Camping Fever

This cold-hot-cold-snow-melt-ice-hot-cold-windy-slushy in between season called March in Mid-Michigan is giving me a headache along with a serious case of camping fever.  It started when the sun came out last week and melted all the snow, exposing grass for the first time in forever.  To top that off, I saw a skunk in the road and had to wonder if it meant six more weeks of anything?

Yesterday I spied my first robin red breast full of blue eggs bouncing on the ground, collecting sticks and string.  Spring has arrived!   Now I’m deliriously dreaming about roasting marshmallows over a snapping flame with a stick I carved a tip into using my trusty Swiss while warmly wearing my Woolrich red and black buffalo check jacket with the big brown buttons buttoned just to keep the chill off.  Got all that?

My hibernating mind is starting to wake up with the crocuses and think about the smell of cowboy coffee boiling in my Grandpa’s metal pot and bacon sizzling in a heavy cast iron skillet surrounded by eggs, over easy.   I love the sound of kerosene gas flowing up into a Coleman lantern at night which, upon ignition, instantly becomes a bug magnet.  We always keep the lantern hanging on a nail, way up and off to the side,  just to trick the skeeters.

Soon it will be time to go mushroom hunting and time to put all the lawn chairs in a circle around the fire and time to sing Three Dog Night’s Joy to the World and time to collect mint leaves to brew Grandma’s mint tea and time to gather drift wood in the bow of a row boat and and time to pick daisies and black-eyed susans and time to wear flip-flops and time to chop wood and time to catch a fish and time to discover new trails on hikes and time to see eagles soar and time to see deer in the woods and time to catch a lightning bug and time to skinny dip and time to tell ghost stories and time to drop blueberries into a tin cup and time to appreciate a full moon and time to dig up a can of worms and time to take a picture of a sunrise and time to grill and time to just be happy and time to open the graham crackers and time to fire up the ‘ol Johnson 20 and time to strip down into your skivvies and crawl into the sack….exhausted from not having enough time when it comes to camping!