Into The Wilderness

I've always fancied myself a camper. While I may have woken up cold, clammy, and sticky, I've made a habit to tell myself, "Yeah! Camping! This is great!" Hiking up dew covered hills? "Neat!" Upon seeing rodents, bugs, and snakes, I would shout, "How exotic!"

I grew up living close to "the canyon" which, being me, I had no idea what canyon people were talking about. To my knowledge, northern Utah had more canyons than I cared to count and only one I knew I had driven through for sure. Now that I am older, I feel I am able to distinguish landmarks in said canyon and recognize which campgrounds I have been to.

One weekend, my boyfriend recommended we go for a night-camp, we'd arrive early, leave early, and enjoy the scenery. I agreed and he was thrilled. I figured I was the ultimate girlfriend--I would be the girl who goes camping and enjoys it, who enjoys living by firelight and sleeping in a sleeping bag outside. I was, needless to say, awesome.

After driving through "the canyon" for a few hours, I grew weary and I lost hope that we'd find a campground at ten in the evening. To my chagrin and his excitment, we settled on one and set up shop. I realized we had nothing. Just a grill, some lamps, and an air mattress that we wouldn't even inflate. It was dark. It was more than dark, it was a purgatory where nothing existed outside my five foot light-radius. We grilled hot dogs, I staggered to find the camp-toilet, and finally climbed into our sleeping bags in the back of the truck. We watched a movie on the laptop he brought, my only glimpse into the life I've left in the valley, where technology is my security blanket.

I woke up to the sounds of squirrels screaming at each other. Birds cawed only to annoy me. I was, of course, cold, sticky, and clammy. I was ready to go home and sleep on my bed at home. It was an uncomfortable mattress and at an angle where I would roll off if I slept a way my bed didn't like, but it was still a bed with blankets and a roof. Leaving the campground felt like leaving a different world where we could see the road and the signs.

A sign that read "Evanston 48" flew past us. We were headed the wrong way towards Wyoming. The awesome girlfriend in me said, "Why not? A fun day trip." The valley-girl in me said, "Why, God, why?" It was this forty minute trip to Wyoming that made me realize, as we passed lakes, golden fields, trees with bands of light breaking through to illuminate the roads and deer hunters, this simple fact: camping blows.