I’m not sure when or even why we decided camping would be a great idea for our family. We camped often as I was growing up.  I have fond memories of early morning breakfasts at the campsite; of playing in the great outdoors with my siblings.  There is nothing like camping, when you are a kid.

It’s a whole different story when you are the adult who has to prepare everything for the camping experience. Think about it.  Basically, you are planning, purchasing and packing everything you will need for everyone in your family to live in, sleep in, eat, wear and enjoy for as many days as you will be gone.

You pack the house, the refrigerator, the stove, the dishes, the utensils, the food, the clothes, the games, the menu, the beds, the pillows, the blankets and more, ONLY to unpack it all when you get to your campsite. Then, you set everything up, enjoy it all for a few days and pack it all back up for the trip home. Once home, you unpack it all, clean it all up and put it all away. It sure seems like an awful lot of work for a vacation.

I’ve decided camping is no vacation. In fact, we cut this camping trip short.  We were supposed to stay an additional night. After 2 nights of deflating air mattresses, ants invading our tent in droves, very noisy neighbors, an outdoor evening concert a mile away that sounded like it was IN our tent and little sleep interest from Josiah, we decided our family had enjoyed more than our fair share of camping fun.

We packed it all up and got out of there. I was very tempted to just leave it all.  I thought it would be delicious to just pack up the kids, jump in our van and run.  I wanted to get as far away as fast as we could and never look back. It would mean no packing. No unpacking, no cleaning and no putting away of all the camping paraphernalia. It would also mean no more camping.  No problem there. If someone happened upon our camp site and chose to keep some of our belongings, God bless them.

Josiah, however, was a real trooper on his first ever camping trip. Given that nothing about his routine was the same, nothing was familiar and he had no idea what was to come, he did fantastic. For most of the morning yesterday, as we were packing up, Josiah sat in a camping chair, content to amuse himself with some beads.

The rest of us packed up, straightened up and put away everything around him. What had just been a living area, quickly became nothing but a large plot of dirt and grass once again. The only thing left when all was packed up, was Josiah sitting in the camp chair, still playing with his beads.

We had been so busy packing up, we neglected to eat much in the process.  Once on the road, we stopped for a quick bite to eat. Josiah had eaten a couple of yogurts right before we left, so we passed a few bites of this and that back to him as we rode. Chandler was a huge help and fed Josiah some snacks along the way.

I guess none of us realized how hungry the boy must have been.  When we got home, Rick pulled out the box with non perishable food in it. Josiah had torn through the bag and helped himself to a few hamburger buns on the trip home.  He had eaten them quietly in the back seat, none of us aware he was doing so.

My first thought was, how sad our sweet little guy was hungry and couldn’t tell us.  How sad we hadn’t fed him more.  How sad he had to fend for himself and ate plain, tasteless hamburger buns to squelch his hunger.

And then it hit me.  It wasn’t sad at all.  It served to prove something to all of us.  While we were missing the conveniences of home and longing for civilization again, Josiah was roughing it.

Maybe that boy is a camper after all.