Camper Kimberly

This past weekend, Katrina and I took Kimberly and our Italian Greyhounds, Nani and Oscar, camping in Idyllwild, California. Camping with Kimberly AND our two dogs can be a challenge, but so rewarding. We were joined by our friends Sara and Adam, their two sons, Spencer and Hunter and Gilbert and Mabel, and their two children, Ethan and Audrey. Now, I love photography and have been privileged to have taken some wonderful photos. But as a piece of advice, if at all possible, when taking trips, bring your camera and bring an even better photographer. I'm lucky in that Gilbert is a good friend and is fond of taking pictures of Kimberly and our dogs, and we get some wonderful shots in the process.

But back to the camping... About a month ago, Katrina was getting everything ready for our camping trip to Bryce Canyon, Utah. And one cannot "get ready" for a camping trip without one or two or seven trips to REI (www.rei.com, outdoor equipments store). We picked up some of the latest and greatest in car camping gear. We got a new Hobbitat (Hobbit + Habitat, because it has a round door) tent, two stow away cots, new stove, new ultra bright LED headlamps with dimmers...yeah, we were going in "style". Now that I think about it, I wish I had taken some photos of our set up, it was something to behold. I even brought one of my mom's custom, Hawaiian print, floor mats for the tent to make it really "home"y.

Now over the years, I may have been a bit of a car camping snob. In other words, I used to back pack and looked down my nose on car camping...I'm ashamed to say. The point here was that I enjoyed the fact that some of the most wonderful places in the world could only be visited on foot, carrying a 40-50 pound pack on your back...that you had to work to get there, and there was no "Hilton" at the end of the trail, just more work. But the rewards were great. A new peak, a vista uncorrupted by parking lots and "scenic" points marked by signs, loud tourists, and a Starbucks. My snobbery stemmed from this notion that people who didn't back pack, but car camped didn't want to work hard enough to get to those wonderful places in the backcountry.

I now realize that that wasn't it at all. But before I get to my epiphany, I'll share another facet of my ignorance. People often say, "wait until you have kids..." or something to that effect, or "if you haven't had kids, you just don't know..." What's funny, I used to think, "sure I know. I'm very empathetic, I get it. Things take a little longer with kids, blah, blah, blah..." And at 38, I reverted to that 16 year old, that always said, "I know, I know." When in fact, I didn't.

So the epiphany. After two, nearly back to back, camping trips, I've realized a few things. One, I love the outdoors, always have, and I suppose I always will. And with school, and Kimberly and everything else going on, what these past two trips have given me back is that thirst to explore more and to share it with Kimberly and Katrina. To find the time to get out and explore because it is as important as anything else going on in our lives. And that you really don't know until you have kids how rewarding it is to watch them grow and see the world through their eyes. But of course, there is really no way of fully comprehending how much slower things move when you have kids. I was going to say that you don't know how much work they (kids) are until you have kids, but I think that "work" connotes a sense of "dread", rightly or wrongly. But nonetheless, however you want to phrase it, things indeed move much more slowly. And probably the most important lesson that I've learned thus far, is that your focus needs to be on making those around you happy. That should always remain crystal clear in your mind. Forget about what you want to do or what will make you happy. I'm not trying to sound like the martyr, but sometimes one forgets the fact that your happiness is entirely based on the happiness of those around you. If Kimberly is not happy, Katrina is not happy, then Remy is not happy. Straightforward, simple, but so often we forget. But as we saw during these two camping trips, I've never felt more joy than watching Kimberly laugh and Katrina having a wonderful time. And if that happiness means that we "car camp" so that we can attend to everyone's needs....then, well, I'm a car camper. My hope is that I can evangelize the outdoors and the environment to Kimberly gradually and hopefully by the time she can carry her own pack, she'll be begging to head out to the backcountry, the trek in Nepal, and explore Africa, camp in the Amazon.