5-star Camping

What happens when your spouse has a very different idea of what constitutes the best vacation? My friend has been married to her husband for nearly 21 years. When I mentioned that my family and I had rented a beach house, she asked if she could go with me. She enjoys relaxing on the beach, but her husband is much more adventurous.

“We have done the beach house thing more than once, but my husband does not really enjoy that. He doesn’t know how to be lazy. He wants us to go out west, hike or ride horses, and for at least one night, sleep in a tent in bear country. He sometimes forgets I am afraid of everything (including bears), since he is afraid of nothing. When I go to sleep at night I need doors, walls, and locks, not a tent in bear country,” she says.

There are plenty of folks who love camping, my brother for one. Every year he and his buddies go west. They sleep in tents, ride mules up a mountain, and eat Beanie Weenies by a campfire. They come home looking and smelling like Grizzly Adams and for weeks we have to listen to my brother’s stories about his great adventure. So far none of his tales have made me want to go with him. Of course he would probably say, “That’s good because you aren’t invited.”

I went camping once, years ago. Some girlfriends and I went to the Florida Keys and we camped next to some guys from Michigan. I have been married to one of those guys for 26 years and have never had a desire to go camping again. Bill has suggested that when we retire we buy a camper and travel across the country. That’s fine with me as long we stop every night and check into a 5-star hotel.

My beach-loving friend told me that if she had been around when the Pilgrims were leaving England, she would have been on the dock waving goodbye and wishing them luck. “And then I would have gone home and had tea,” she said.

I suspect I would have been sitting next to her, pouring her tea, and asking if she’d like one lump of sugar or two.