At 33, I went camping for the first time

Kevin is a solstice baby. His birthday is June 21, which usually falls on the longest day of the year, and the tail end of a frantic spring landscaping season. We're big fans of experiences over tangible gifts, so I began prodding a few months ago to determine how to fete. Two friends & participants in the Salute the Sun Retreat recently moved to Portland, Maine. They'd given an open invitation to visit (dangerous with us!) & neither Kevin nor I had been to Maine.

They graciously accepted our request to crash at their spot over Kevin's Birthday weekend. They even upped the ante by suggesting a camping trip to Acadia!

My stars.

I have never camped. 

Kevin has been asking me to join him camping. He likes experiences that test his endurance. He goes zen when landscaping in heat over 100 degrees. He prefers working outside in torrential downpours. He dreams of backpacking. 

Thankfully, his friend, Mike, usually helps him get this out of his system. Mike doesn't "car camp" as he calls it. No, he hikes in, often 8 miles. Each winter, he breaks out the snow shoes. There is always a camp stove, tent, & sleeping bag in his Prius trunk.

I promised both of them that I would try camping. Given that I'm a novice, they've been trying to determine the most inviting camping trip to sell me on the experience. And I get it in theory. I prefer budget travel, I find it usually more satisfying! I have no issue with staying in a loud hostal in some remote corner of the globe. I'm not prissy per se-- I don't shave, I struggle with dressing myself, think manicures are torture. But, I do have some serious objections to camping. Namely: I like good food. It is a serious challenge to hike many miles with ingredients for good eating. I also do not like to cook. I like to support other people who make good food by purchasing it from them. Like, in restaurants. Lastly, I don't like to live in filth, so I do clean, but reluctantly. Cleaning is not fun to me. My understanding of camping is that it involves many chores. You create your own shelter. Gather fire wood. Collapse your own shelter. Ensure you haven't left behind items that will attract bears or disturb the environment. Why work so hard?

But. It's Kevin's BDay. An invitation to Acadia, a site that has been long vetted & approved as a solid first camping experience. We'll travel with a friend who lived on Mount Desert Island (Acadia's home) for years, assuring insider knowledge. 

We drove up to Portland, Maine to stay a night at our friends' apartment. Mimi and Chalese baked Kevin a Birthday cake and anointed him in black pepper and frankincense oil. It felt auspicious. In the morning, we traveled three hours north to Bar Harbor, enjoying pit stops in Camden, and the prolific salvia and lupines.

I'm generally travel logistics lady, but this was dicey as I was the only camping novice. With some guidance, I'd reserved a campsite at Seawall, procured a camp stove, & a few other essential loans from friends. Most of my choices were suspect & questioned. I don't know why the camping novice was assigned such tasks. However, we made it to beautiful Bar Harbor and then onward to Acadia.

This weekend, I was at week 6 of healing from a fractured foot. I was wearing the boot as my foot was still a bit swollen and achy. However, at the base of The Beehive climb, I shed the boot and put on the keens. Initially, things were fine. As much as I wanted to observe my surroundings, I attended to the roots and stones in my path. Soon, the trail turned to iron ladders on cliff faces & a bit of rock climbing. The biggest issue was not knowing my foot's capacity. I erred on the side of caution (as much as I can claim being cautious when rock climbing on a healing fractured foot) by relying on arm strength or other parts of my body. There was a lot of butt sliding.

We reached the top of beautiful Beehive and began descending the other side, arriving at The Bowl.

Thank you, Mike, for the image!

We stripped down to underwear (thankfully I was wearing some!) and took a swim. We weren't entirely sure that was approved behavior but we figured we could always claim ignorance. Little fish performed spa exfoliation on all our bits. There was a good bit of sunning on rocks like lizards to let the skivvies dry out. The foot felt fine.

Later in the day we set up camp. Well. They set up camp. I found potable water. Discovered that communal bathrooms felt like a hostal. Watched while they expertly made fire. And then remembered that I HAD camped. Once. I was 13 or 14. My family took a trip to the Southwest, which included two days rafting on the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The intervening night was spent sleeping under the open stars on a beach by the river. We woke up and realized we'd slept on a bed of scorpions.

Maybe that's why I forgot. And haven't camped since.

There were pre-dinner walks and post-dinner sexy poetry & song shares. (I didn't know about campsite confessionals. That shit is real.) Of course, I was first to crawl in the tent. 

Before dawn, we drove up to the Cascade to watch sunrise over the islands surrounding Mount Desert. We wandered through early light on the College of the Atlantic's campus, Chalese's alma mater. We determined more sleep was in order and wearily crawled back into our tents. A second rising, yummy breakfasts, and I was deposited on Jordan Pond for reading while my buds summited a few nearby peaks. We didn't want to push the foot.

There's talk of next level ish: summiting Ketahdin. Ketahdin is a two day trek, involving camping somewhere remote. I think I better buy some hiking boots.