Ominous Velour

I grew up as a child of the Pacific Northwest in a time before the internet. You bet your ass I’ve camped.

My grandparents owned a winnebago, and we weekend RVed as far as the eye could see. Eating my weight in cheese at the Tillamook cheese factory? Check. Reading 15 books in a weekend because I was trapped inside from the rain? Check. Decimating octogenarians at mini-golf? Double check.

I attended church camp on a tiny island off the sunshine coast and got an achievement award for solo sailing around the entire thing when I was 8.

I went to disabled kid camp and braided the hair of every single girl there, while also avoiding the boy who had a very persistent crush on me because we went to the same school and also ended up on the same schedule for our visits to the spina bifida clinic at the children’s hospital.

I tent camped every summer at Lake Okanagan with my mom’s best friend’s son, Chad, until the night a raccoon fell out of a tree during a rain storm and landed squarely on our tent.

Hear me when I say this. I. HAVE. CAMPED.