of my kids’ friends were going and I knew they would be horribly disappointed if they didn’t get to go, and they were lobbying in earnest.  So I agreed to go, with two stipulations: that we not invest a lot of money into something I was sure we’d never do again and that I didn’t sleep on the ground.

Our friends were very generous, loaning us a tent, cots, even sleeping bags.  Other friends with all the requisite camping equipment went in with us on food (they did most of the work as we had no clue what we were doing).  Everyone was very helpful and went out of their way to make sure that I enjoyed myself.  It wasn’t really too bad.  I really enjoyed the fellowship, I hated all the bugs (of course), it was really hot that week and somewhat miserable, but overall it was not a bad experience.  Some people from church would come up and just spend the day instead of camping overnight.  I made a show of running after them waving my arms and screaming “don’t leave me!” when they would head back to civilization.  I felt like people expected that and I didn’t want to disappoint.

So that’s my story.  Yes, I prefer the Hilton and no, I don’t consider camping to be much of a vacation.  But it looks like, as long as there’s a family campout, I’ll probably be stuck going.

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