PARENTPROSE

CAMPING CATASTROPHES
Experienced Camper Offers Lessons Learned While in the White Mountains with Her Two Sons

I am a camper, a long-time camper. I have spent 20 years of my adult life traveling back and forth across the United States and Canada in my VW bus, sleeping in my old umbrella tent on my bulky flannel-lined sleeping bag. I have been gone for as many as 12 weeks at a time.

I have camped in dozens of well known, highly populated, well-developed National Parks and scores of isolated primitive sites deep in the National forests, with no running water, and only pit toilets. I have encountered snowstorms in June, ransacking brown bears in the Rockies, and Minnesota mosquitoes so violent that that the only relief came from being wrapped mummy style in wet towels.

I have been paid to organize outdoor living experiences for adults, and parents have entrusted me with their adolescent daughters for week-long camping and hiking excursions. I am not inexperienced. I know how to camp and I love to camp.

Knowing all this, you might assume that taking my 4and 8-yearold sons on a twoweek camping trip to explore the White Mountains of New Hampshire would be a breeze and everything would run smoothly. You would be wrong.

For some reason, I lost all my prior knowledge, as well as any common sense, and created a camping nightmare. Through it all, however, I learned some valuable lessons, which I will gladly share with you, in order to save you and your family from the same disastrous experience.

The first lesson is never, never leave your home with your children sardined between sleeping bags, tents, food, toy bags, firewood, etc, all, for a 6-hour trip, unless you know with absolute certainty, you will find an empty campsite by supper. Should you fail to follow this cardinal rule, you may be forced to spend dinnertime at a rest area, where your children, who are so overtired and overwrought from the trip, may act out their frustrations with a not so friendly game of "let's toss little brother's favorite teddy bear half way across the river." Then, quite possibly, you might totally embarrass yourself, by reacting to this by shrieking, attracting the attention of every other person in the area, and totally shattering the concentration of the religious pilgrims at the next table, who are trying to pray aloud and read from their bibles.

Furthermore, it is conceivable that you might have to travel as many as 50 extra miles, going from ranger station to campground, and from campground to ranger station, looking for an empty campsite to pitch your tents.

The second lesson is never, ever pitch your tent in the last available spot of any campground. Assume that those, who arrived before you, knew what they were doing in leaving that site unoccupied. The last empty site is inevitably downwind of the pit toilet, or at the bottom of a steep hill. Therefore, whatever the weather, you have problems. On a good day, the problem may only be the occasional whiff of composting bathroom waste. On a bad day, it could be landslides of mud, a flooded campsite, with loosened stakes and poles, and cascading torrents of water flowing into your tent, which soak your sleeping bags and duffels and everything inside them.

If this happens, you may end up spending as many as four hours on any given day, inside a laundermat, with hordes of other drenched campers, staking out territory around the washers and dryers. The sheer stress of this may bring up levels of aggression and hostility you never knew existed within you, causing you to use your children as guards, while you run to the convenience store for coins to use in the machines and junk food as rewards for your loyal assistants.

Speaking of food, don't bother being a culinary camping genius. Your children won't even notice, or even worse, they will notice, and complain instead of compliment. A lovely chicken breast, with fresh vegetables, marinated in teriyaki sauce, wrapped in foil, slow cooking over the fire, will not bring applause. A can of spaghetti or a hot dog on a stick will make them happy and fill their tummies, just as well.

Another hint I can pass on has to do with the endless array of pamphlets and brochures available at visitors' centers. It is not sufficient to simply get two of everything. It is imperative that you immediately write each child's name on his personal stash of information. This will eliminate endless arguments about who had the paper with the tiny wrinkle in the corner or the almost invisible mark on the second page.

I also learned on this trip, that experiences that thrill me don't necessarily thrill my children. For example, it was incorrect of me to assume that my sons would be as enthusiastic as me about hiking a portion of the Appalachian Trail. They preferred maneuvering their Matchbox cars around the driveway gravel or endlessly chasing a snake through a drainpipe.

Another lesson I learned, was never trust an 8-year-old's word that he can be just as careful using a jack knife all by himself, as he was five minutes ago when he was sitting right next to you, under your watchful eye. If you trust him, and leave him alone for even the two minutes it takes to walk to the bathroom, you will probably find disaster when you get back. His finger may be sliced, and no amount of pressure or ice will be able to stop the bleeding. Consequently, you may find yourself driving a long while over mountain roads, through many tiny villages with no doctors, before you find a medical center that can help you. If this should happen, keep in mind, that not all medical facilities accept all medical insurance. The next lesson is always carry extra cash on your camping trips, just in case you have a medical emergency.

There are other uses for the extra cash, as well. Let's say, for example, that your car breaks down 10 miles from anything, including cell phone service. If you are fortunate enough to have even one vehicle pass you during the first hour of your trek to the closest village, and the driver is kind enough to offer you and your family a ride, you may want to generously tip him. Furthermore, you may need an endless supply of change to pour into the local pay phone in order to call the nearest town to find a car rental facility and a motel.

The final lesson I have to share with you is this: Always let your children buy their souvenirs on the first day of the trip. It will save you the aggravation of having to hear about it over and over throughout the trip, and it will eliminate you having to experience any guilt if your trip is unexpectedly cut short before they make their purchases.

Joanna Zarkadas lives in Framingham.