Good Advice

Camping: noun, meaning "an family-friendly activity designed to create dirty laundry at astronomical rates. From the Latin "camp" ("without showers") and "ping" (“to play table tennis").

Of all the advice our (poor, poor, blogless) friends Nicholette and Brook gave us about camping (along with a trunk full of camping equipment), the best advice was this: If you wake up in the middle of the night and you have to pee, just get up and go to the bathroom. Don't think about how cold it is or how far the bathroom is, just get up and go. Otherwise, you'll lie in your tent all night, not sleeping, getting colder and colder, and you'll just end up going to the bathroom anyways."

So when I woke up in the middle of the night last night, I only mumbled and grumbled for a couple of minutes before beginning the trek to the potty. After about 15 feet of walking through trees, I stumbled into the field next to our campsite: I have never been happier to take a friend's advice. The moon was full last night, or nearly so, and it hung high in the sky. The entire field was awash in blue light, bright as daylight. As I walked further and further from the camp, sounds slipped away. Eventually, I heard nothing but the crunch of my footsteps on gravel.

For those two minutes, just me and the moon, alone in a field of blue grass, I completely understood the allure of camping.