Camping, or something like it.

I love camping. I really do! We registered for, and were thankful to receive, many lovely camping items. Sleeping bags, a big tent, a camp stove, hot-dog pokers... People were very generous to us! And I was so excited!

AFTER the wedding, I come to find out my loving husband's idea of "roughing-it" is a Motel 8 without cable TV. Hmmm..... This could be interesting.

About four weeks ago, I somehow convinced him to go on a road-trip up to Yellowstone National Park, and that camping in October wouldn't be TOO cold. Yes, I can be evil too... But I was really excited!
Thursday evening we spent several hours gathering out camping equipment, shopping for the little things we didn't have, gassing up the car, debating about needing extra blankets, and generally having a good time. We bought stuff for smores, I pre-made tin-foil dinners we could just stick in the fire, we opened the boxes on all of our new camping stuff, and went to bed around eleven o'clock, prepped and ready for the morning.
After sleeping in to a DELICIOUS nine o'clock (ok, delicious to the wife... the husband has trouble getting out of bed at two in the afternoon...) we got up, put the final stuff in the car and headed out. We started out in Utah, which was mildly cloudy. Once we reached Idaho, it started to smatter a little bit of rain. In northern Idaho, it started to pour down rain. By the time we reached Montana, it was snowing good and heavy and starting to stick to the grass.
Around the time it started to snow, the husband started throwing out other options for the night. "Honey, what do you think about getting a hotel room?" "Um... I don't know if the tent is THIS waterproof..." "I promise I'll take you on a two day camping trip in the spring." Finally, I agreed to consider a hotel for the night, but only after we'd gone to the campsite and eaten dinner over the fire. If it was STILL that wet and miserable, I said I would consider a hotel. The husband wasn't too happy about the arragement, but was a saint enough to keep his mouth shut.
We reached a tiny town called West Yellowstone, which is a tourist trap decorated to look like a little mining/logging town. As we drove through the center of town, I realized we had nothing to cover ourselves with while we had a campfire, and saw the local park had picnic tables with awnings. We pulled in to the park, and sat in the car for a few minutes while I cried at my ruined camping trip. It was still raining/snowing/sleeting, it was really cold, and the husband didn't want anything to do with nature at that moment.
Eventually, we got out of the car, unpacked dinner and proceeded to build a fire in a puddle and try to cook my pre-prepared tin-foil dinners. It didn't really work. The fire kept going out from the rain, the vegetables never did fully cook, and both of us were soaking wet.
So, I agreed to a hotel.
After driving the length of the little town, we found a cute collection of wooden cabins, marketed as "The Hibernation Station". Very much fun and very much cute!
All through this, the Husband was SOOOO thoughtful and kind. He knew I was looking forward to camping, he knew I really liked this type of thing, and he was doing his best to make it happen for me. He tried to stay optomistic about sleeping in the tent. He was understanding about my NEED for a fire, and helped fan the coals in the rain to keep the fire going. When we couldn't keep the fire going any more and my fingers and ears were frozen, he put me in the car to get warm and extenguished the pathetic fire himself. He was such a trooper.


Ok, so most women wouldn't complain about sleeping in a king sized bed next to their extremely thoughtful husband, after several bars of chocolate (leftover from the smores) and after taking a jacuzzi bath while watching a gas fire flicker in the moonlight.

But darn it, I wanted to go camping.