On Camping

Last year, I got really into a YouTube channel called Outdoor Boys. The channel owner Luke was from Alaska, and he did a lot of traveling and camping with his family. He would build shelters out of logs he found on the wide stretches of beaches in Alaska, or would dig out a snow cave to sleep in. He would cook all sorts of things over the campfire, things like bread, doughnuts, moose ribs, and salmon. And all of the things he did, he did with a smile and an attitude eager to learn from nature, and to share what he had learned with other people. His kindness, knowledge, and love for his family and the outdoors, along with the beautiful places he visited, had me hooked. I had to go camping, to experience sleeping and cooking outdoors for myself. I had been camping one or two times before, but never in a tent, and never longer than one night.

A few weeks after binging most of the Outdoor Boy’s videos, some close friends of mine invited me to go camping with them in New Mexico later that summer. It was their annual family reunion camping trip, and I felt a little bit like I was imposing. But they reassured me it would be fine, so I decided to tag along. They generously let me borrow a tent and sleeping cot, and early one morning in late August, when it was still dark outside, we all piled into the car and started driving to New Mexico.

The way to NM was really fun. I was in the back of a fifteen passenger van, playing road trip games with the kids. We tried to fill out a paper proving that we had seen a license plate from every state. I actually think we got pretty close to reaching that goal, before the papers eventually got lost deep in the crevasses of the van. We drove across Texas and stopped at Carhenge. This is an art installation off the highway in the middle of nowhere, Texas. For years, people have made their pilgrimage to these cars partially buried in the dirt, to spell out their names or leave some other proof that they had been there. For years, the paint has been added to, layers and layers drying in the Texas sun, the smells of the highway and of cattle filling the air.

As we crossed into NM, I could see the mountains in the distance. I love the mountains. They are beautiful, imposing, majestic, mysterious, deadly dangerous, yet beckoning me to come back to them. Their trees and cliffs call to me from across the miles and vast expanses of open plains. We drove up into the mountains and soon arrived at our camp site. It was a pretty site, with pine trees and a stream running through it. Everyone set up their tents, I met the rest of the family, and we all soon went to bed. I lay in the darkness of my tent, listening to the wind blow through the pine trees. It was a wonderful sound to fall asleep to, and the next thing I knew it was morning.

The few days we spent up at that site were wonderful. I helped build a dam in a stream, we hiked to see some sand stone formations further up the mountain, and a lot of board and card games were played and a lot of food eaten.

New Mexicans have two sauces they seem to serve at every meal- red chili and green chili. Both can be pretty spicy, but they put it on pretty much everything. Throughout the camping trip, the pots of chili would appear at every meal, seeming never to run out even as people poured them generously over whatever they were eating. I guess I’m an honorary New Mexican, because by the end of the trip, I was pouring the green chili on everything too (not as generously as the rest of them, but still).

Another thing I ate was a cactus blossom. I had heard that different parts of cactuses could be eaten, and had seen some growing along a trail. That evening, one of the kids brings me a cactus blossom that they had roasted over the fire and told me to try it. I did, and it tasted like hot rotten garbage. It must have been a part of a cactus that couldn’t (or shouldn’t) be eaten. To this day, I still have no idea what kind of cactus it was from. That’s why you don’t take strange food from kids; you never know what they may be trying to feed you.

But I fell in love with camping on that trip. I loved hearing the wind in the trees, especially at night. I loved seeing the afternoon storms rolling up over the mountains and feeling the temperature drop. I loved waking up in the cool morning and breathing in pine scented air. I loved being off of my phone and away from social media, loved that there wasn’t a schedule or a time table or deadlines to meet or errands to run. When you go camping, you can really do what ever you want, whenever you want. A day spent sitting by the stream staring at the water isn’t a waste because you’re disconnected from any distractions or to do lists, and best of all, you’re in God’s creation and able to enjoy it joyfully.

And it was so wonderful to be welcomed into a new family! This might have been the best part of the whole trip. The parents of the friend who invited me have been Christians for a long time, able to look back on their lives and see God’s hand helping them along. I’m blessed and honored to know these people, and they have a special place in my heart, even though I’m not related and I may not see them more than once a year.

It’s interesting how little things might inspire us, might light a spark of something inside of us. Sometimes these things come to nothing. Sometimes they can grow into something bigger than we could have ever imagined. If I hadn’t watched the Outdoor Boy’s YouTube channel, I might not have been as interested in camping or becoming a more outdoorsy person. I might not have wanted to go to New Mexico, and I wouldn’t have met the cool people I was able to meet. In the same way, if I hadn’t gone to a random talk about oral traditions and recipes a few years ago, I might not have learned that many traditional regional recipes are being lost to time since they may not have been written down. I might not have been as interested in learning about and preserving my own family recipes, and this blog might not even exist. So if you’re reading this and have a little something inspiring you, I’d encourage you to pursue it. You never know where it might take you.