By Amanda Knox
 
I’m a camper. Or, at least, I used to be. During the summers of my childhood, my family went on a few weekend and week-long trips to the campgrounds around Gold Bar and Lake Roosevelt in Eastern Washington. My middle school had an outdoor education program that included multi-day hiking and camping trips twice each academic year—to Mt. Rainier, Olympic National Park, and the peninsulas along the coastline. When the weather cooperated, my friends from the UW rock climbing gym and I piled together into one of our cars and drove down I-90 until we encountered a reliable cliff face or bouldering camp. During breaks in the schoolyear, my college boyfriend DJ and I hiked to muddy hot springs in the middle of nowhere, and glissaded, usually head over heels, down mountainsides. I brought all my camping gear—tent, sleeping bag, camping stove, rock climbing gear—all the way to Italy, taking up valuable room in my suitcase, because I was looking forward to hiking trips in the Umbrian countryside, particularly around Lake Trasimeno.
 
Now, for the first time in many years, I’m headed outdoors again.
 
It’ll be a soft reintroduction to the wilderness—one of those family camping trips that are just like family BBQs except no one will be divvying up leftovers and going home. We will drive right up to the camp grounds and be comfortably limited to the resources packable into a Subaru Forester, as opposed to what we can lug in on our backs. Coolers full of food and drink! Air mattresses and comforters! Chips and salsa! Aunt Christina and Uncle Kevin will even have their RV, so as long as the water lasts, there will be the opportunity to take a shower.
 
The days will be quiet and slow. Chris will disappear to the water’s edge for fishing. Oma will walk all the dogs—Pinky, Cinder, Lola, Griffy, Andy, Dozer and Tessa—and they will get the attention they constantly crave, especially if they manage to roll in something dead-smelling. Mom and Aunt Christina will busy themselves with improvements to the grounds, or else gossip across the picnic table and a game of dominoes. I will hunker down with a book. There will be copious snacking.
 
The evenings will be loud and fast. Kyle and Uncle Kevin will negotiate the campfire. Chris will reappear to grill the chicken breasts. Jackie and Deanna will slice the cheese, onions and tomatoes. The rural darkness that comes on quickly will remind us of our proximity to each other as well as the depth of empty space that surrounds us. Tent walls are thin as the wind; there’s no use retreating into them until weariness overcomes us. We’ll sit around the fire into the night, long after everyone’s retired their words, and read the shapes of the stars sirening through the deep darkness of the sky. I’ll hold a stick in my hands and listen to the crickets.
 
I’ll remember the special meaning of the place. Here I learned to gut a fish. Here we built sandcastles. Here I almost drowned and you saved me. Here we scattered Opa’s ashes. It’ll be easy-going, but it’ll still be camping. I don’t know what’s kept me.