I've been taking a lot of flak for my opionions on camping. Not only are the lower beasts complaining that I'm maligning their lifestyle, but the Backpacker Magazine gearheads keep saying, "You have it all wrong -- it doesn't HAVE to be primitive. I've been trying to get my girlfriend out on the Sierra Nevada for six months now and you’ve blown the whole thing!"
I say, blow it out your battery-operated blow dryer. Camping is primitive. Freeze dried food makes you fart whether it’s called Venison Stroganoff a la Parmagiana or deer-meat chili.
I need it to be primitive. What's the point of sitting on the dirt picking seed ticks off your socks if you have to have your nail polish done and look "perky" while you're at it? I can look "perky" at the food court in the mall.
I once knew a woman who would actually brush her hair and re-braid it during a camping trip. And she wasn't a wuss, either, that's the worst part. She'd apply hand cream while floating a class four rapids. She could out hike me on a desert hills trail, look like an Outdoors Magazine model, and file her nails while chugging Jack Daniels around a smudgy campfire.
But I still associate with her. After a weekend backwoods trip, she's been known to smell like a a pack of wet dogs, too.