Camping means different things to different people. To some it means roughing it all the way – hiking in five miles, lean-to’s made out of branches, sleeping on the ground, eating pork n’ beans right out of the can with your fingers after you smash it open with a rock ’cause  you forgot the can opener. Those people aren’t me. These days we use a travel trailer so we don’t have to sleep on the ground anymore. I have a lot of back troubles, and I need a real bed or I’m just not having any fun. We don’t have a television set or a DVD player, but we do bring our share of technology with us.

We spent plenty of time camping in Sebekia last summer. There were between 3 and 5 families each time we went out, meaning we had up to 12 children stampeding around the campsite. Add to that 5 dogs (good thing none of us has a dog allergy) and 10 adults, and it becomes a pretty busy place.

On occasion, we had to fire up the ‘ole chitty chitty bang bang, my antique PC laptop, and see what was going on out there in the real world. Thanks to the invention of the aircard, hi-speed internet can be found anywhere you can get cell service, even in our Redneck Paradise. I never take my Mac camping. It doesn’t like to rough it, even when I pack it in one of those special computer backpacks with extra padding and a gajillion pockets for extra goodies.

You can probably imagine how hard it is to fit everyone around the campfire. With all the kids crowded in there with their chairs, it makes for some excitement. As long as no one gets a flaming marshmellow in the face, or a a jab with a hot dog stick, we consider the evening a success. A couple of times we built two separate fires; one for children and one for adults. The toddlers stay with the adults of course!

Some nights the alcohol consumption is a little high. It’s amazing how much Blue Beaver Beer a bunch of redneck campers can drink! But most of the time we are a pretty mellow bunch of campers. We camp pretty close to home so that every couple of days we can all toddle off to our respective farms and make sure all the livestock and whatnot have enough food and water. We rarely go to a conventional campsite, since we like to make up our own rules and get away from all the other people. Our private campground is fairly isolated and we don’t have to worry about intrusive campers making noise all night and such. Unless we stay up late and do it ourselves, that is!

I had to take a long hot shower before sitting down to write this.  I was covered with campfire-smoke, Off (mosquito repellent), sunscreen, weasel hair, cheese from Tim’s exploding smokies, and a variety of other unidentifiable grime and grease.  Fortunately, that can of beans I had for supper last night has finally worked it’s way out of my system.

In case any of our foreign Beer Buddies aren’t aware, Canada Day is a celebration of the day The Great Gretzky comes up from his fabled home in L.A. and gives hockey sticks to all the children who have been good throughout the year.  If they’ve been bad they only get a hockey puck in their stocking.  We leave out Big Mac’s and 7-Up for him to eat and some people will even leave out his rookie card in hopes that he might sign it.

Of course you could read about the “real” origin of Canada Day, but my reality is for more exciting.  Now if you’ll excuse me I have to slowly wean myself back to a mere six-pack of Blue Beaver before the week-end.  To all of our fellow Canadian Beer Buddies out there (you know who the four of you are), “Take off, eh!”