I've learned a new word, courtesy of a workmate.
This summer, she told me, she's going glamping with her girlfriends.
"Did you say camping?" I asked.
No, she replied. She was going glamping. She looked at me carefully, seemingly puzzled that I didn't understand. Which I didn't. "You've never heard of glamping?" she asked. "It's like camping, except that it's not like camping. It's more upscale. Much more glamorous."
The workmate informed me that on her getaway, there would be no tent to pitch or tarps to unfurl. She and her pals would not be hunting for firewood or setting out with a flashlight in search of a loo. There would be no axe, no musty sleeping bags, no air mattresses, no kerosene stove. They would not be returning home smelling like a campfire, desperately needing a hot bath and craving something other than hot dogs and chili.
The workmate and her friends would be staying in a yurt. It would be outfitted with fluffy pillows and thick duvets and Persian carpets and surround sound and WiFi and a walk-in shower and likely a chandelier or two. Their meals would be chef-made and served, not on metal camping plates, but on china dinnerware.
Sure, the yurt would be placed in the great outdoors, but its occupants would be able to enjoy it on their terms. In other words, the environment would be spectacular - both inside and out.
"It is," said the workmate, "not about getting dirty. This is luxury, plain and simple."
This, it seems to me, is the way camping should have been right from the get go.
I've never been a fan of the old-school model, and have tended to avoid it.
Too much work, it always seemed to me. You get up, rejig the tent supports that were repositioned in the previous night's wind storm.
You put on bug spray, fetch wood, start a fire, boil water, make breakfast, wash the dishes, sweep the dirt out of the tent, fold up the sleeping bags, wait in line to get into a shower and read two pages of your magazine. Then it's time for lunch.
Glamping, it ain't.
But the workmate, I think, is on to something.
Having someone else make the food, clean the sleeping quarters and set the fire may not exactly qualify for roughing it, but what the heck.
If this is what camping's come to, I may just try it after all.
