Camp Quest 2020
“Book it! Book it! We’ll buy kayaks.” “We carry our camping gear in laundry baskets!”
“We’ll put everything in garbage bags and tow them behind the kayaks. Book it! Book it!”
“There are pit toilets.”
“Don’t book it! Don’t book it! What else?”
“There’s Parc Oosumnoo.”
“Where is that?”
“I don’t know. Ummm, seven hours north. There’s mention of ‘tundra’…” “Put a pin in that. Keep looking.” “All the provincial parks seem to be booked solid. Maybe we should look at the private campgrounds. Or we could just camp in the back yard…”
“I want to be by the water!”
“I could put the sprinkler on…” “Hang on! I found something. It’s called ‘Rusty Blaze Campground & Sausage Emporium.’ Wooded sites, electrical hookup, meat tutorials... Oh, this is cute: ‘Bring the brats for bratwurst, hit the mini-putt links before chowing down on some links, then go tubing down the Lazy River followed by tube steaks.’”
“That’s terrible copywriting…” “There’s a tent site right beside Sauerkraut Delight Dairy Bar. I’m booking it.”
“Wait a sec, I’m looking at the reviews on my phone. ‘Unearthly shrieking at all hours…’ ‘Animals in petting zoo seem petrified…’ ‘Lazy River is actually meat effluent…’ ‘Too many Germans…’ Well, that’s not very nice…”
“But it’s available. And they accept pets!”
“I bet they do…”
“Fine. Google ‘nearby campgrounds with no killing.’”
“Looking…”
“Wait: ‘minimal killing’; I’m okay with the odd squirrel.”
“Eureka!”
“You found something?”
“No, that’s the name of a campground, or rather ‘wilderness experience’ it says here. Eureka Luxury Campaporium.”
“Is there anything available?”
“Don’t you want to know about it first? It seems fancy. There’s something here about ‘complimentary finger bowls.’”
“It’s for the sap.”
“‘Our entire nouveaux-forest facility is 100% sap-free.’ Wow. It says the whole place is boardwalk ‘so you can experience the majesty of Mother Earth without ever touching Her.’ They offer pre-pitched canvas-and-frame tents with turned-on servants.”
“WHAT?”
“Sorry, I misread that: ‘turn-down service.’ But they do have valet parking.”
“We don’t need all that stuff. We just need a place to pitch our tent.”
“But what if our neighbours are noisy? Wait: not noisy; pretentious. The make of our tent is ‘Bubba Country.’ It smells like reclusive aunt.”
“We’ll keep to ourselves.”
“Except when we ‘luxuriate in the carbonated mineral-water pool.’”
“Is there anything available?”
“There are three sites available on the weekend of the 14th: ‘Dragée,’ ‘Haute-milieu’ and ‘Douchetière.’ “Check the map.”
“There’s no map. It just says, ‘Map? Please…’”
“Well, pick one, any one, before someone else books it!”
“Okay… Douche it is… two people, tent... $208 a night!”
“Book it!”
“Plus taxes!”
“Book it!!!”
“Plus automatic 20% gratuity!” “BOOK IT!!!”
“AGGGGGHHHH!... booked.”
“I’m so excited.”
“Yes, camping is so relaxing.”
Okay, we’re