I don’t like camping very much. I used to want to like camping, because it seemed adventurous and healthy and there was this really neat shampoo commercial in the ’70s that centered around cute, popular girls and their perfectly flipped hair all camping and having so much fun in the wilderness. Of course, they were wearing striped tube socks, too, but I ignored that part and spent years thinking that I wanted to be an outdoorsy-type with perfectly flipped hair.

The truth only recently got too hard to ignore. When Hubby and I first got together, we were so poor that we couldn’t afford vacations involving motel stays, so we scrimped and scrounged and got ourselves a tent. It was a deluxe model with two rooms and a screened-in porch. Who needed a Holiday Inn?

Our first few trips were OK. The blush of love was upon me, and things like sleeping on sharp rocks and feeling a constant drip in the small of my back during a monsoon didn’t really bother me. The fun things, like roasting marshmallows and showing Stepdaughter, Niece and Nephew some of the amazing scenery and wildlife in our state parks made a little discomfort worth it.

As the years wore on, and the tent wore out, realization began to dawn. The end came when Hubby and I found ourselves perched on the side of a mountain, hanging on by our toenails, freezing to death and undeniably damp. It was half a mile to the nearest toilet, and the car was parked going the wrong way, so I had to drive up the mountain until I found a place to turn around, and then head back down, just to tinkle. Because, as I told an incredulous Hubby, no way was I walking that far every time I had to go. And there was a sign on the bathroom door.

“We hope you enjoy your State Park experience. No hot water facilities are available here.”

My dreams of perfectly flipped hair and outdoorsy fun died a cold, cold death right then and there.

I was reminded last night of my earliest camping experience. I threw back the covers and slid into bed and snuggled into the warmth created by a luxurious heated mattress pad. My hips, which have ached in the cold for most of my life, quieted their painful clamor. Before I drifted off, I thought back to that one awful night at Girl Scout camp.

It wasn’t winter, but the weather was unseasonably cold on the one weekend I was forced to spend at camp. Mama was a Troop Leader, and she said that if she had to go camping and sing silly songs and hike in the *&#@ wilderness, then so did I, buddy, and I’d better like it, too.

We took only one sleeping bag because that was all we had, and Mama wasn’t about to spend money on a deluxe Barbie sleeping bag for me just for the one night, even if it was practically guaranteed to make me the coolest girl in the tent.

She dragged our one ratty bag out of the attic and shook it free of spiders and pine cones, and presented it to me.

It was huge, made of drab green flannel and lined with a print of bird dogs in various hunting poses. Some of them even had dead ducks in their mouths. I was mortified and swore that I’d sleep right out in the open air before I got into that disreputable thing. Mama shrugged, smirked her knowing Mama smirk and packed it for herself.

After a full day of crafting and walking in the woods and eating grilled wienies, we piled into our tent and settled in for the night. Every one of my friends pulled on sweatshirts and flannel pj bottoms. And they all unrolled some version of that bird dog sleeping bag. There were a couple exactly like the one Mama had over in the Troop Leaders’ tent.

I had my pride. I told everyone that I preferred to be chilly at night and that, of course, blue was a natural color for toes to be; it meant that the circulation was being stimulated. I sat, in my little ruffled peignoir set, freezing, until the wee hours of the morning.

When I finally gave up and snuck into the tent with Mama, she lifted the corner of that flannel monstrosity, and I slipped into blessed warmth. She didn’t say a word, and I was asleep, my icy feet warming against her legs, before I thawed out good.