Sleeping in the Dirt.

We're going camping this weekend. We're taking all 47 kids, 2 tents, 50 bottles of water, 250 lbs. of food, 400 sleeping bags....no wait, I am not doing this trip justice by exaggerating. Nope, here is the REAL deal:

9 people, 9 sleeping bags, 9 sleeping bag fleece liners, 9 pillows, 6 duffle bags with clothing ( I have 4 daughters [who will bring their mp3 players, ipods, Barbies, hair dryers, journals, cellphones, etc.], a boy scout [read: gameboy & sticks] and a husband who packs enough for an Apocalypse), and 2 friends(who KNOWS what they'll pack?!), 3 coolers full of water & food, camping stove, 3 tents, 3 tarps, 8 hiking poles, and one Suburban with a THULE on top.

For TWO days.

Now the deal gets sweeter--it does! I LOVE to go to the mountains and spend the whole day hikin, scrambling up rocks, checkin out the wildlife that is so abundant in the Park (that's the Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado)...I love s'mores around a campfire, just relaxing and all that goes into a long day outdoors. I love a day like that.



The part I hate is right after all that. The sleeping in a sleeping bag in a tent made of nylon...outside. In the dirt. Where animals live. Bears. Mountain Lions. Snakes. I hate that part. I don't sleep. I rest my eyes.



On our first camping trip ever ever ever up at the Park, at an area called Olive Ridge, in the middle of the night, a cub brushed up against our tent and huffed...I was the only one who heard it, sending a panic straight to my heart. I didn't know at the time it was a bear. I just heard the huff and after a minute, I whispered to Kent. He being the Mountain Man he is, put his headlight on, looking quesitonably like a Miner, poked his head out of the tent(!) and announced that whatever it was, had left. He was back asleep in a milli-second.
For Kent, sleeping in a tent is "cheating"--he grew up in the mountains of Montana. He had no tent. "Sleeping under the stars" is not a cliche to him--it's his childhood. There are few things better for his psyche than sleeping with the earth under him, in his ears, under his fingernails, and a full days' beard growth. Camping where there is modern toilets is almost an affront to him--but since he has daughters who would not go otherwise, he has come to compromise his ideals to appease the masses.


But I digress...back to that night--I lay there til daybreak with eyes peeled w i d e like a Watch Tower Guard.


The next morning the camp Ranger came around and told us there had been a cub in the area that night.



Camping has never been the same since.


SO come Saturday morning, when you are snuggly warm in your bed, hold a thought for me, please. And again on Sunday morning. By then, I will surely need all the karma in the Universe after 2 nights of sleeping (and I use that term lightly) in the dirt.