Am I a happy camper?

We camped for the Fourth of July. My husband loves camping, and I had never done more than sleep in a sleeping bag in the family room before I met him. This is my second season of camping, which was prompted last year when I moved to Colorado to get married. While my inaugural year brought discomfort and grimy fun, I’m really learning the nuances of wilderness slumber this year:

1. Calories don’t count when camping. Three well-balanced meals at home turn to constant nibbling on things you’d never ordinarily buy — Nutty bars, Pop Tarts, gallons of GORP (good old raisins and peanuts for the layman), enough bratwursts to line the floor of a six-person tent, and of course, s’mores. Throw in some pre-packaged snow peas to prevent gout.

2. Time flies out the window. Unless you have an awesome waterproof watch (preferably with a calculator built in) you don’t know if it’s 11 a.m. or 5 p.m.* All you know is the bar is open — Coors light!
*I have to add that if you have a husband like mine, he does know what time it is by looking at the sun, the shadows and probably the moss on the trees or the wavelengths of the light reflecting off the lake.

3. Vanity and, unfortunately, cleanliness follow time right out the window. My camping clothes are my roughin’ it clothes, which are shirts five years after their prime and my special “camping shorts” that my husband bought me to ring in the first camping trip. When I pair them with my high-top (black) hiking boots, I look like a forest ranger preparing for a game of hoops. It goes without saying that makeup and perfume are replaced by a subtle layer of dirt.

4. You go to bed as an alternative to freezing outside in the dark, not to get sleep. If anyone has tips to sleeping well in a slippery yet sticky sleeping bag in a stuffy yet windy tent on a cold yet hot (depending on the time) night, please tell me!

5. My observances and experiences camping would be MUCH different if I were a guy who went camping with other guys. Replace the green snow peas with green hamburger meat — just grill it a little longer to kill the bacteria. And replace the tent and sleeping bags with a tarp to lay under if it rains. As far as the vanity issue, my husband would argue the opposite: he would love to wear his camping garb year-round. You can never have too many all-purpose pants with multiple pockets.