"A Good Man is Hard to Find"

Ben and I like the idea of camping. We even bought a tent last Christmas for ourselves, but we just never seem to find the time to go. But we just picked a weekend and decided we were going to go, dangnabit. At the last minute we decided to take our pupy, Colby. The one other time we've been camping since we got married we took Jackson, and that was not a good idea. He spent the whole time trading corners to shiver in and barking at every little sound that he couldn't see where it came from. Needless to say, we hardly slept at all. And sadly, our friends that went with us couldn't sleep either.
But Colby was much better. She's a great car rider. We went to a place called Rocky Springs down the Natchez Trace. Driving down those deserted, steep-banked roads, with Colby bouncing around the car, I commented to Ben that I hoped we didn’t turn into Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” I think we even ran across the Misfit when we stopped to let Colby pee. He was quite the scraggly wayward-looking man, but he seemed more interested in lounging in the grass and eating his non-descript food item than us, thankfully.

Once we made it to the campsite, we drove around to pick our site and realized we had the entire campground to ourselves. It was absolutely empty. So we picked what we thought was the best, and set up camp. Thankfully Colby is not a barker. She just played around on her tether while we set up. Ben set up the tent and got dinner going while I got fire wood and built a pitiful little fire. And then I kept forgetting to watch it, and so it kept burning down to coals. I’ve been camping tons of times growing up, but never had to really do anything. But I’m learning. We had enough of a fire to roast marshmallows, and once you’ve got smores nothing else mattered.

And then we realized we had brought nothing to do. No games to play, books to read, people to chat to, nothing. So we went to sleep.

Half way through the night I woke up, and—as always happens when the bathroom is 50 yards away through complete wild blackness—I had to go to the bathroom. So I stumble around to put shoes on, find a flashlight, and open the tent…and hear some kind of growl. Ben was awake at this point, and heard it too, so I didn’t imagine it. I closed the door quickly, and we waited. Finally I couldn’t stand it any longer. Be it a raccoon, bear, wildebeest, or Big Foot himself, I had to go to the bathroom. I didn’t meet any critters, but walking with the single bulb flashlight bouncing around through the grey woods, with deep night all around was eerily reminiscent of Blair Witch Project…and so I scooted on back to the tent as fast I as I could.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We slept about as well as could be expected for camping, made breakfast (even a cup of Early Grey tea my hubby whipped up for me), packed up, and were off to explore the Trace a little.

All in all it was a nice trip. The Trace, as always, was gorgeous, and it was nice to get away from everything, even if to give up a few luxuries. And we managed to avoid any Dueling Banjos.

Finally, we made it home…and snuggled up in our plush queen sized bed that we can appreciate oh so much more now.