“The Envy of the Glampground”
Jennie and I are in Chicago for a few days helping our daughter Betsy and her husband Travis move into their new house. It’s not new as in new construction. It’s a century old. But it’s new to them, apartment vagabonds for over a decade. Having been itinerants for so long, they didn’t have the heart to yet again ask the friends who had helped them shlep their stuff in moves past, so they did it themselves over the course of several weeks, shlepping squirrelly Emerson, their 21/2 year old, with each load.
Now they’re all moved in, including the last load we helped transport yesterday in a rented U Haul that included, among other boxed, crated, and stacked stuff a pup tent, which reminded me of one of its kind from years gone by.
The fifth-grade classes in my daughter’s elementary school went to the Grand Canyon annually for a two-night campout, a celebratory rite of passage for the soon-to-be middle schoolers.
Families made the 3½ hour drive from Scottsdale to the campground on the South Rim.
My daughter and I unloaded the gear we had tossed into our trusty minivan. The basics: duffel bag of clothing, lantern, ice chest, flashlights, folding chairs, sleeping bags, sunscreen, bug spray, water bottles, one gallon Ziploc storage bag of toiletries, towels, plastic plates, cups, and utensils, and our tent – a tan two-person A-frame pup tent with two aluminum pole supports, no-see-um mesh vents, zippered flaps, nylon guy lines, and four corner stakes. We unloaded, pitched our tent, and made camp in no time.
Not so for the other families. Some arrived in motorhomes. Others towed fifth wheel RVs, travel trailers, and pop-up campers. The closest thing to tents were eight-foot-high canvas condominiums replete with awnings and patios, screen doors, skylights, and, for all we knew, kitchens, entertainment centers, and master bathrooms with jacuzzis.
As her friends rolled into the campground and waved from the back seats of sleek SUVs and upscale trucks, my daughter, slumping next to our beater minivan and meagre brown pup tent, meekly raised her hand and offered a limp, embarrassed wave. Father and daughter stood side-by-side feeling puny, out of place, rubes at a glamping convention.
Glamping noun “a form of camping involving accommodation and facilities more luxurious than those associated with traditional camping.”
That afternoon, one of my daughter’s classmates came to where we sat in our folding chairs, feet propped on the ice cooler, our outdoor ottoman. Eyeing our tent, she exclaimed, “How cute!”
She scampered off and returned with other classmates.
“Laura,” they said, “It’s adorable! How cozy! Can we go inside?”
Word spread throughout the glampground. A steady trek of classmates came to see the coolest, cutest, most adorable tent on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. For a few hours, one of the greatest wonders of the world, in addition to the majestic canyon, was learning that enough can be the envy of too much.
