Camping with the stomach

We’re just a few hours from our inaugural camping trip of the summer – a summer that’s sure to be low on camping and high on life-changing-moments-like-having-a-baby. With that in mind, we’re forced to really focus on the fun, the utter relaxation that comes with sending every thought into the open, flying across the lake to drown, and settling into a book, a fishing pole or a kayak.

Well, sure, that’s all great. I’m more concerned about the food.

For Kerrie and I, the best parts of camping boil down to the products we consume – the recipes we’ve hashed together over the past five years, perfected over a fire or tempered over a Coleman grill. We sit, we hike, we float, we read and unwind and write and talk and all of that. Most of all, we eat.

And it’s not like we’re creating out of this world selections. Grilled potatoes and a veggie burger take on a whole new meaning in a campground. A bowl of cereal or a bag of Sun Chips become a wonderful slice of nirvana while sitting in a camp chair. I can’t begin to understand it – the basic becomes brilliant when the outdoors comes into the picture.

So sure, it’s weird that I’m excited for a bag of chips and a grilled salmon filet – almost more excited than getting to finally tackle Travels with Charley or floating aimlessly in circles on a windy lake. It goes to show how powerful the gut can be – how as much as we’d like to think we’re driven by our heart or our head, in all reality our stomach leads the way.

This was lovingly handwritten on May 11th, 2007