Turning the small t-shaped handle, a familiar
squeak-squawk-swoop sound filters through my ears and into a deep nook of my
brain. “Ah,” my brain says to the familiar sound of a campground water spigot, a sound tied to a hundred different memories.
The memories that come first are from camping trips with my
family when I was a little girl. Vacations meant camping and, though we
occasionally stayed in hotels (preferably ones with pools in my sister’s and my
opinion), I don't remember hotel trips as well. Hotels didn't have those
familiar water spigots.
My memories are colored by vivid fern and pine greens, the pale blue
of early morning sky and a bit of haze from campfire. They feel like the rough
flannel of my dad’s button up shirt, warm like a cup of hot cocoa my mom made,
spongy like the old yellow-foam mats we’d roll out every time we set camp, and
soft like our matching navy-blue sleeping bags that smelled faintly of campfire
and earth. With a soundtrack of chirping birds in the morning and the crackle
of campfire along with the spigot squeak, these colors, feelings, and smells
paint the backdrop to memories of hide-and-go-seek at twilight in the woods
behind our campsite. Roasting s’mores to the perfect golden brown and mourning
the loss of ones turned to charcoal. Setting up our gigantic Colman tent with
its confusing color-coded poles that could fit the four of us plus our bags and
the dog and our toys and maybe a school bus or two (or so it seemed in those
days.) We camped close to home, and we camped hundreds of miles away too.
With my sister, mom or dad, I would walk to get water from a spigot for cooking dinner on our 2-burner Colman or cleaning the dishes, to fill water bottles before a hike or to fill the dog’s bowl. After dark, my sister and I would walk closer together on our way to wash our hands and brush our teeth, while trying to one-up the other with scary stories of ghosts and Bigfoot and the boogie man. With a squeaky turn, the high-pitched whistle of water would signal the flow through pipes while we did the "chore" of filling some pot or bottle, inevitably splattering the ground and our feet and faces in the process.
Camping led to building forts in the roots of massive trees in the Olympics, seeing the late day sun shine on Mt Rushmore, playing cowgirl in wooden-porched
museums, daydreaming of dinosaurs in the Badlands, crying about the approach of the Hells Angles while stopped a South Dakota rest stop. My imagination stretched with curiosity as landscapes changed before
my eyes at the speed of 60mph on the drive to our annual summer destination. I learned to pee
outside without getting it on my shoes and that blue colored berries are
edible, red are sometimes edible and white are never, ever to be eaten. I
learned that whatever you see, look a little closer, a little longer and you'll see more than you ever expected. And I learned that sleep comes faster, deeper, and more restful under the canopy of
trees, stars and a quiet, wilderness sky.
I don't know why my parents chose to camp. Maybe because
they both camped as kids with their families. Or, maybe financially, they could
afford to travel more with a family of four by not spending on flights and
fancy hotels, but rather driving and carrying our home in a rolled up canvas
bag. Or because they really just love the outdoors. Most likely, it was a
little of all. Whatever the reason, I am grateful.
Now, from the moment I set out for a campout in an established park packed with July tourists or
some solitary backcountry spot, I nearly instantly find peacefulness and
creativity forgotten in the standard routine of coffee, house, work. All it
really takes to get there is the turn and squeak of a campground faucet.
