Well, I'm back from holidays and ready for fall... or at least I hope so.
This last weekend Juanita, Kaleb, and I were in Alberta (Red Lodge Provincial Park) for a family camp-out/reunion. We actually had every single person from 3 generations of my mom's (Klassen) side of the family there. Good times.
Anyway, as I mentioned, this was a camping trip. I love camping. I love the simplicity of it: nature, close friends/family, camp fires, waking up with the sun and getting bacon and eggs going on the camp stove; I love the sound of crackling bacon in the morning... and then some good strong tea or coffee... ahhh!
So as we were driving out to Alberta this thought struck me: everything that I need to survive is with me here in my car. In our little Mazda Protege there was me, my wife, and my son and all of the things that we would need to live a simple but completely satisfactory life.
In North America there are millions of people like me who will, for fun, simplify their lifestyle 
for a week or two each summer. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population of this earth lives like this (or far worse) out of necessity.
for a week or two each summer. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population of this earth lives like this (or far worse) out of necessity.Maybe there's something wrong with my brain when I start questioning the ethics behind camping. I think maybe Juanita thinks there's something wrong with me...
What do you think? (about camping, not my sanity)
What do you love (or hate) about camping?
Oh, yeah... in my opinion RVing is completely different than camping. I say that small campers and tent trailers still count as camping but anything beyond that is just cheating (and taking up valuable campsites for me and my tent)!
While we were there we found some nice diamond willow and so as a little project I cut a good length and have been hand carving myself a walking stick that will, hopefully, end up looking something like these.
8 comments:
Are you saying that it is unethical to go camping when we have so much? Or are you saying it's unethical to have so much and we should all be camping? When I was a kid and didn't want to finish my meal my mom would say, "there are kids starving in Africa, eat your vegetables". So is this the same thing? "There are kids with nothing in the world (like camping), so go hoteling."
Tim S.
Ha! I always thought it was pretty funny that parents would say stuff like that. It does't really make much sense does it?
[If we have any parents reading this maybe they can explain to us what they were trying to get at.]
As far as the camping thing goes I wasn't really advocating a certain ehical perspective so much as the fact that you could actually come up with one.
I'm always up for people camping. I suppose maybe what I'm wondering is, if so many of us enjoy this simplified lifestyle while we're camping why don't we live similarily simplistic lifestyles at home?
So Timothy asks why, if we like the simplicity of camping so much,do we not continually live in that simplicity? A=The bacon and eggs every morning would kill you!
Now about the,"eat your veggies-starving kids in China" thing...It is about cultivating gratitude, counting your blessings, avoiding waste,nutrition and well...that's what our parents told us so we say the same thing to our kids which they will say also to Kaleb!
dadb
Oh yeah, where did you get the beautiful diamond willow sticks in the pic?
dadb
Ah! Yah gotta love mindless tradition!
I think every single kid who has been told that line has thought/said, "Well, I'd love to send my ____(insert despised veggie of choice) to ____(insert poor nation of choice) but it would go bad in the mail. So what difference does it make if I eat it or not?" Yah gotta love this cynical postmodern generation!
These nice diamond willow specimens are brought to you courtesy of "the internet" (ie. goodle images).
I love camping as long as the weather's nice, the food's decent, the bed is good and the shower and washroom is close. I would hate camping as soon as any one of these factors changed, or if I had to camp any longer than 2 weeks. If I had to stay there with no hope of change it would become depressing very quickly.
I don't like camping.
That's not true, I love the sound of rain on the tent, or the fresh smell of rain in the woods, or the beauty of rain falling into a lake. Wait, maybe I just like rain.
Its nice to hear that many of you enjoy the simpler things in life. I can tell you from experience its not that sweet. Try no cable, no cell phone and no internet!
Deebs
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