I hate camping

All About How You Home Away From Home.

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hambone
Post-Industrial Non-Secular Mennonite
Location: Portland, Ore.
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I hate camping

Post by hambone » Sun Oct 05, 2014 4:46 pm

It is difficult for me to narrow down the reasons for my intense dislike of camping. Let me try for you on this beautiful October evening. Do you mind? Oh thank you.

We must of course begin with the filth. Sitting around your fumy garbage and sticking to rancid socks and yellowed hair-matted t-shirts, you cook lukewam hotdogs that sat in the sun like Moses for 4 days. Metallic beans wrapped up in that wrinkled tin tube for quite some time now - and don't deny it because all of you know the taste of "canned".
Itching in old wool sweaters of argyle or holiday bears, you swat away the legions of biting insects... the deerflies and the mosquitoes trying to take a drink stabbing with their tiny beaks, the yellowjackets carrying off various hams.

To me, it really starts with the preparation - days of packing, planning, shopping - all horrible activities themselves and worthy of separate essays. All to sit and sip tired old aluminum Hamms sloshing around in warm, ice-melted coolers with the various meats from a week ago, turning weird and green, floating with disgusting flecks breeding who-knows-what.
The Bus
An unsafe soup can from 1969, an era of optional safety, in this era of total detachment. It takes a certain amount of stupidity to put oneself in this situation.
There is no telling what is going to break, like a random jack-in-th-box. You pray it's not along THIS road, sea surf crashing 1000' down.
Will it make it? Will it fall apart after battle like so many startships Enterprise? Blues Mobile, falling apart after the "mission from God".
But all the shit - it all fits, somehow with a prayer against airborne axes etc. down the crowded roads filled with distracted idiots. Pray for no nails or screws on the way either, or a loose chicken. I almost hit a chicken on my bicycle the other day, true story.
Mice in a bus are no fun. No, they like to wake you up rustling in the dead silence of a wild night with crispy rustling in your cabinets, shitting their tiny turds everywhere for you to find later, smeared with e-bola or whatever the hell else. Chewing through your stuff, they leave a waste of excrement, ruined goods, and bad sleeping. They are a big reason just to stay home.
The Weather
It never snows on christmas, except for suckers. Camping either involves rain, lightning, high winds, freezing temperatures, or a combination. Waking up at 2 am to take a leak in the 35 deg. rain sucks. It's horrible really, tracking mud and the feces of who the hell knows what back into your warm fetid bag, wet and wide awake, chuckling to yourself at how horrible it all is.
Camping in the snow is for idiots, nothing good could ever come of it, wet pantsbottoms, hypothermia, eventual cannibalism etc.
Look at the damned Donner Party - right at a lake full of trout too. Bet they were having a great camp, "enjoying the wilderness" you betcha. Perfect example, nature is a horrible she-bitch full of disregard and maybe even disgust. Nature may be lovely as you fall off a cliff or lie infested in a tent swimming with parasites. Unfortunately for us, Nature requires unconditional love and surrender.
But the rain will wash it all away, and even your skin sometimes with its unceasing drops, icy and turning you into a cadaver, shivering your pale bony hands deathlike from the lack of sun.
Shitting
Horrible, like an ape you squat, looking around like a nervous dog - vulnerable and straining, burning from the painful brew of last night's chili, pulsing into the ground and almost filling the hole you dug in the hard basalt earth, quickly quickly man you gotta go.
Disregard for Nature
Trash in trees, along roads, everywhere else, from sea to sea. Shot up TVs on mountain peaks. It breaks your heart if you have one.
Smells
Most things smell horrible in nature, decay and rot surrounds you at every camp. Mushrooms an old basement, or the really bad stinks of maggoty meat somewhere out in the bushes. Sweating through and stinking streaked rings of filth into your last clean clothes you are forced to accept a world of men without showers, what a fetid age it must have been...an age of old and rotten cheese everywhere. Fire leaves a streak of smoke-stink on everything as well, coating everything with a funeral pyre ash. And it will burn you, leaving pocked old scars full of fluid for a long time.
Going home
On the last rancid day, as the rain pours, you must gather up all your muddied crap and fit it into a filthy and smelly vehicle, steamy with the stench of smoked old feet, praying the car will start and make it down all those hills and home. You are exhausted, infected, smelling of death, sleep deprived, sickly, and wet, on your guard for the next moron on a blind curve or deer or whatever the hell else decides to jump out at you. Then the sad suburbs roll by, tire marts, traffic interstate a million cars................................................
Sincerely,
-Bob
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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energyturtle
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Re: I hate camping

Post by energyturtle » Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:00 pm

I must say, there must be some horrific times you have had to conjure up such an involved essay of disgust. I for one have a bus that I camp in some 30 times a year in all kinds of inclement weather. Living in the mountains of east Tennessee I have saw all the things you described and then some. For instance, crystal meth being cooked in the camper right beside of me. Anyhoo, all this does not keep me from getting out of the confinement of societies plan for us. God forbid we lose our homes, jobs, and way of life inside our crisp, clean economic stable suburbs and concrete jungles, that we are forced to live under the horrible inhumane circumstances you described. I for one will have no issue. Here in the South, these uncomfortable conditions are a way of every day life that we know no different. I will keep my guns, freedom to eat, piss, shit, hunt and fish where I want, when I want. I choose my bus to be the liaison to get me there, and if have to rebuild the S.O.B on the side of the road so be it. I know the guy that's cooking methods beside of camp site, or the asshole throwing trash on the side of the road, or the guy taking a shit on the tree across the way will be there to help if needed. As far as coolers, food, pissing at 3 A.M. Tighten your supplies up a little, light a big ass fire (insects hate smoke and heat), get some bleach and take a piss in the sink westfalia provided (the one meant to wash dishes in I suppose) and let in drain into the gray water bucket you sat underneath. As far a needing to shit and tracking back in your bed.........WTF? Just my opinion. Good day.

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energyturtle
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Re: I hate camping

Post by energyturtle » Sun Oct 05, 2014 7:13 pm

Oh, and the smelly bus , clothes, and all that shit. Clean it, wash them, string up a clothes line, and use natures dryer (the sun) to rejuvinate the aroma tide. Light some potpourri and go to the next adventure. I froze my ass of last night camping and am fortunate to be in my home tonight, but I can't wait until next weekend to do it again...........
Scottie

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Westy78
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Re: I hate camping

Post by Westy78 » Mon Oct 06, 2014 6:05 pm

Oh Hammy, if I didn't know you that would have been depressing to read. However, I know you live for all that you describe in that tounge in cheek tirade. I will camp with you before the end if the season. Seriously. I hate that all of the weekends you guys have gone I've been busy. Sometimes even camping. Like this whole week in the wonderful high desert forests of Eastern Oregon looking for that elusive mule deer.
Chorizo, it's what's for breakfast.

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Sluggo
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Re: I hate camping

Post by Sluggo » Tue Oct 07, 2014 10:06 am

You love to camp! I know you spend your days waiting for the next camp. Our last one was fun as hell once you left the actual site. I think you'll cheer up once we get back to the Clackamas. But yes, the unbridled stupidity of the common dirtbag always rears it's head at some point. Just be glad for all the beautiful things you get to enjoy once you pick up their trash.
:vwgauge420:

1977 Bus with Sunroof - "Lucky '77"
2000cc Type IV w/Dual Weber 36s,
Aircooled.net SVDA w/Compufire,
Redline Weber Fuel Pump,
Holley Regulator,
Half Ass Brush & Roller Rustoleum Paint Job,
Incomplete Custom Interior,
Dual Batteries,
Crunched Slider Door.
------------------------------------------------------

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Amskeptic
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Re: I hate camping

Post by Amskeptic » Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:41 am

hambone wrote:It is difficult for me to narrow down the reasons for my intense dislike of camping.
Sincerely,
-Bob
Beautifully done, Bob. That little essay of yours put me RIGHT THERE, and I could in no way answer to it, remark upon it, or suggest a damn thing, it was too perfect for any of that.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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hambone
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Location: Portland, Ore.
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Re: I hate camping

Post by hambone » Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:32 pm

Oh you know it. Camping: the sport of the damned.
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

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Sluggo
Wishin' I was Fishin'
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Location: Portland, Or.
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Re: I hate camping

Post by Sluggo » Tue Oct 14, 2014 5:34 pm

We should do it again next week.
:vwgauge420:

1977 Bus with Sunroof - "Lucky '77"
2000cc Type IV w/Dual Weber 36s,
Aircooled.net SVDA w/Compufire,
Redline Weber Fuel Pump,
Holley Regulator,
Half Ass Brush & Roller Rustoleum Paint Job,
Incomplete Custom Interior,
Dual Batteries,
Crunched Slider Door.
------------------------------------------------------

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Amskeptic
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Re: I hate camping

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Oct 18, 2014 7:33 am

Sluggo wrote:We should do it again next week.
=D>
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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hambone
Post-Industrial Non-Secular Mennonite
Location: Portland, Ore.
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Re: I hate camping

Post by hambone » Fri Feb 12, 2016 12:35 pm

A couple of years later it still gives me quite a giggle. OH! To find a mate who recognizes how hilarious I am. I am a doomed one man act.
It would be even more funny read aloud with a Mark Twain voice.
I haven't been out in nature in quite some time due to Life Choices and am really going quite mad. IN A GOOD WAY
oh look it's raining again
http://greencascadia.blogspot.com
http://pdxvolksfolks.blogspot.com
it balances on your head just like a mattress balances on a bottle of wine
your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat

User avatar
Amskeptic
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Re: I hate camping

Post by Amskeptic » Sat Feb 13, 2016 8:22 am

hambone wrote:A couple of years later it still gives me quite a giggle. OH! To find a mate who recognizes how hilarious I am. I am a doomed one man act.
It would be even more funny read aloud with a Mark Twain voice.
I haven't been out in nature in quite some time due to Life Choices and am really going quite mad. IN A GOOD WAY
oh look it's raining again
. . . as refreshing a read as ever.
We really MUST go do a fuel pump replacement in a snowstorm some time. The new one, of course, should be defective.
Colin
BobD - 78 Bus . . . 112,730 miles
Chloe - 70 bus . . . 217,593 miles
Naranja - 77 Westy . . . 142,970 miles
Pluck - 1973 Squareback . . . . . . 55,600 miles
Alexus - 91 Lexus LS400 . . . 96,675 miles

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