First Night Camping Solo in the Ardeche

“Why would you want to go camping all by yourself?” asked the Dutch guy at the campground reception. His blonde wife looked up from the desk with a grimace.  I’d just seen the campsite they offered me and I’d just been told there was no wi-fi connection, so I was kinda wondering the same thing. Why would I drive for three hours, accompanied only by a large greyhound, to sleep on the ground in a tent? 

 It’s a personal outward-bound kind of exercise for me—a hurdle I put up on my life path. Last time I did it I was 62. Now I’m 65 and the hurdle seems a little higher. (The French say ‘I have 65 years’. I like that better—as if age is to your credit.) But it is a good personal challenge, isn’t it?  Just you and your mental and physical abilities out there, under a foreign sky, no room service. If you “live” for awhile like that, you can get a pretty good idea whether you still have the chops for adventure.

Speaking of chops, it was Sunday evening and there was no food in sight. Stores closed, restaurants…(what restaurants?)…camp store—Nope. Just a mini-freezer of ice cream bars and cones. And a cold case stocked with drinks---mostly beer. Oh yeah…they’re Dutch.

I remembered I brought Andrew’s fresh tomato sauce and some pasta, so I went back to my site to put up my tent. It’s a big pop-up job that claims to take only 2 seconds to set up and it’s true. But then you have to drag it around to make sure the ground’s level under you, and you have to find a rock to pound in the stakes because you didn’t bring a mallet. But first you have to drive a stake into the ground to hitch up the greyhound.  Then you can bring out your butane camp-stove, and a lantern because now it’s dark and you’re tripping over the cords stretching from the top of the tent to the pegs in the ground. You use a foot pump to inflate the new double mattress—nice! You push and pull it into the tent like an ant with a slice of bread, and you dress it with covers and pillows. Comfy! The greyhound agrees. He slips in around me and elongates himself corner to corner, dissecting the bed into two small triangles holding no possibility of comfort for me. He sighs in satisfaction.

I get the ralonge out—it’s an extension device with multiple electric outlets which allows you to take current from an outlet anywhere in the neighborhood. But when I try to connect the electric cooler I realized it only works with the car’s cigarette lighter. I try to connect the next vital appliance, my laptop, I discover that the thick layer of spattered plaster from months of renovation chez nous has clogged all the connections.

Now I know there is no other way…I have to go back to Mr. Why-Would-You-Go- Solo and ask for his help. I hope his wife isn't at the desk. I hope he has a mallet. Maybe I'll get an ice cream bar too...