Ireland & USA Little Differences #21: Camping Without a Tent
Camping Without a Tent
I’ve been invited to go camping here in the middle of America next month. I know what this means.
It doesn’t mean camping as I know it. I like camping. I’ve camped in Dublin, Wicklow, Meath, Waterford, Galway, and Kerry. In tents.
About this time last year I went camping one weekend with friends in the corner of Kansas nearest me. Or at least I was told I was going camping, and I was told there was no need to bring my tent.
This being the land of excess I accepted there must already be plenty tent to go around. However there was no tent. Not just no tent for me, but no tent for anybody.
Because this is the land of amenity and convenience we didn’t use a tent. Or a bivouac. Or a lean-to. Or a caravan. Or an R.V. Or a hut. Or any kind of temporary shelter. We stayed in a house. A house bigger than the one I grew up in.
One day maybe the word camping will actually mean the activities you do when you go camping of which the word ‘tent’ will be an irrelevant archaic term. But here in the America I live in, that day is now - for when I returned to my home in Kansas City, a house much smaller than the one I had stayed in while away for the weekend, I was told I had been camping.
While away, we had walked on trails, and we walked on railtracks, and we indulged in a spot of archery, and melted marshmallows, and ate burgers, and listened to wildlife, and played at a pond, and threw stones in the Kaw river, and - it being Kansas - had a look at a tornado shelter.
So I obviously had a great time. But is it camping?
It’s not unique to America however as I have of course camped without a tent before moving to the US. Mind you this is where things differ, as I used to refer to these occasions as sleeping rough:
1. A shed I broke into one winter in Liverpool
2. A derelict mine in Wales, behind the “Danger - Keep Out sign”
3. On the streets of London with the homeless
4. Up a tree in the English east midlands
5. On the Wellington monument steps in Dublin’s Phoenix Park
6. On top of a mountain in the FYR Macedonia
7. On a pebbled river bed in northern Italy
See Other Little Differences, More Clearcut:
• Robins
• Pharmaceuticals
• Talking Temperatures
Eolaí gan Fhéile:
Why don’t they call it going housing?
I used have a tent called Henry. It slept (or drank would be more correct) four and I had Henry painted on the flysheet in Gothic script. Myself and whoever would get out on the road on a Friday and just stick out our sign which read anywhere please. Which, as you can guess, is where we ended up. Usually it was some kip like Leighlinbridge or Urlingford but now and again we managed to get somewhere interesting like Achill or Black Sod. The strangest was when we pitched Henry in the sitting room of a rented house in Naas. Rented by six nurses. A tent and a six-pack. Heaven.
It might play havoc with the housing market?