Chillax.

Camping is when the weatherman said 65 degrees but the thermometer says 35, or the weatherman said 70 degrees but the thermometer says one hundred and freaking fifty two.  Camping is when you lay aside all of your modern conveniences and hearken back to the day of lugging water, rubbing sticks together, and peeing in the woods.  Hello, poison ivy!  Camping is when you realize you are not smarter than a 5th grader, or a boy scout, or yourself 30 years ago.

Camping is when you work really hard all day long so that you can relax for the weekend.  “Relax” means get eaten by mosquitoes, lay on a bumpy pile of sharp rocks to (not) sleep, and eat burnt food three times a day.

Camping is when you can’t check your email or get cell phone service or watch the news and the only thing tweeting is a bird.

Camping is when you sing dumb songs like “Greasy Gobs of Gopher Guts” and “It Only Takes a Spark” and eventually some really sweet songs by Rich Mullins and you might get a little bit teary-eyed remembering the first time you sang those songs around the campfire.

Camping is definitely s’mores.

Camping is wet shoes and wet butts and rain, and dry mouth and sunburn and snakes, and the most ridiculous view of the most beautiful place you’ve ever seen in your whole, entire life.

It’s the Milky Way spangled across the sky, and the shrieking of too-cool teenagers who sound suddenly like they’re about eight years old, and upside-down mountains in the lake.  It’s letting the dogs off the leash, and ice cream cones at a small town gas station, and the sharp snap of a stick in the dark.  It’s a shy deer at dawn and a silent moose at dusk and a flash of fur through the trees.  What was that?

Camping is summer.  Can’t wait.