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.

Going back to nylon and sleeping bags wasn't nice.

I'm ruined for that too, now, I fear. I have one of those roman wall tents from fcsutler. A couple hundred bucks and perfectly serviceable and nice inside, plus the above mentioned bed. [link]

Of course, with all the camping stuff, plus armour, etc, this mandates being able to tote it, so that requires either a minivan or a trailer and as trailers are Instruments of the Devil (tm), I have an unsexy, but comfy and much stuff-totey vehicle.

ETA: Erin, insent from my stuffy work addy

When Hubby started in the SCA around A.S. VI, he was of the "Oh, I'll just bundle up in my cloak and sleep in the middle of the battlefield, it's a nice night." Now, I'm not letting him near a campground if he doesn't get some sort of substantial mattress.

Kids shows I miss:

Today's Special
Polka Dot Door
Kids Incorporated

I have decided NOT to go to the spa thing. If she (or anyone) offers to pay for me, I'm going to say, "B, you are my best friend and I love you and I love that you are so generous, but I don't want to feel like I owe people when I do things I can't afford. I need to not do them. I am so sorry I have to miss it, but let's schedule our day at Burke Williams for right before you go to Michigan for the wedding." And then I'll give her a small LUSH basket for her to take to the hotel for when she has her pre-wedding bath.

I have my own tent, and prefer it, but this year our car is crowded, so I'll be sleeping in my friend's 7 man tent. Since we are 3 girls, we should be fine.

Oh, I'm getting jazzed! I'm actually not canoing this year, for the first time; my friend J. doesn't like the canoeing part, so we are staying at camp, which is right by the Buffalo, and tubing, and laying out, and swimming all afternoon, and drinking Mai Tai's in a tub.

Yum. This will be the first time I've been in the sun all summer, so Im going to have to douse myself in 45. If you check out sat photos Fruday afternoon, I'm sure you can see the glare from my white ass from space.

Heavens. I go away for 5 days, and Bitches becomes unintelligible to me. What are all these shows? Nickelodeon?

Aimee, it sounds like you made a great decision.

Aimee -- that sounds like a very good plan.

incapable of peeing in the outdoors

Having previously been a suburban braindead housewife, the March didn't just teach me lessons...it bludgeoned me with them.

My very first out of doors wee came by urgent necessity in the middle of let-me-tell-ya NOwhere...which resides in the middle of the CA desert...no trees, no roads, just a string of powerlines next to a cut in the dirt...roughly 50 miles long.

Fearing urimic poisoning, I finally gave in and squatted on the sand about a 1/4 mile from my companions. No sooner had my knickers been dropped when I heard a mighty fwipping and felt a rush of wind.

Then the Marine helicopter swooped up and hovered briefly over my shining backside. I could hear chortling...they must have used the p.a.

At that moment, I felt my dignity flee...pretty much never to return.