Really, John? I'm outta town this weekend, but I'll be back on Monday. Smithville is in Kansas City, basically.

Yeah, I even have a bed (viking slat bed). I was a sleep-on-a-roll-of blue-celfoam guy (which is handy because you can cut it up and pad armour with it in a pinch), but a friend gave me this one when he built a "camping" four-poster. I think, in general, the SCA is a bit more prosperous than it was when everyone was a student, so some people are indulging their Field of the Cloth of Gold fantasies when it comes to their camp setups. But the aching bones and backs are driving the furniture issue too, for sure.

ETA: Erin, cool, maybe we could email to see if we could meet while I'm in the area. The war is a fairly primitive kind of setup, but I can bring a celphone.

ChiKat, sometimes I am useless all day on 8-hours sleep. I think the fact that you showed up moves you out of the useless column.

Never having had cable growing up (never, ever for that matter -- we don't even have it now) all of this Nickelodeon talk sounds like this: weoirua-new;aoriuhabg!

War of the Lillies

I wanna war.

Living outside for 9 months on the Great Peace March has pretty much cured me of complaining about amenities. Don't get me wrong. I loves me some comfort, but tents, porta-potties, food lines, etc? I fear them not.

In fact, I'm something of a porta-john afficionado. The ones used for DC events are pretty damn nice, comparitively.

It's wonderful how a relatively brief period of 'deprivation' (in this case, completely voluntary) can show one just how much one can live without and still be quite happy.

my mom, sister and I usde to watch the Tomorrow people . It dissappeared off our tv. this made us sad.

One of the great memories of my childhood was the family vacation we took to Lake Ouachita. We rented a motor boat and headed ot to an island where we camped for a week. Totally primitive and no other people. It was great, even with the tent that my sister and I shared that was really not waterproof. Though I do wonder if I would enjoy it as much now.

It's wonderful how a relatively brief period of 'deprivation' (in this case, completely voluntary) can show one just how much one can live without and still be quite happy.

And also which things are really really important. Like heat. We nearly froze our toes off last Pennsic.

I will say that for my first two Pennsics (and most of my third) I got to sleep in canvas tents on beds, which kind of spoiled me. Going back to nylon and sleeping bags wasn't nice.

sleeping bags wasn't nice.

But, there was an air bed!

ETA: Erin, cool, maybe we could email to see if we could meet while I'm in the area. The war is a fairly primitive kind of setup, but I can bring a celphone.

That would be fun. My profile addy is good; I can email you my number.

I love camping, although last year I did take an Aerobed with me, for my friend's outdoor 4 day wedding, and it was AWESOME. My ridgerest got eaten, but for car camping, I just take my yoga mat and my body pillow and I'm fine. Frankly, when I'm camping, I usually hit the grouns tired from hiking and swimming (and drinking and smoking) so merely being horizontal is blissfully wonderful.

I HATE portapotties with a vengeance. I have no compunctions about peeing in the bushes while camping, only using portapotties in, er, dire need. I have some girlfriends though who are incapable of peeing in the outdoors, and I feel so bad for them trekking up to the bathrooms i the middle of the night. I scout behind my tent for poison ivy before it's darks and just stumble out and squat. But I grew up in the woods, so I've never had a problem at all with it.

I have to say, given the choice between camping in a place with an outhouse and backpacking with a trowel, I'd pick the backpacking option.

One of our best trips was backpacking in the North Cascades one summer. Yellow violets everywhere and snow at the top with very few sightings of other people. It was lovely.