Camping Sucks

    I wanted to go camping yesterday. It was going to be a 3-night thing from arriving on Thursday afternoon and leaving on Sunday afternoon. I had a bunch of supplies with me, everything needed for camping, and drove to a place called Cowboy Camp in Williams, CA.

The bend that goes into the camp, and the main area with two toilets. That tree there in the second photo? That's where I was.

    The place is pretty decent. The camp site was a bit smaller than I thought. There's a small paved lot that is not for camping but nearby is a gravel road that goes out and goes about the length of a football field or two and loops back around. There are two vault toilets here. This section is the main lot. It's just the toilets and empty, grassy land where you just set up your camp. It's dispersed camping--no hookups, no power.

    Another grassy path about the length of half a football field branches off of the gravel one near the start of the camp, literally a minute walk from where I would camp. I parked my car under a tree and set my camp there. It looked like the perfect spot. It felt very thrilling to find this spot and start to set up. Felt like a settler laying down new territory. But my complaints would soon follow.

Me alone to make the ideal campsite. (Maybe on the top of the hill, but still.)

What actually happened.

    I thought this place was gonna be larger. More separated and apart from each area. My neighbor was about 50, 60 feet away. Another woman and a dog with a school-bus-turned-camper are also the same distance away. I'd have much preferred to have been out of sight completely from anyone. And my camp was not horribly far from the gravel road too, about 20 feet. I could have moved but... where? I still would have been pretty close (within eyesight) of a person no matter where I was in this campground. These thoughts only came to me after I had set up my tent and canopy. I'll just settle for now.

    I tried using curtains hung around my canopy to give me some privacy. Nope. The wind kept blowing them around. Rocks to weigh them down only made it more cumbersome. I wasted time trying to put those up. (In fact, I didn't know what time it was at all. I scrambled the clocks on my phone, laptop, and car. According to my phone, it was 7 AM in American Samoa. But I'm certain it must have been 2 in the afternoon. The scramble was to try to live without time and... I'll go into it later.) Anyway, those curtains were not worth the privacy. I gave up on them.

   I stopped fucking with the curtains, got my chair, and an MRE and sat down to eat at the folding table I brought from my house. It was after those curtains that I thought, "No. Stop fucking around. Just get things as you need them." My journal entry says, as I waited for my food to heat:

    It feels a bit... It takes a bit of getting used to to begin letting go of responsibility, obligation. Even as I was setting up camp, I did not give much to stop and get things only when I need them. Sure, set up the canopy and tent but... leave it at that! (This is where the RV's convenience would have been nice...) But I have a lot of time to reflect.

    More on the RV thing later. But the journal follows as I write about how I'm tired of the voices of people at work. Meaningless, stupid conversations. Me enjoying only speaking when spoken to, but at work, I have no choice. Those conversations mean nothing. Every day is the same. Need new people. New places. Somewhere I choose to be and somewhere I can call home.

To coworkers and everyone in general: shut up and leave me alone.

     Back to the time notion. We ought to reassess our notion of time. Abandon connection--even temporarily--to one of the several things we are always concerned about in some way. Waiting, and wanting time to pass faster. Stress, and wanting time to pass slower. It is so typical to be burdened by having too little time or too much time for something to happen. So abandon that altogether and eliminate the numerical measure of time. No clocks. Just exist now, follow the sun as your clock, and do things only as you wish for them to be done at that moment, with no deadline or date to do it by.

    And that RV thing. The thing about an RV is it is equipped with much more amenities/commodities natively. Your tent on the other hand? Less resistance to the elements. A tent does not have wheels. A tent is not a moving vehicle either. It is equipped with bounds more luxuries and comforts than a tent campground. Some of them even have showers and toilets. Incredible! You get movement, hygiene, nicer sleeping quarters, and more in one convenient package!

Looks better than a tent, don't it?

    I imagine the scene from Breaking Bad where Walt is out in the middle of the desert with the RV. No sight of a soul anywhere. No cars. No signatures of human activity besides the one dirt road over the hill, barely or just out of eyesight. This would be perfect for me. I don't even want to be reminded of humanity at all. But here at my site in Cowboy Camp, they're around and too close for comfort. As long as you're within my eyesight, you're too close to me.

Perfect. Not even a trace of people in my sight.

    So eventually I ask: what was any of this for? Fate has bent itself so against my desire. I am out here, but oh so conveniently enough, a horse race is taking place here too, on Saturday. As if my wish for solitude weren't enough, God or the universe or whomever conspired against me by placing a huge public event here in two days. This explains the 4 horse trailers that drove into the campground the time I was camped. Man, why? I can only expect this place to be massively crowded and noisome, the entire antithesis of why I came here in the first place. What does it take to get away from everyone? And despite my effort, it still went against me. Worse still, 2 strangers interacted with me. One said "nice tent!" Another greeted me and talked to me when I went to the bulletin, then conversed how I had a nice spot and something-something-got-a-horse and not from around here. Mission secondary objective failed: Speak to no one. Also woman with that school bus and her dog yapping. Shut up, dog. Fuck.

    The moments of sitting and trying to let go was not that easy. I really did try. Sat, wrote in my journal a lot, but... this just wasn't the right place. And, oh! That comes to my mind. The spirit of camping: going somewhere else! Yes. I can leave at any time, actually. This area may be nice, it really is. The mountains are beautiful. I'd like to explore those but I hoped for a more solitary and untouched experience. The horse race too? It would be better to vanish somewhere else. I don't know where, but just not here. It'll be swamped busy soon. On Friday, I thought, I'll go somewhere else, and Saturday too! Awesome. Traveling!

    Time passes.

    This sucks. Y'know what, fuck camping. Fortune favors the bold, right? I'm certain this would have been a more positive experience, and I guarantee it will have been if a) I had more comforts, b) I was further away, and c) no fucking horse race. I like being close to nature, but this is too close. Bugs in my tent, too, had to clear it out and move it. All this equipment too. So cumbersome, even with it just being in my car and not on my person. Hiking is better. I always liked hiking. Just... hike then! Less stuff, and just close enough to nature that when you're good, just head on home. (The ideal is my house is already close to nature so I get nature and comfort all in one place.) And if I'm less keen to the physical activity of it, I'll just hike a little, then break off to set down a chair or mat. The three idle movements: standing, sitting, lying down. As long as you can do those, you can rest. Long as I fulfill those and draw, write, read, eat, etc., I'm good. When I'm done, just pack up and hike outta there. Perfect.

    I overheard the people at the school bus campsite say, "That guy's smart, he's got a dugout!" Yes, I do. I'm lucky. But I don't want this site. I don't want to be here either. Oh, and now I smell weed from their campsite. Great. Now I really don't want to be here. (I do like weed, yes, but the smell of it just... pisses me off. Ruins my immersion.) This whole camping thing was a wash. Next time I decide to do it, I'll pay for the convenience of an RV or whatever and go far with it.

    I take a photo of the mountain with my Polaroid and as dusk grows, I take down my canopy and return all equipment to my car except my tent and bed. I thought, "At least try. At least sleep in the tent." But no. I lie down in it. I'm dirty. I badly need a shower. Great, as if I had few luxuries or comforts now, now I have to bathe. If I were more remote as I had thought, I'd comfortably just stand out in the open nude and bathe. But I'm already irritated. I'm already fed up with this place. So I nap. I feel sad afterward. This really could have been better. I'm upset that it wasn't. But so what? Be grateful for your comfort.

    And then... I went home.

    Fuck camping. (For now. I still want to try again. But next time be more... cognizant.)