There’s nothing like roughing it

Well, here we are midway through summer. Hope everybody is jamming in all those activities they talked about all winter into these few months of nice weather. I know we are.

Throughout winter and spring, my wife talked about wanting to get in as much sightseeing as she could. She’s still relatively new to Alaska and was getting frustrated that she hadn’t seen much of it yet. So for us, this has been the summer of camping. The last two weekends were Whittier and Seward. The next two are Eklutna (going to stay kind-of close to home for that one) and Kennicott.

Camping is such a relaxing time for us. We like to do it the basic way — tent and cooler. No sissy RV for us. We scoff at those folks in their mile-long aluminum tubes with a refrigerator, stove, king-sized bed, flat-screen TV and satellite dish. No sir, camping is all about enjoying the great outdoors!

I spend the days before the weekend going through the supplies to see what needs to be replenished. I re-organize this and re-pack that. Air out the tent (didn’t do that before our first trip out and I got to enjoy some musty smells that could only be compared to mold and gym socks as I tried to go to sleep), set clothes aside, find somebody to watch the house and dogs (taking them with us next time), and so on.

We recently lost our trusty van, so last weekend we had to use the car. Myself, my wife, our two youngest children, three tubs of equipment, two coolers, one bag of kindling, firewood, assorted blankets and pillows, propane tanks, backpacks, clothes, the wife’s Coleman coffeemaker (heaven forbid we forget that), four camp chairs and a hodge-podge of miscellaneous bags and such all into a mid-size sedan. I think I should get some kind of award, or maybe go for a high score on Tetris.

The car thus loaded like something out of an old Ma and Pa Kettle episode, or perhaps an image of a bunch of Okies trying to escape the Dust Bowl, we headed down the road. The car rode funny. I had to move the seat forward until my knees were almost touching my chin. The kids complained from the backseat. Or at least I think they were complaining. It was hard to hear them buried under the bags and blankets. With the nose of the car facing the sky and my legs contorted in some weird tangle under the steering column, we proceeded toward our destination amidst slow RVs, the inevitable crazy drivers that shave precious seconds off their time by risking your life and the tourists who like to slow down at every opportunity (look honey, another mountain!).

We finally arrive at our campsite and see that half the population of Anchorage left yesterday in order to get the best spots. Oh well. Remember, we’re in a tent, so no problem. We just set up camp out in the brush. In the rain. With enough mosquitoes to drain an entire caribou herd. After prying everything out of the car, I wrestled the tent into a standing position and started inflating the air mattresses. I carefully placed all the bins and coolers in the tent, which is silly, because as we look for stuff they’ll get scattered all over anyway. But oh well, the ritual must be maintained. Of course, there are few things little children love as much as a tent so they proceed to dart in and out, tracking in mud and bugs.

Now that we’ve arrived and camp is set up we can look to dinner. This is where my wife, Glenny, really excels. No hot dogs or hamburgers for us. Using a simple propane stove, my wife can whip up real meals, like spaghetti complete with garlic bread and vegetables, or beef stroganoff — stuff most people wouldn’t normally eat during a camping trip. I think, if she had to, Glenny could cook a full Thanksgiving turkey dinner using her Coleman stove. Of course, as tradition dictates, the children had to roast marshmallows over the fire. You know how this goes — a flaming ball of goo that falls safely into the fire with a cry of “my marshmallow!”

My job is simple: keep the fire going. This is a manly job. After all, how could we expect a woman to perform the difficult task of sitting in a camp chair, nursing a beer and occasionally poking the fire around with a stick? No, this is man’s work. I’m quite sure that a few thousand years ago, Thag the Neanderthal squatted in front of a fire with a stick in his hand while his mate ran around behind him taking care of the food, getting the bedding ready and muttering behind his back.

After a few days, it’s time to go. All the stuff is jammed back into the vehicle. Only now it’s wet and dirty. Filthy camping gear and bodies are all crammed into a car. The ride home is like being trapped in a teenager’s sock for a few hours. After we get home, we get to unpack it again. Our oldest son’s girlfriend, who was watching the house, is there waiting for us, but she doesn’t get too close. After all, we smell like we spent the last two or three days living inside a chimney while sweating. After everything is put away and we’re showered up, we can finally sit down in our house and relax for a while. I want an RV.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident who publishes his column under the tagline “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.