After breakfast on Saturday, the five of us and Pablo and Lisa’s doggie Siri drove out to the nearby lake. The sun was right overhead, and only getting hotter. At the east shore, we rented a couple of canoes and rowed out into the cloudy green water.

I don’t like being in canoes, but I think it’s more a fear of my backpack going over the side and being lost forever than a fear of falling into the water. I can swim ok and I was wearing a lifejacket. I still got nervous though. I blame it on the lowered blood sugar as the afternoon wore on.

We rowed to a little private section of shore on the other side of the lake and parked the boats in the gritty sand. Then we went swimming, which was something I have been wanting to do all summer, even if only for a little while. After paddling around in the deep dropoff this beach provided, I lay on a towel with the other girls as the boys skipped rocks and played with the dog. Mary and Lisa climbed up the little hillside into the woods and found handfuls of huge stripey hawk feathers.

The sunburns were threatening, as well as hunger, so we headed back. As we waited on the dock for the second canoe, Brian, Pablo and I were assaulted by the smell of a rotting catfish that had tangled itself under the pier. Nice. Then the boat guy had a little power trip on us and made us wait in the parking lot. We noticed this a couple of times: lame park employees getting big in the britches over very insignificant things. Whatever.

Back at the camp, we realized that our site sucked. All the other sites seemed to feature trees over their picnic tables. Our picnic table would be under full, burning hot desert sun for another three hours or so. We watched our neighbors relax and eat in the shade as we made warm tuna sandwiches.

Since I was camping and under no obligation to be doing anything, I decided to take a nap. I carried my blanket, water bottle, magazines, and radio out to a grassy field under a tree and lay down. I napped so hard that I didn’t notice Lisa borrowing one of my magazines or Brian bringing me a diet coke. Ahhh summer.

That night more people showed up; it was Bruce’s birthday. We made about a million chicken vegetable kebabs, corn on the cob, s’mores, and banana boats. No mosquitoes showed up. Everyone except me, Brian, Bruce, and the dog got really, really drunk. The battery for the air mattress inflater died, so we slept on the cold, hard ground.

Camping makes you feel very dirty, very tired. But it’s fun. Cooking food on a fire is fun. Staying up late in the dark. Seeing all the stars and Mars and the moon. Listening to the animals at night. Maybe there’s some primitive reason people go camping. Some sleep in tents, but plenty of others slept in nice, heated, comfortable trailers. Why? Not that I wouldn’t do the same — sleeping on the ground kind of sucks.

Next time I’m going to plan it a little different. Do more research and try to get a very good spot next to the water. Bring better sleeping gear. Hiking boots. A tea kettle. Thermal underwear. But a lot of things were great, and I wouldn’t change. The people we went up with are rad. And there is no other circumstances where I would eat burnt marshmallows on a graham cracker with Hershey chocolate.