Campground, Campground Burning Bright

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology and some misguided financial planning, I made alot of international calls while I was living in Paris. I remember one call very clearly. I had just come up from the La Fourche Metro stop and was making my way toward my house on rue Nollet. I hadn't eaten lunch and was trying to decide between French McDonalds and a street vendor's panini when my sister called my cell phone. She asked me how my day was going while I wondered why she was calling me from the other side of the Atlantic. There was also a strange hint of excitement in her voice.

Then it dropped. She was excited because she had decided, along with my dad, to buy a camper.

"To do what?" I asked.

"Why, to camp! We are going to become campers."

Campers, I thought. People who camp.

It took a minute to sink in, and as it did I pondered the chic wardrobes of the Parisians charging down the streets on their way, I was sure, to smoke French cigarettes and drink champagne at a dainty bar. I pondered the Metro, thanks to which I could glide from one cultural landmark of the western world to another. I pondered the elegant hierarchy of the Napoleonic, Haussmannesque architecture so typical inside the walls of the Péripherique highway. I also pondered my own identity, a shape that I had carefully crafted based on my new, modern, trendy, culturally-aware Parisian life. And here was my sister. Describing in excruciating detail my family's retreat into what I was sure would be the banjo-playing, camping countryside.

I was horrified.

A month or two later I was back in the United States and one of my first dear-God-please-save-me-from-jetlag activities was going with my sister and dad to officially pick up the camper. It was a tiny pop-up, the kind that is only three feet tall until you crank it to human-height. It didn't make me feel any better.

...

But now, two years later, my attitude has changed, the camper has been upgraded, and I planned my trip home based partly on the first weekend of camping season. Those of you who know me well are checking the URL of this blog, trying to figure out if it is some bizarre web-hacking trick, if it is really me writing. It is. Camping might not be my preferred way to pass the time but it certainly is a welcome weekend adventure three or four times a year when the world gets me down and I want a night of open skies, warm fires, and genuine people.

Right now it's just over fifty degrees. The clouds are gone, the stars are out, and the conversation is going. I'm typing this at the picnic table, fifteen feet from the fire, just beyond it's warming glow. But when I finish this sentence, grab my beer, and rejoin the fireside crowd, I'll be very, very thankful for that fire. And for the people surrounding it. (And that my family invested in a camper.)