ESSAYS
CAMPFIRES,
WENCHES AND INTERSTATE TOURISTS
PAGE 5
©
2006 - Please do not remove the copyright from this essay
’m
fortunate that the Good Lord saw fit to bless me with the ability to never
wake up with a hangover no matter how much I drink. While I didn’t spring out of my sleeping bag
the way I had the two previous mornings, I also didn’t feel nearly as
bad as I probably should have after drinking as much as I did the day
before. I was a little groggy and a lot dehydrated, but otherwise felt fine.
I crawled outside, went to the car and pulled out the camp stove.
I’d decided before we came out here
that the first two mornings would be full scale cooked breakfasts but
that our last morning would be a simple affair. I boiled up some water and made oatmeal and
hot chocolate. We ate and took
showers and while Lauren 
and
Allison went off to feed the pond’s sad looking fish, I began breaking
down camp for the last time. I
could already feel the slight remnants of my intoxication dissipating
with something hot and wholesome in my belly.
It took a lot of swearing but I got the tent crammed back in it’s
bag, then with a little more swearing got everything wedged back inside
the car, and we were heading out just before noon.
We
had debated taking Allison to the zoo since the previous two days hadn’t
had a whole lot in the way of entertainment for her. The Zoo in this case was “Zoo
America” a somewhat incidental addendum to Hershey Park with its own
gate and entrance fee. Personally I was of the mind to just head home.
The zoo was probably going to be expensive, plus it had been a
long weekend and I knew unpacking was going to suck no matter what, so
it might as well happen earlier while I still had energy and daylight.
Lauren convinced me to just drive over to Hershey and see how much
the admission was. If the three of us could get in for less than
forty dollars, she thought we should just do it. I rolled my eyes, thinking even that was going to be too
much after what had already been a mildly expensive weekend, but I humored
her. After getting turned around a couple of times
we found the Zoo America parking lot and I walked the hundred feet down
to the admission window where I found out it was only eight dollars per
adult and Allison would be free. Alright,
I said, no arguing with that.
And
you know what? The zoo was great.
Low key but great. We saw
bears, snakes, scorpions, owls, fish, mountain lions.
We ate an overpriced lunch consisting of a chilidog, a soft pretzel
and the Zoo’s own interpretation of a hamburger, which they reshaped and
served on a hotdog bun. The crowds
were small so Allison finally had the freedom to run unencumbered between
exhibits. She got excited about every weird and exotic
animal we showed her, though she had the most fun when we let her feed
the rest of her pretzel to a bunch of ducks swimming in the canal. All told, we were only there for about three
hours and we’d seen everything there was to see at a leisurely pace. Glad we’d made the extra effort to come out
here, we got in the car and headed for home.
After
that it was back to the hectic day-to-day schedule of a midwife, Lauren
and I once again grabbing time together wherever we could between office
hours, nighttime calls and numerous trips to the hospital. All in all, it was a near perfect weekend,
one that had reaffirmed our position and self-righteousness as patently
non-interstate-tourist tourists. While
it’s true that we had taken the interstate to and from our destination,
the entire weekend had been spent in a constant state of enjoying the
journey – from the simple pleasures of a campfire, to our nowhere to nowhere
walk along the Conewago
Recreation Trail, to our ultimate realization of how to properly experience
and own the Pennsylvania
Renaissance Faire, to the simple muted joy of seeing our daughter
recognize animals from some of her favorite movies.
In addition to just being a great weekend of Lauren and I reconnecting,
it was also a powerful reminder to the two of us that having kids and
starting a family would not change who we were or how we chose
to experience the world. We could still have fun with our kids without falling into the clichéd
trappings of destination-happy interstaters, who zip from dot to dot across
the country seeking out amusement parks featuring high concentrations
of roller coasters and popular cartoon characters, gift shops selling
mass-produced clothing and plastic things with lights in them, and campgrounds
offering sewer hookups and free cable TV.
It felt good to know that the spirit of our own Great American
Road Trip was still very much alive inside
of the two of us, and that no matter what, the definition of America would
never die because of Lauren and me.
…and even if it did, at least I knew where to find a costume that would adequately display my wife’s breasts as a consolation prize.
