How Not to Camp for Novices

One Saturday afternoon my daughter and I were shopping in Sam's Club [big box mart]. For those of you living under a rock or in outerspace, Sam's Club is similar to Costco which sell their items in bulk and one must be a member to shop in their establishment. In the long run it is cost effective.

We cruised down aisle after aisle and soon came upon camping gear. I must mention that I have always abhorred camping. Even though we lived in the Pacific Northwest for many years, camping was a seldom event in our family. MY idea of camping is a 5-Star hotel with room service and a masseur named Sven! My daughter was intrigued by the little tent displays, sleeping bags and outdoor gear. So we stopped and checked every item out completely and it didn't take me long to get the fever. I know crazy, huh? Blame it on the cute little displays, I guess.

Each piece of gear was top of the line and very reasonably priced, but of course it is big box mart. Being that it was Summer and financially feasible, I purchased an 8-man tent, (2) -30 below sleeping bags, lanterns, and the works. I figured we would go camping the following weekend. It's nearly 3 pm or so before we get all the groceries home and unpacked. My daughter announces "lets go camping tonight Mom." Oh Sure! Where? She always misses the sarcasm.

We know absolutely nothing about camping on our own. No exaggeration here! Okay but why purchase all this equipment and not use it, right? Soon we got my car packed with everything we thought we would need for that one night, and set out for points unknown. Our first attempt was Mt. Charleston. A very beautiful place to camp; but also packed in the Summertime because it is very close to Las Vegas AND much cooler. Next what we thought was a state campground turned out to be a day picnic/hiking area just about ready to close. The Park Ranger was quite nice and told us about an RV park with campground out in Indian Springs. Hmmmmm, Indian Springs?

Let me describe Indian Springs for you as best I can. To begin with, I am not sure that it is even on a map. I could be wrong though. The town may contain as many as 10 business establishments including a small casino/bar/restaurant/hotel. A couple of gas stations, one of which I believe is a truck stop. A realtor's office and a small bar in front of the RV park/campground. Oh yeah and did I mention down the road is the PRISON. I have no idea if it is minimum-medium OR maximum security either. But plenty of folks live in the area, because they do not want to live in Las Vegas any longer. They didn't seem too worried! So when in Rome......keep it in the back of your head that criminals are within walking distance of your campground!

We drove right up to the manager's office (trailer) to find out details for where we would be pitching our camp. Although we saw no other tents anywhere there were plenty of permanent trailers and huge RV's scattered all over. As my daughter and I look at one another we realize the surroundings are not too terribly awful but certainly not what we had expected from the Park Ranger. The manager turns out to be a really nice lady who seems skeptical of us as campers (that makes three of us). But for $5 per night - we will be happy to show her and each of us that we can do it. You bet! We women can do anything a man can!

The area set aside for tents is right in the middle of the compound. Ringed on three sides by trailers and RV's and the final side is the bar mentioned earlier. Which apparently is popular on Friday and Saturday nights. Of course so is the small casino/bar/restaurant/hotel right next door also. There is a giant grassy area the size of a football field ringed with huge cypress and maple trees to pitch our brand new tent. At least we wont be laughed out of the park by other tent campers as we begin our task.

Although our sunlight is slowing fading we attempt to follow the directions which might as well have been written in sanskrit. The first useful tool that every camper should have, we forgot to bring along. This we discovered once we had the tent itself laid out and the tent pegs in place to be pounded into the ground. NO hammer, Duh! Okay.....hmmmm? Let's go find some flat rocks that might just work. More time wasted but we are learning this process, one stupid step at a time. By the way, flat rocks do not work as well as a rubber mallet does for those of you as ignorant as we were that first time. You will need to purchase new pegs after your initial test run because those flat rocks bend the hell out of an aluminum tent peg. At least I own a rubber mallet now, still trying to figure out where to buy those aluminum pegs though.

Next it was time to put the bendy poles (for lack of a better term here) together and slide them into the tent slits to form the roof. But wouldn't you know it, they do not letter or number those suckers! And they come in many different sizes because they each have different functions, well damn that sanskrit manual anyhow! By now it was dark and we had a street light and our lanterns to see by. My patience was wearing thin with this whole situation as we had been at it for at least three hours. My daughter couldn't help laughing at me and the situation. The nice manager kept coming by to see if we needed any help or if there was someway she could find someone else to set it up for us. We kindly thank her each time. But in my mind I am thinking......

NO, because now it is war! I am determined to win this contest of stupidity between me and an inanimate object. Either that or I am going to unfold my new sleeping bag and sleep under a tree with the bugs and bats flying overhead all night long. Yep, bats - no kidding. They keep the bug population down I am told so no biggie - just eat the bugs and leave me alone! Better yet, fly on over to that bar and bug the horrible band playing!

Somehow through this duration my daughter learned to read the sanskrit manual, realizing we had our bendy poles in the wrong slits. No wonder this seems like building a log cabin instead of setting up a simple tent. Now the correct bendy poles are in their proper slits and tucked down into the built in holes but I will be darned if it will stay raised like in the picture. Back to the Sanskrit manual for the 97th time.

It's dark, 98 degrees out still and I am ready to call it quits for real this time. No more useless threats. I am tired, sweaty and nearly in tears once more because the car hasn't even been unpacked yet.. No wonder I have always hated camping - nothing ever goes right it seems. My nerves and brain cannot take much more and I am pretty tired of my daughter laughing at me to keep the mood light. Thank goodness for her new language of Sanskrit, because once again she discovers that we have not put the main bendy pole in UNDERNEATH the criss-cross bendy poles. So once again we dismantle the bendy poles and keep each separate so as to not make the same mistake a THIRD time.

Wouldn't you know it - the bats, bugs, and manager were trying to keep straight faced, but I could tell that it was a tough job to pull off. Suffice it to say after nearly five hours we got that godforsaken tent up. All pegs firmly in the ground, all bendy poles in their correct slots, the rain fly secured down and all straps tightened firmly. There were tears of joy finally because I had proved I was 6% smarter than the tent! It was nearly 10:30 pm and half of our camp time was gone but we were set. Or so we thought! Now where are those bathrooms with showers?

Of course the facilities are located nearly 1/4 mile away from us. Terrific - what does one do in the middle of the night? By the way, water bottles do NOT work if you are female I soon learned. Hmmmm, next item to purchase along with that rubber mallet is a porta potty. And geesh, forgetting how hard the ground is to sleep on - better add bedrolls or air mattresses to the growing list!

The next morning came quite quick. And not only had we pitched our tent directly into the rising sun but were no where under any trees for shade and coolness. This last part is pretty important in the desert if you care to sleep past 5 am. It gets hotter very early. I say hotter because it really doesn't cool down at night like most areas in Summer. Just gotta love the desert!

By the morning we were laughing about the adventure of setting up our new humongous tent. Our's being an 8-man tent is much more room than we will ever need even with everything inside. Ignorance again at it's finest for two women novice campers. Since the aforementioned trip we have discovered the Bass Pro Shops. BPS have the most knowledgeable sales staff that go out of their way to help everyone purchase necessities every camper (and other sports) should have. Yeah even us!

Late last Summer we tried camping again up in Southern Utah and had a wonderful experience in a KOA campground. Setting up the tent this time was in daylight and took less than 30 minutes. We had all the necessities we needed and then some. We were high fiving each other alot that trip. It turned out to be such a fun adventure that we are now waiting impatiently for Spring to come so we can trek in new areas. We have surfed the internet for plenty of places within a 250 mile radius to camp with or without facilities because we are finally set up even with a solar shower and enclosure.

Wish us luck, sooner or later we are going to try simple wilderness and no campgrounds. Thank goodness for that compass and survival tips from Survivorman and Bear Gritz on TLC and Discovery Channel.