Saturday, March 5, 2011

365 Nights Camping?

So, my wife was emailed a link to a blog by a lady who cooked with a slow cooker each day for dinner for a year, trying out different types of recipes and stuff.
Hmm. . .  That got me thinking.  I could do that with my blog!  
I could go camping every night for a whole year, and write about my experiences!  I could try out different types of tents, pads, sleeping bags, hammocks, etc. and write about my experience with each one.

So, I asked my wife what she thought about that, and told her how excited I was about it, and well, she wasn't too excited.  She reminded me that we have 5 children and a dog (he could sleep with me though, right?), AND that we have a basement that we're trying to finish, AND that I'm studying to pass an 8 hour exam for work, AND that she and I are interviewing and writing my Grandpa's life story and we've got to get it done in the next month so that we can get it to the publishers and have it finished by his 90th Birthday in May, AND that I need to spend time with her (I just assumed that she would be camping with me for the 365 days, but I guess not), AND, AND, AND, etc.  Yeah, she keeps me grounded.

BUT, instead of doing it all in one year, I've decided to try to get to 365 days by the time I turn 40!  So, I've got less than 7 years to camp another lets see, 365 - 259 = 106 nights.  I'll just call that 16 nights per year.  So, let's see if this is doable.  This year I have planned a week long camp with High Adventure with the Varsity's and Venturers, and a week long camp with my family.  Add to that at least 6 more monthly overnighters and I'll have my 16 nights this year.  So, each year I need to go on:

  • 1 week-long camp with the scouts (5 nights)
  • 1 week-long camp with my family (5 nights)
  • 6 overnighters with the scouts (at least).  We typically do:
    • snow cave Camping in February
    • 2-night campout during spring break
    • overnighter backpacking in May
    • overnighter backpacking in June
    • overnighter in October
    • hot springs campout in November

That's 17 nights a year.  If I can keep that up, then I can cover for years where there are less camping.  Then by the time I'm 40 I will have spent 1/40th of my life's nights under the stars!  That's something to work towards!

Check out "My Camping Stats" on the upper left side of the site to see how I'm coming on my goal!

BTW, I have some campouts that I went on when I was really young, but I'm only counting campouts where I was old enough to remember.

1 comment:

Mike said...

I can't believe your wife would not allow you to spend all year in a tent...

By the way, will you move into our neighborhood? We could use someone like you for our young men.