Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for August 15, 2023

The bathroom situation is a dealbreaker for many people.

I’m with Rat on this; I have always hated camping.

each to their own

I dislike camping myself. i don’t see the adventure in it.

The really insane idea is Goat wanting to spend time alone with Rat/

When I was in my 20’s and early 30’s, I dated a couple of women who were into camping. Like Rat says, I saw nothing in it, as the job I had, involved living out of my company pickup for days on end, eating cold creamed corn, Churches fried chicken, and Pepsi, along with finding a place to take a dump, without encountering South Texas rattlesnakes.Maybe I missed out on lots of “tent sex”.

Don’t forget the ticks and mosquitoes; smoke inhalation making dinner and smores; sunburn and heat exhaustion followed by the fridged cold nights in the thunderstorm; all to wash down the mountain with the flash flood.

I grew up in a camping family, and as a kid, I thought it was awesome. As a young adult, I kept it up, but in a more desultory manner. Then for quite awhile, we “camped” on wheels, complete with a bathroom! Now I look back on fine memories from the comforts of home.

We invented civilisation to get away from camping.

I quit camping out after Viet Nam, BUT I still love cold canned food

Getting there and back. That’s the fun part.

Goat can go with Roger Fox and Calvin’s dad, though Goat might end up as dinner.

Why would he want to take Rat?

Gunther & Bets have an opinion on this, over on Luann the last 2 days.

Trevor Noah: “That’s not camping…that was my life! I struggled for years NOT to have to live like that!”

I just love the ants and flies.

Camping can be a challenge and boring for many, but while hiking a 60 mi section of the Appalachian Trail in VA earlier this year, I learned about a lesser known annual event every Summer Solstice June 21st – National Hike Naked Day – look it up. We passed a number of hikers enthusiastically honoring the day, both male and female. Happy Trails!

The wonders of camping!

Rat make sure you don’t wipe with the poison oak.

Not for me, my idea of “roughing it” is no remote for the tv and having to change the channels for myself.

We had a camper trailer with AC and a shower so for us it was not that bad!

I tried camping once. It was in tents.

Camping on MAUI, not for fun.

I consider “Camping” to be staying at a Motel 6 instead of the Ramada!

My kids never got to go camping. As an soldier, I already did way too much sleeping on dirt, going to the bathroom behind bushes, and eating cold food from cans (and pouches).

And mosquitos.

Camping in the backyard is a good way to ease into it.

As I sit here itching my poison ivy bumps.

Well, truth be told, where ever you camp will at some point likely be someone’s backyard.. or an office, or gas station. So.. yeah.

in the 1980s I flew to Australia, bought a well-used motorcycle, and spent months travelling around the entire country. Before leaving Sydney I bought all the equipment I would need, including a gas can (excuse me, petrol), a tent, and a sleeping bag.

I needed the petrol can constantly in the outback where villages are hundreds of miles apart even on the main roads.

I used the tent once. In Tasmania.

Outback Australian ground is as hard as concrete and covered with termite nests every couple of feet.

Last time we went camping, we found out where all the flies from the “No Fly” zones moved to.

I’m with Rat on this one.

Yeah I tried it once in my younger days and discovered my idea of camping was Holiday Inn

I’m with Rat on this. At my age, my idea of ‘roughing it’ is no HBO at the Best Western motel.

Camping isn’t so bad, but I never really got into it.

Are any of you getting tired of the comic saying over and over how miserable the characters are. Where are the gators, zebras and other funny characters?

And poison ivy, and bears, and other critters.

Unless it’s “glamping” in a nice cabin with electricity, running water etc. I agree with Rat.

My idea of “roughing it” is a hotel without an ice machine on each floor.

A close friend once told The Count that he considered Viet Nam a 13 month camp out and would never do it again. Camping.

Trying to figure out why I ever liked it… Oh yeah, I smoked a lot of weed.

“It builds character” – Calvin’s dad.

One thing I remember about camping was coming home and having to resist the urge to plant a big kiss on all of my appliances, (washer, dryer, dishwasher, microwave, refrigerator, etc.) I really missed all the comfort and convenience of being home. Also, hated nearly being eaten alive by all kinds of bugs.

Roughing it means not having an ice machine on my floor.

I think I’ve only been camping once. It was fine, I can’t remember much about it.

you also forgot wind and rain.

Lets spend a lot of money to live like homeless people.

Camping is fun when you’re young. I can’t remember why. There’s a lot of stuff like that.

Jim Gaffigan’s hilarious take on camping:

>

A good friends dad was a POW in WWII Germany. Colditz I believe. An avid duck hunter b4 the war, his first outing after getting home, he quit part way thru the morning, packed up and left. Said he’d never do anything again that left him soaking wet, cold, and unable to smoke a cigarette….he’d had enough of that in the war.

I have a less than fond memory of being on an army bivouac, after dark, during a thunder storm, needing to take a dump. I stood over a slit trench latrine with a flashlight in my mouth, stretching out my poncho while I went about my “task”. There was another fellow there doing the same thing. I wanted to laugh but I would have lost my flashlight.

When I was younger, back in the last century of the last millennium, I enjoyed camping. However, as I grew older, my idea of “roughing it” morphed from sleeping bags and tents into staying in a hotel where I could not get my martini via room service.

It’s intriguing what images pop into individual minds at the word “camping”. Some immediately imagine a small tent, small backpack, hunting and gathering in the back end of beyond. At the other of the scale are the folks who think camping and “roughing it” is an RV where the shower is limited by the onboard water tank. I fall more in the middle, definitely with a tent.

That’s why when we used to camp we mostly camped in the desert or at higher altitude. Above about 3000 ft. poison oak doesn’t grow.

You know you are serious about camping when you shop for mosquito repellent by percentage of Deet it contains

That’s pretty much how we did it as kids. We couldn’t afford to actually GO anywhere.

Reminds me, I have a 1972 Coleman Stove for sale. Only exploded once. Low miles.

From all the negative comments on here about camping I’m surprised that every time we go the campgrounds are always full.

Don’t know where some of you folks are going camping. My last several camping trips, I’ve stayed at National Park and Army Corps of Engineers campgrounds with nice level sites, electricity, flush toilets and running water, and individual showers with nice hot water. For under twenty bucks a night. I travel by motorcycle (40-60 mpg, yeah!), carry a tent big enough to stand up inside, a cot that keeps me a foot off the floor (these old knees appreciate that), a little stove for hot meals (though I’m usually close enough to towns with restaurants, and more importantly breweries). I camp along rivers and on the shores of lakes, get to see gorgeous sunrises and sunsets, beautiful black skies with brilliant stars (and the occasional freshly-launched cluster of Starlink satellites), and swim in beautiful spring-fed streams.

Y’know what… I’m not sure I should be telling y’all about this. Might end up making the great outdoors too crowded.

My husband and I used to go camping every Memorial Day weekend for several years when our daughter was in grade school. We stayed at a campground with running water and a built-in grill. My daughter loved the experience so much that 2 or 3 times during the summer she invites her friends to a camp out in my yard. We have a couple acres with hills, a creek and a firepit. Plus the house is right there in case anyone needs modern conveniences.

My idea of camping is when I have to stay in a two-star hotel instead of a three or four-star one. That may sound snobbish, but part of my enjoyment of a vacation is to stay in as nice a place as we can afford.

We used to go camping in the mountains above Santa Barbara. However, at a certain point, we would both realize we could be sleeping on our nice warm water bed in half an hour. :)

For those of us that love the outdoors and all the glories of nature, hearing people say they hate camping and anything to do with it is music to our ears. Thank you for staying home and clogging up the roadways and stores. It makes for a more pleasant and less crowded nature experience.

For once, rat is behaving like a normal “person”.

I got my fill of camping on deployments while I was in the Air Force.

Mmm, sounds great to me. I think I inherited an immunity to poison oak and poison ivy from my mom’s dad.

…and lions and tigers and bears, oh my!

Do I detect a touch of Ratty sarcasm here?

My goats eat poison oak, sleep on the dirt, and go to the bathroom in the bushes; seem happy!

Didn’t know they had an outside bathroom. I she toilet outside as well?