a rendevous, by chance....

Let's get something straight. I am a very outdoorsy girl, I love to run outdoors, water ski, snow ski, work in the yard, go to the park, ride my bike, sit outside in the evenings. But for some reason I've never really had the desire to camp. I don't mind getting dirty, and at the risk of sounding like a total jerk--I'm just going to say it--I think it's my perception of people who camp that turn me off. And it only bothers me because in a campsite, you can't get away from people who might not be that enjoyable.

Like Natty-Lite drinking frat boys peeing on fires, or rednecks, or weirdos who don't bathe, ever. I don't know, it seems in my mind it's either full on white trash, or LL Bean loving yuppies (have to admit I'm more like the latter). I'm not gonna lie, I'd prefer the yuppies. I have no idea where I got the white trash stereo type, maybe I really am a snob!

Anyway, Ed got a fishing boat this summer, and I agreed, on a few stipulations, that I would give camping my best shot since I had never done it as an adult. Since Wichita is home to Coleman, my stipulation was that I camp as long as we become Coleman poster children, i.e. we don't buy ghetto used stinky gross camping gear. Ed bent to my will and off we went. I love ALL my new camping gear. It is fabulous, useful and fun! Why camp ghetto if you don't have too?

So at the end of September we decided to test our campiness, packed up my highly organized camping supplies, our dog and the boat and headed to Fall River.... which I might add doesn't seem like it's in Kansas. I don't say this because Kansas is ugly, it just isn't known for it's bodies of water.

Well... we were in for QUITE the surprise as unbeknownst to us, there was a "Rendevous" at the campground... it sounded quite cheeky to us, but we weren't turning back. So not knowing what we might wake up to the next morning, we set up our tent, made a fire, ate some s'mores and like good yuppie campers went to bed watching a movie on the laptop.

The next morning we wake up to gaze upon a frontier camp, straight out of 1809! It was actually pretty cool. One guy even made a Tee-Pee out of brush. All the people were dressed up in frontier days gear and stayed true to the period with their tents, cooking and activities. Except the potato gun... we never figured out how they justified that one.

The highlight of the day was definitely the skillet throwing competition. All in all it was pretty entertaining. We think it was mostly Vietnam vet-type guys and the kind of people who get into "Renn Fairs." But they were nice and it was pretty cool to watch them in action. Of course we happily went back to our modern comfy campsite and grilled burgers on our gas grill.

I have to admit, camping isn't so bad and I'm looking forward to my next trip this coming spring, and really looking forward to being able to actually go on a run around the lake! And I'm happy to say, all my preconceived negative notions about camping turned out to be mostly untrue. I had a really great time, and met a lot of very nice people!