Because there’s no camping in China

Camping in China is not a thing. At least, that’s what I heard from my friend Jingjing when she was explaining why she and her husband, Zhipei, felt their only chance to ever go would be while they’re here in the U.S., before he finishes his degree and they return to their home country.

While camping is not uniquely American, it is cultural. And, according to our friends, there’s not camping culture in China. It’s just not something people do. There aren’t campgrounds. Kids at sleepovers aren’t sprawled out across the living room floor in sleeping bags. Because why would you even own something like that when no one in your culture is going camping?

So Phillip and I started talking to Zhipei and Jingjing about going camping with us. We talked about some possible dates, and then there was a miscommunication about when we would go. As we were sorting it out, we realized the upcoming weekend was the only time during the summer our schedules would line up.

Last week Monday*, we decided to go for it. We’d leave Saturday morning, just 5 days away. We kicked it into high gear to get ready in time, borrowing an additional tent, sleeping bags, etc. from my parents, planning food, and finding and reserving a campsite online. (Our default “easy camping” sites that we usually recommend to camping newbies aren’t high enough altitude/cool enough for this time of year. And we didn’t want to leave too much to chance for what could be our friends’ one shot at camping.)

Fortunately, I did have some help.

My friend Michelle brought us celery for our beef stew. My brother and his wife brought over the camping gear Dad had dug out of the basement for us. (They also told me their move to Seattle would be sooner than expected. Turns out that getting ready for camping in 5 days is nothing compared to preparing for a cross country move in a week.) (That’s not super relevant to this post, but it just might come up again. Plus, they leave tomorrow, and that’s just a really big deal.)

Jingjing picked up groceries and came over to help with food prep. We measured out Mom’s homemade pancake mix, washed fruit and veggies, made the stew, and baked mountain bread (basically this recipe, but my version originally came from my Grandma Betty. She clipped it from a magazine article in the 70s for Dad to make for his backpacking trips. My mom still has the original clipping and copied it out onto a recipe card for me.)

There was still a lot to do. But, at least I knew we’d have plenty to eat.

***

I started this post before we left. Now, as I finish it up, we are back home. (Spoiler alert: We survived.) Once I collect my thoughts and finish unpacking, I’ll tell you all about the trip itself. [Update: You can read about the camping trip here.]

*Funny thing: On 6/17/12, I wrote some thoughts about getting ready to go on our Epic California Road Trip that turned out to be oddly prophetic. Early this June, I got the post all ready and scheduled to publish here one year later (on 6/17/13). I didn’t know yet when our camping trip would be, so I didn’t know that when that post went up, I would once again be a few days away from leaving. My day looked surprisingly like the one exactly a year before –  running clothes we might want to pack through the laundry, staging camping gear, making trips to Target and the grocery store, and getting excited to leave . Maybe I should make an annual tradition of being about to go somewhere on June 17.