The Diary of a Wimpy Camper

Each summer when I was a girl, our family went to a Canadian lake for a week. We stayed in crummy cabins, swam in a pool with no diving board, fished from glorified rowboats, and left for home with everything smelling like a cocktail of dead fish and sunscreen. The trip was the highlight of the summer for us children. And why wouldn’t it be? It was effortless to slip clothes and swimwear into a suitcase, pack a couple of books and art supplies for down times, and spend a week in the sunshine.

Family camping trips with cousins were similar. We explored the woods or played Monopoly in someone’s tent. Meanwhile, food showed up on my plate at mealtimes. Coolers stayed chilled and stocked with soft drinks without apparent supervision. (Did camp hosts take care of those things back then?)

Sadly, they don’t make summer vacations like they used to.

I recently spent two weeks poring over meal ideas, compiling packing lists, buying cartloads of supplies, and prepping food. The pile to take to Ohio grew like an invasive species and took over my kitchen. Out of necessity, we packed efficiently so everything could fit into our minivan. Propane cylinders rode in my kitchen tote. Bowls and pans fit together so tightly that I couldn’t retrieve one without getting them all. Smaller items slipped into crooks and crannies and fell into unreachable areas of the baggage.

We looked like roving packrats while driving to Ohio. Ice chests hung off the back of the van on a rack. Boxes and pillows piled up inside, leaving only pockets of space for the children to sit. They didn't mind. A week of camping with cousins was unbeatable. 

When we got to the campground and spilled outdoors (literally), I realized that aside from our tent, sleeping bags, and clothing, we had no place to go with anything. Tightly packed totes would need to stay that way. Even our ice chests had no place to go because there was no shade. There were no trees. At least no trees bigger than me. John and I pulled ice chests from a rapidly warming van and stood around whispering about how to get them out of the sun. Borrow shade from the neighbors? It was our only choice. We begged shade from my sister’s canopy for our ice chests and stowed marshmallows in my parents’ air-conditioned camper.

The lack of shade was only the start of our troubles. John and I were tenting, but since my siblings and parents brought campers, we reserved a full hookup site so we could camp beside them. That meant our site was designed for an RV, not a tent. The driveway was ample and cement. The grassy margin around its edge was sloped for drainage purposes. John assessed the options and initiated a difficult conversation.

“So where do you think we should set up our tent? On the cement pad or on the slope?”

Neither spot exactly thrilled me. It was like choosing your own punishment. I didn't want to be the one to make the call. “How about you decide, and I’ll just go along with whatever you want. Will the tent fit in the grass?”

“I think so. But it is sloped enough that we will fight a slide all week. What do you think about renting a tent site? A campground this big surely has actual tenting sites with trees and flat grassy spots big enough for a family-sized tent." 

"We could, but then we are going to be so far away from everyone else that we can’t put children to bed early and sit around the campground with the adults."

We opted for the gentle slope. As expected, sleeping bags shifted downhill in the night. Our brand new tent was equipped with a protective floor covering that was held in place with hooks and loops. A week of bodies sliding down the slope tore out one of those loops.  

We set up our tent on the only place it fit--six feet from the road and directly beside an ash pile. The ash pile was void of a campfire ring. Our site had no grill. No grate. Just a heap of leftover ashes heaped in a blackened circle beside our tent. The only thing that kept this from becoming a national emergency was that we pre-planned to save on firewood and share fires with my sister. Still, what campsite doesn’t have a campfire ring? 

Without trees, our tent sat in full sun. So did the picnic table. I looked at the tent, brilliant sunlight, and still-crowded van, and my spirits plummeted. This was going to be a long week.

On that first morning, I tried making mountain pies for breakfast. The recipe pictured perfectly toasted sandwiches filled with egg, sausage, and cheese. The instructions said to tear a hole into one piece of buttered bread, drop in a raw egg, top it with cheese, fried sausage, and your final piece of bread and toast it over the fire. It looked like a great idea online. But my enthusiasm for the recipe was low when we assembled the sandwiches. Egg squeezed out of the pie irons and ran onto the picnic table and below. A trail of egg whites followed us across that beautiful cement pad when we carried them to the fire, and a crust of burnt egg yolks adhered to the side of the pie irons during the cooking process. In the end, three of our five sandwiches cooked to passable levels of edibility.

The other two sandwiches stuck to the double pie iron with a vengeance. We prodded and pried and chiseled out as much of them as we could. John ate his portion “as is,” meaning partially cooked with the egg white still jittering when he walked. I opted to dump my scrambled mixture into another pie iron and cook it longer. It was a dismal feast at best.

While we messed around with stuck, raw, and scrambled egg sandwiches, our children ate theirs by the side of a vehicle, crowding together to fit in the shade. Breakfast was doing nothing to revive my love of family camping. At least I still had cinnamon rolls to bake over the fire. Cinnamon rolls and coffee would surely be enough to get even a smoky-eyed, wimpy camper excited.

I poked refrigerated cinnamon rolls onto roasting forks and held them over the coals. For the first few minutes, it looked like it would work, but then the dough started to slump and soften. It didn't take a culinary specialist to know that bad things were going to happen to good cinnamon rolls unless something changed soon. John saved the day by suggesting we bake them on open pie irons. To my surprise, they baked perfectly--even the one that needed to be retrieved from the ashes.

When I finished baking the cinnamon rolls, it was only 10:30, and I was already tired of being in the sun. I took my ash-covered roll to my parents’ camper and sat alone under their awning, hoping a breeze would not only cool me but improve my dark mood. Is this really what camping is like? Lousy food, hot sun, and smoke-burned eyes? I had forgotten.

Mom invited me into her air-conditioned camper, saying, “You look hot already!”

“I am hot,” I said. I had not absorbed enough breeze for it to do its good work. “I mean, seriously. Couldn’t they have left at least one tree on every campsite? Just one tree bigger than me."

That evening, a storm rolled in, defying the weathermen who had predicted a beautiful week with no rain. A purple patch on the radar approached rapidly while we grilled burgers over the fire—a fire that billowed smoke into my eyes no matter where I stood. As soon as the burgers were done, John and I inhaled our sandwiches and urged the children to hurry. Just as they crammed in their final tremendous mouthfuls, rain started to fall. I dove into the tent for refuge and listened to the rain fall in earnest. It picked up pace from there, changing from pouring rain to pounding hail. Hailstones pinged off our van and clattered on the concrete. They hit the tent with enough force that I wondered if any would suddenly come blasting through. Mercifully, they didn't, and the tent stayed dry.

I gave up on weathermen. Rainstorms passed through three days in a row, even though the forecast stayed beautiful. 

Rainy view of someone else's site

During the days, most of the adults in our group disappeared onto the lake with their kayaks and boats. I didn’t have toys like theirs, but I definitely didn't sit immobile at the campsite all week. I moved my lawn chair to the shore for a while and watched the children splash in the shallows until the glaring sun made me nauseous. I kept beating a path to the bathroom with my three-year-old who drinks like a water buffalo and has the bladder of a mouse. And I dodged flying bean bags whenever I carried food from the picnic table to the fire, because the cornhole game was set up on our otherwise empty cement drive. So I had my own variation of exercise and excitement.

I'm still wrapping my mind around this thing called camping. I spent two very happy years in a Ghanaian village where we lived without running water, electricity, stove or plumbing. Our whole village lived that way. It felt like there was redemptive value in living as much like our friends as possible. But now, choosing inconvenience and discomfort just for fun made me question the sanity of every American who camps. Who does this on purpose? Cooking over a fire with smoke stinging your eyes? Eating ash-covered cinnamon rolls, poorly cooked eggs, and unevenly roasted snacks? Trotting down the street to a germ-ridden bath house to take your child potty umpteen times a day? I'm still incredulous that we paid to do this.

To be fair, it wasn't all bad. I spent a week with four of my five siblings. That's a little hard to beat. 

I watched my children race around on their bikes with cousins, play on the playground, splash in the lake, and roast marshmallows in the fire. They played hard, ate heartily, and crashed into sleeping bags, exhausted. Even at my lowest moments, I knew I’d camp again for their sakes.

I enjoyed our evening campfires. Cooked shrimp, shared all around. Party mix by the bucketful. Singing by the light of the fire. We adults put the children to bed late and stayed up far later, laughing and talking like good families do around a fire.

Still, I can't say I was sorry to leave. Lingering smoke in my hair, shade-less sites, random rain showers, no way to organize my camping gear. My list of legitimate complaints was long.

But the biggest problem I had with camping was when I took a good look at myself and realized they sure don’t make happy campers like they used to.

Campfire Cooking

My entire family went camping for a week this past month. Until that experience, I always have camped with competent people who wanted to share (or assume) cooking responsibilities. But this time, considering the size of the group we were camping with, it made sense for each family to cook independently. This means for the first time in my life, I had to create a campfire menu.

Scared that my children would be the ones with boring campfire meals, I begged menus off of everyone else and sourced more ideas online. I was satisfied with the variety I came up with on paper, but cooking it was going to be another story. In the end, everything was edible but only because quality control teams don't bother scrutinizing campfire food. Some of it was burned and some was undercooked, but John says campfire food can be like that and nobody minds. (Well, somebody minds, but she will be silent about that for the time being. Keep an eye out for "The Diary of a Wimpy Camper," coming soon.)

In the meantime, here is a list of campfire food ideas, minus the traditional hamburgers and hotdogs that everyone already knows about. Nothing is original with me, so don't give me undue credit. And the final disclaimer is that half of this was cooked over someone else's fire. (Well, all of it was cooked on someone else's fire because our campsite didn't even have a campfire ring of its own. I know. Read the diary.)

1. Waffle Danishes
Make a sandwich out of two purchased waffles, cream cheese, and pie filling. Butter the waffles well and toast them in mountain pie irons until they are nicely browned. Serve with coffee.
Tip: Either make extras or be prepared to beat off the neighbors who have None. 

2. Cinnamon Rolls
The website showed golden cinnamon rolls being baked over the fire on roasting forks. I should have known better. Photoshop trickery going on there, maybe, because it certainly is not real life. I started off by poking refrigerated cinnamon rolls onto a roasting fork, but they soon softened and slumped dangerously. When he saw their demise was imminent, John suggested we put them on open mountain pie irons and finish baking them like that. They baked completely through. Even the one that landed in the ash tasted surprisingly delicious. But I feel my blood pressure rising as I type this. That breakfast isn't the greatest memory on record.

3. Steak, Eggs, & Potatoes

We were only cooking two meals a day, so I supposed a hearty breakfast was in order. We grilled small steak medallions over the fire, then fried cubed potatoes, onions, and peppers in our cast iron skillet. I cut the potatoes into really small cubes so they'd cook quickly. Once they were ready, I cracked a few eggs into the potatoes and scrambled them, making a delicious breakfast we all loved.  

4. Biscuits and Gravy

My brother baked refrigerated biscuits on a grate over the fire. They lost points for their campfire-cooking appearance, but supposedly the smoky flavor made up for it. The gravy was made in a Dutch oven, and the end result is worth repeating.

5. Hobo Packets

Wrap veggies, meat, and seasoning in layers of tinfoil and roast them over coals. The fun part about this meal is that each packet can be customized to suit personal preferences. Use cabbage, thinly sliced (or partially cooked) carrots, onions, shredded potatoes, green peppers, hamburgers, sausages, or anything else you might like to include. You can make them meatless and add a pat of butter to the vegetables. Wrap them tightly in tinfoil and roast over hot coals until they are done, flipping every 10 minutes. Plan on 30-40 minutes of cooking time. Delish!

6. Mountain Pies in multiple varieties
Quesadillas: My sister likes to use tortillas instead of bread in her mountain pie irons, giving plenty of space for the fillings like ham and cheese, mushrooms and onions and cheese. Think 'Ham and Cheese Quesadillas' cooked over the fire and served with salsa.

Breakfast Disasters: I tried tearing a hole in a piece of bread, cracking in an egg, and topping it with cheese and fried sausage. A couple of them were fully edible, which we gave to the children. John ate his egg partially raw. I dug my sandwich out of our new mountain pie maker with a chisel and digging iron. Call it a success if you like raw eggs or scrambled mountain pies. In the future, I'll use cooked eggs in our breakfast mountain pies.

Pizza themed mountain pies worked better for us because all of the ingredients were fully cooked and only needed to be charred heated. 

7. Through-the-Garden Wraps

Grill marinated chicken thighs over the fire. Cut into strips. Load a tortilla with chicken strips, diced cucumbers, onions, tomatoes, lettuce, Ranch dressing, and Honey mustard dressing. 

8. Apple Crisp

Wrap your favorite apple crisp recipe in layers of tinfoil and bake it over coals. Serve with ice cream. 

9. Evening Snacks

Not all snacks are created equal. I thought campfire snacks and marshmallows were synonymous. But I was completely and totally wrong. S'mores are like, so yesterday.
Cheese sticks. Poke a cheese stick onto a roasting fork and toast until it turns slightly brown and gets soft. But watch out! Once they get soft, they easily slip into the fire. 
Small smoky links
Shrimp, cooked in butter in a cast iron skillet and seasoned with Old Bay seasoning. I love brothers who bring shrimp to share. Never mind that I had One Shrimp. Next time I'll bring my own if I want any.
Steak. "There's nothing like going to bed on a belly full of warm meat," he said. I didn't try it so I can't verify that. I can say, though, that his steak was restaurant-quality, judging from the pack of wolves that hovered near his chair begging for a single bite. One lick. The bone. An I'll pay-you-for-it bite. An edge. An anything. Then moans of happiness over the pieces he shared.
Bacon. Wadded up on a roasting fork, or spread out on a Graber grill. Cooked over the morning fire when coffee is brewing. Or eaten around the fire in the evening. You can't go wrong with bacon. It is one food where campfire cooking rules. No mess to deal with, and no smoke alarm to scream in your ear just when you are vulnerably bending over a hot oven to remove a pan of sizzling bacon. Everyone should do bacon over the fire.
Pigs in a Blanket. Crescent roll dough wrapped around miniature smokies and poked onto a roasting fork. It worked well if you found the perfect angle above perfect coals in a perfect cross-breeze. But most of our campfires were roaring blazes which meant these piggies were a success if you prefer your food ebony on one side, doughy on the other, and chilly in between. But, hey. People eat anything around a fire. 

Except carefully guarded steak.