Lessons of Camping--As Told By Mel

So, this past weekend one of my favorite people of earth (Miss Amy Beth) took me camping for the first time in my whole entire life. Yes, I know it's sad, please let's not rehash on the fact that I am hours away from being 29, and yet this is my first experience of sleeping in a nylon dome braving the wildnerness. Anyways, enough of the formalities. I arrived back to civilization yesterday afternoon, and was proud to say that I survived an entire weekend of braving the elements. Along the fun filled weekend, I did take note of several lessons that I'd now like to share with all of my fellow coherts on the Nutshell. These are in no particular order of importance, more so in the random order as they popped into my brain.

1) All raccoons are named Rocky and Ricky, because those names just fit them nicely. Now as for their wives or lady friends of sorts, they names aren't nearly as relevant to my camping lesson, so for now, yeah, we'll skip their recognition.

2) Raccoons have cahonas the size of a large Navy battleship. They we're already coming out of the woods before dusk givin' me the evil eye most likely contemplating whether or not they were about to leap at me to eat my face off.

3) Drinking large amount of alcohol and then trying to sleep, eh... not the best idea when you wake up at 3 am and sobertize to discover a plethera of outdoor harmonious sounds that you failed to notice when you snuggled into your sleeping bag slightly inebriated only a few shorts hours before.

4) Trying to sleep au' naturel (under the stars) is virtually impossible in any campground unless you want to have your limbs gnawed off by some vermin of sorts.

5) Raccoons have spouses, and they have domestic disputes. Outside my tent. At 4 am. Which is really awesome. And I sware that I do not shreek like a little girl when I heard such arguements of mother nature.

6) Makes sure that you do not drink a boatload of liquids before you go to sleep especially if you are in a well populated camp ground. Normally I would have just popped a squat outside of my tent, but that was most definately NOT an option. For fear of a raccoon sneakin up behind me to take a bite out of my hiney, I was forced to head over to the pavillion, which proved to be a bit of a challenge as well. Why, you ask..? Because apparently there was a meeting of the round table (with the four legged forest friends of Jetty Park) atop our picnic table, conveniently located about 5 feet from where my tent was. Spectacular. Have no fear though.. as my kidneys were about to burst, they politely adjourned their meeting, and went about their lives...and I made my break for it (Maglite in hand as my weapon of choice.)

7) Do not under any circumstances leave even a morsel of food on your table when you are finished. One marshamallow skewer with a miniscule amount of sugary goodness is enough to attract on average, I'd say oh... about a HOEGILLION ants! Ants are NOT your friends while you are camping.

8) There are most definately some creepy-ass-serial-killer-looking-people walking around the Jetty Park campground. But good news, "The Lopper" was conveniently sleeping on our neighboring camp site the first evening we were there. It's still up for debate if the shim (she-him for those of you who didn't catch that) was a woman or a man, but either way, I was pretty darn scared of this cat! I'm going to assume it's pretty safe to say that he was on the run after killing his wife...and her lover. Who else goes camping by themselves??

9) The little cubby holes zipper thingies in the side of tents are not infact raccoon doors, those are actually to pass your shoes in/out when you enter and exit your tent. Pure genius I tell you.

10) If/when you consume a ridiculous amount of alcohol, it is imperative that you secure yourself and the well being of said vessel before you retire for the night. Opening a zipper, crashing on a blow up bed, entwining yourself in your super snuggly pink sleeping bag and not realizing that you left your tent door open a good 6 inches is a potential recipe for disaster with both bugs and critters. So far as I know, I was quite lucky to not meet the fate of either. But then again I was also in an alcohol induced coma, so I probably would not have even noticed until they began to drag me off into the woods to share their newfound feast with their fellow scavengers!!

So, there you have it, my favorite lessons of the weekend camping at Jetty Park. Please feel free to absord any/all of them if you chose to do so. Even pass them along to your grandchildren or great grandchildren as lessons to the wise. All in all, I had a blast, and I was so very greatful to have share my birthday fiesta weekend with three of the greatest girlfriends (and their other halves) that I could have ever ask for!!