Camping in Idyllwild, CA
If you know me at all, you know that there are two things that I just can’t seem to live without. The first is being clean and the second is technology. Recently I had to deal almost completely without either of these two things as I spent the entire weekend camping in Idyllwild. It would be a complete lie if I said that I didn’t have any fun, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say I was completely out of my element.
Now I’m no stranger to camping in general, but most of my trips usually include running water and flush toilets. This place had neither. Ok, there was one water spicket at the top of the hill, but there were no sinks or showers. The only thing worse than that were the disgusting vault toilets. Need I say more?
I know some of you hard core campers out there are laughing at me. You’re also probably about to start typing something like, “duh, that’s what camping is. If you have showers and toilets it’s not real camping”. You have to remember though, that I’ve lived in Southern California my whole life. My idea of camping involves renting a spot down in Mission Bay and renting SeaDos for the weekend. Sure there’s tents, but there are also flush toilets and showers. I’m not cut out for the wilderness stuff. I at least need some body of water to jump into so I can feel a little clean.
Being away from the technology wasn’t too bad, but it was still a little frustrating at some points. Sometimes I take for granted how amazing it is that we can Google, Wikipedia, and YouTube everything and anything that we want or need to know. There are just so many instances when I’ll be talking with someone and need to reference some video, document, image, or fact to help communicate the subject matter. If I have a computer present, or even my iPhone, I can just pop it up and share it with the person I’m talking two.
Obviously, this wasn’t possible where I was. Not even from my iPhone. I generally had no service from the camp site and when I did, it was maybe one bar if I was lucky. Just enough to do a google search and hope the answer to my questions was visible in the search results page. If I had to load a page to see the answer then all hope was lost.
All in all though, it was a pretty fun trip. I mean, how could it not be when I was spending a weekend with a bunch of good friends? Even the weather, which was predicted to be 95 degrees and / or thunderstorms turned out to be nice and cool with clear skies. I’d definitely make the trip again. Though next time I’d probably bring a book for the slow times and some headache medicine just incase I get another headache that rages on for 24 hours again (but that’s another story).
posted by Christopher Schnese
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Ah The fresh air and nature as it was meant to be, no running water, no toilets, to live like our forefathers, now that’s the life…at least for two days anyway!!!!
I really can’t imagine you not counting away the hours till you returned to ‘civilisation’ – but it does sound like you enjoyed it. I bet the first things you did when you got back were to jump into a shower and log on to your computer. Would have been my actions too!
lol, you know me too well moo. It was Email/RSS then Shower.
Saw you had some new work up on here and thought I would catch up…
I really enjoed this piece. Your writing style is quite humerous and enjoyable.
ahahahahahahaa sounds like a good time! yeah, i’ve never done “real” camping. i’ve always stayed at places that had bathrooms & showers. wuss… i know. i still like it. it’s so much fun to build a fire & kick back. glad you had fun and weren’t mauled by a bear or anything. =)