An Ode to Camping

by Bess Turner (United States of America)

A leap into the unknown USA

Do you really know a place until you’ve camped there? Sure, you’ve traveled the highways, you know the way to work and to home and to the best Thai food in the city. But do you know the scent that wafts off of the rustling trees with the breeze, or what the stars look like, really look like, without the haze of light pollution? You may feel like you know this place, but you have not yet met its soul. The air itself comes to life in the woods. It’s no longer congested with cars and construction and generic bustle — it sings with the birds and sails crispy leaves down its currents. It’s a different kind of highway here. Everything fits together as it is supposed to, it seems, so much so that the feeling of the wind is equal to the beauty of a flower in bloom, which is in turn equal to the bugling of an elk. Out there, the smallest leaf or insect becomes wildly important, tiny puzzle pieces essential to the bigger picture. In camping, too, even the average produces a sheen of extraordinary. Who hasn’t delighted in that imperfectly roasted veggie dog over the campfire, or found joy in brushing your teeth with a toothbrush in one hand, water bottle in the other? It’s like nature exerts a kind of magic over the mundane, making sleeping in a bag on the ground something that millions seek out each year. Is it because we yearn to be more at one with nature? Or is it because it draws attention to our separation from it? I can only suppose that the answer depends on who you ask. My mother, brother and I spend a lot of time hiking, paddling, and camping everywhere from the Tetons in Wyoming to Cloudland Canyon back home in Tennessee. One of my favorite childhood memories is camping at Lizard Creek in Grand Teton National Park — hiking during the day, gasping for breath in the glacial waters in the afternoon and warding off mosquitos while eating what tasted like the ultimate gourmet sandwiches and hot dogs around the fire in the evening. My brother Will made up stories that he illustrated in the dirt, and I made a doll with grassy hair and a tutu of Queen Anne’s lace. My grandfather showed us how to differentiate bird songs, Audubon bird guide in tow. When we woke up the next morning, Will and I found ourselves dumbfounded by what we discovered on the table outside of our tent. There was ice… in the summer. We pried the icicles off the table to look at the crystals in the morning sun. Will ate some, for posterity. Our fingers went numb. We were so enamored with this simple act of nature, of the slowing of water molecules, that we in turn slowed down. Being in wild places is our way of life. In times of difficulty, we would turn to the wilderness for comfort. Will and I found solace in the red rocks of Utah the summer our parents divorced, and each park that we explored transported us further into an alien landscape of our own planet. The fragile arches, the crimson rubble, and the never-ending clear blue of the sky were like nothing I had ever experienced. There was a mom-and-pop motel where a dog called Dammit roamed, a name that endlessly entertained us. I got my first taste of rowing, from a generous raft guide steering us down the rivers in Moab. We really learned what “It’s a dry heat” means. And we camped among the red rocks, feeling closer to each other and miles away from our problems. Maybe it’s the clarity of the desert, the lack of neon signs and commotion and people and even trees, but it was cleansing.