I thought while I had a second on this beautiful snowy New England day I’d share one of my ridiculous camping, what not to do memories. Well ones that are funny now anyway, maybe not funny then. But my first few times camping without family in my teens were something, so here’s the first…more to come.
I have always been an outdoors girl. When I was little I was out dawn till dusk, later if I could get away with it, (I didn’t really my mother definitely had the sight) but I had been outdoors enough to convince my parents to camp on my friends land. He had acres of beautiful land. We camped every weekend.
So when I asked to camp away in the mountains of Maine , and she knew many friends would be there she said yes. Another friend of mine took care of a ski lodge in the summer months so my friend and I went up to camp. There was a clam bake that day sending the beautiful food smells on up to the bears hanging out up there. But because we were young (and stupid) we decided to sleep in a tent outside in the beautiful night air and not inside the lodge. (Again, I refer you to stupid).
When nightfall and the fire was all out and everything was quiet we heard some loud noises, things banging etc, and I knew, knew it had to be a bear.
A few minutes later all four of us in the tent saw the typical shadow of a big bear fall on the tent. And mind you, the bear could have been small but a shadow makes it look huge! We realized too, one of us brought the food cooler into the tent (Stupid as above).
So we needed a plan, so our friend pulled out his knife, cut out the back of the tent, and we all ran into the lodge like our ass was on fire. It didn’t follow, but them it didn’t need to, we pushed the cooler to him before we ran. He was able to enjoy some steak and eggs.
We survived the bear and learned to actually do what the camping guide said to do. Don’t put your food where you sleep. Hang it from the tree.
Sleep in the damn lodge next year.
Needless to say when I got home I just said it was a totally awesome time, years later I did tell her about the bear. She wasn’t amused…
If you have a funny camping tale I’d love to share it. You can message me here or send your funny tale to sasysquatchgirl@gmail.com…
Sasysquatchgirl 