This is who I am……

When I was a kid, a loooooong time ago, we would go camping as a family.  We had a camper on the back of the truck and we’d just go. I don’t remember any logistics at all, my parents took care of that, like camp ground fees, food, getting the camper ready and packed and stuff like that.  We had a tent but I don’t remember sleeping in it except in the backyard.  I couldn’t tell you where we went or what we did exactly.  My dad would fish and sometimes my brother and mom would too.  For me fishing was boring and I was secretly glad when we didn’t catch anything because I didn’t want to eat the fish anyways. I’d go hiking and sometimes my mom or brother would come with me and sometimes my mom would just sit in a chair and read and be near my dad, not doing the same thing, but just be together.  While I was hiking I never once remember thinking about bears or mountain lions or any other thing in the mountains that could have eaten me or caused bodily damage.  I didn’t think about getting lost, being stolen, or falling off a cliff.  My parents may have worried about those things, but I didn’t.

In our camper one of the windows was broken, the screen was still there so bugs couldn’t get in, but the glass was gone.  My brother and I slept on the overhead bunk, my head by one window and his head the other.  My head just happened to be by the broken window.  Once when we were camping, horrific screams rang out in the middle of the night, then a lot of wild barking and howling.  It woke my brother and I.  The screams were a man’s screams and he was yelling for help. It seemed to go on for hours.  All of a sudden he screamed a blood-curdling scream and then the world went quiet.  In my child’s mind he was being chased by wolves, he tried to climb up a tree but couldn’t and he was eaten. In the morning we awoke to a deserted campground, it had been full the night before. My dad said that he heard there were some college kids there and chalked it up to being a practical joke. I don’t think he ever really believed us. For the first time in my life I tried to watch every newscast for weeks and read the Denver newspapers just trying to hear what had happened in the mountains to this man.  It was before Google and Facebook and the likes of these and I heard nothing about a man being eaten by wolves in the mountains. 

I can’t say that that experience made me sour on camping exactly, but my husband and I didn’t go camping, I never really had the desire.  It would have been a relatively cheap way to take vacations with six small children, but I never wanted to.  We tried to sorta camp once and we stayed in a cabin in Red Feather Lakes but I couldn’t sleep at night because I was worried about bears breaking in and eating my children. I have no idea why I had those thoughts because it was wolves, not bears, that I heard that night.  As an adult, an old adult to boot, I’m not even sure there were still wolves in Colorado at the time of this childhood experience.

Now, camping is hard.  I don’t like the dirt, the bugs, the scary sounds at night and I don’t like being cold.  I don’t like the aches and pains of waking up after sleeping on the ground.  I don’t like the work of it all either; Packing food, making sure we secure it right so the bears don’t eat our food and destroy our cooler, packing the car, not having a shower or a toilet, washing the dishes after we cook, starting a fire, keeping it going and then putting it out all the while not causing a forest fire. 

I’m a worrywart. I’m not sure when that happened. I worry about EVERYTHING! Is there anything in the car that smells like food, mints, gum, or even toothpaste? Is the car locked so a bear can’t get in and trap itself and destroy the inside of my car? Is a bear, mountain lion, chipmunk, badger or any of the other millions of animals, amphibians, or insects that live in the forest going to eat me in my sleep?  Does the mosquito that just bit me have the West Nile Virus? Are there any gross ticks on me and will they give me Lyme Disease?  Is there someone out there watching us with binoculars while we change our clothes and get ready for the day?  Is there a game camera recording us as we go about our business?  I probably just watch too, too many videos on Youtube about all of the things that worry me.  In fact, I probably wouldn’t even know there are that many things to worry about if I didn’t “research” what happens in the mountains.

You may be wondering, then, why in the world I’m writing and what am I going to write about.  Well, let me tell you, with all of this being said, I want to live in the mountains!  I always feel like I’ve come “home” when I go to the mountains and feel like I’m leaving behind the best part of me when I come out.  Living in the mountains has been a life long dream! I’m letting you come on this journey with me! Hopefully it’ll be fun and entertaining at the least….. Kind of like “If Lynn can do this and not die, then so can I!” 

I’ll try new ways to “not camp” and share how it all worked and if any of it is worth the time, energy, or money. I’ll share my journey while looking for the land to build on and all the things that this poor city girl does while I try to “not camp” but still spend time in the mountains that I love and adore! I still won’t sleep in a tent, those bears you know, but I am trying new ways to not camp… 

Come along with me!