Into the great outdoors

The boys have been talking about going camping for months. We took them one night last fall, and I suppose the memory of that trip is just cloudy enough for them to remember having gone. Their dad would live in the wilderness if it weren’t for the three of us, so I knew as soon as the off season came, so would our now annual trip into the great outdoors.

Just preparing for the event takes a week worth of work. I, not surprisingly, am quite a novice when it comes to roughing it. My main concerns are what I will eat and how I will stay warm. So after packing four layers of clothes, gloves, hats, hand warmers, bedding, a bag of tasty snacks, and a couple rolls of toilet paper, I was pretty much at a loss on where to go from there. But that’s ok. I’ve found that the men in our family revel in planning and preparing for a night in the boonies.

Upon our arrival, the grown ups began unloading the pickup while the kids’ job was to start gathering wood for the fire. The boys were eager to explore their surroundings, but we insisted on work before play, especially on a campout.

Just excited to be there, they willingly complied and began creating a pile of firewood that would later prove to be a goldmine of imaginary rifles, revolvers, derringers and bazookas, thanks to the imagination and guidance of their Uncle Ryan. “Here’s a gun,” their uncle would say as he pulled out a perfectly shaped pistol. “Awesome!” the boys would chime in together. And so they began trying it themselves. “Is this a gun?” they’d ask, pulling out a mangled, twisted twig. “No. That’s a stick,” Uncle Ryan would say with a grin.

Not fifteen minutes into the experience Cooper yelled, “Mom, I gotta poop!” Just the sound of those words must have shifted Brisco’s bowels into action because only seconds later, he piped in, “Me too.” I of course, deferred them to their father.

“Go tell Daddy. He can make you a potty.”

So off the three of them went, deep into the forest to build a potty. I followed not-so-close behind with camera in hand to see what these little outdoorsmen thought of their homemade toilet.

As their father finished digging a hole, they both just looked up at him, and Brisco said in his most hick-ish voice, smothered in disbelief, “In-Ere? How’m I gonna poop In-Ere?!”

Dad assured them he wouldn’t let them “fall in”, and explained that he’d simply cover the hole when they were finished. A bit awe struck, Cooper looked up and said, “Oh. I thought you were really gonna build us a potty.”

“He just did,” I assured him. And it didn’t cost us a dime.

Over the course of the next day and a half, we had one adventure after another. We walked the creek, which had just enough running water to make jumping across a dicey endeavor at best. We climbed the creek banks and walked through Papaw’s wheat fields. We went looking for the old fort, and actually thought we had found it until I took a closer look at what the boys were oooing and ahhing about. I realized, as I squeezed thru a tunnel of mud and fallen branches, that they’d actually probably found the grave yard: a ravine, scattered with dozens of cow bones. And probably no germs or diseases of any kind.

We roasted marshmallows and drank hot chocolate and went on an adventure with Uncle Buck, who took us to the old two story house that Grandma grew up in. We carefully investigated the now abandoned homestead and imagined Mamaw buttering biscuits at the stove that lay on its side in the middle of the room. He told us the story of the day Grandma came home from school just as a storm was brewing and had to sit alone on the porch while the rest of the family was in the cellar waiting for the cloud to pass. The kids could not believe it.

We ate more hotdogs than we could hold, and enjoyed the best campfire concoction imaginable, rolled neatly into a tortilla and drowning in hot sauce. We had the best of both worlds: good food, a warm fire, the company of our family…and a playoff game blaring on the radio.

I wondered what our boys would remember most about their experience, so I asked, “What’s your favorite part so far?” Consistent to form, Brisco shouted, “The pancakes!” Cooper decided he liked the rope swing his daddy hung in the big elm tree and of course, playing in the tent.

I knew they’d had as much fun as two little boys could handle when, sitting in my lap, all bundled up in a blanket in front of the fire, Cooper asked, “What time can we go to bed?” with Brisco chiming in right after, “Yeah, Mom, what time?”

So on that cold, fall night in October, day one of our adventure into the great outdoors came to a close as we turned off our flashlights, snuggled into our tent, and were all fast asleep…before the first long-legged spider even had a chance to tuck us in.

And that’s All in a day’s work!