Our Outdoor Experience

There seems to have been a little misconception about our family here. Recently I was participating in a forum discussion about the average costs of a vacation and I made a quip about camping probably being the most expensive vacation for us due to the cost of the therapy bills. This prompted not one, not two, but seven different people to indicate that they would be willing to pay for our family to go camping just to hear the stories that would come out of it.

Hey, we've been outside before. We've even spent a night in a tent once. Sure, we were camping at the San Diego Zoo, but there was no pillow top mattress, no cable, and the wireless signal was weaker than the coffee they served. Still, we spent the night, so it's not like we're total strangers to roughing it. Let me prove to you that we're a force to be reckoned with when it comes to the great outdoors:

That..my dear friends...is called a tent. Our tent. Well not exactly ours, but it was ours for the night. Plus, whoever set it up for us didn't even bother to turn the window part away from the sun. Barbaric conditions I tell you! By the way, you'll notice that all our gear (including our suitcase...how "camping" is that?) is lying around on the ground. We'll clean that up in a few minutes when somebody comes along and shows us how to get into this thing.

We've had to forage for our own food. No sit down table service out here. It's all self-serve, and let me tell you that you'd better be quick if you want to survive. The Dijon mustard ran out half way through the evening and after that you had to use regular. Oh, and by the way...you see that guy at the far right? He totally cut the line. Obviously the rules of civilization don't apply out here in the wilderness.

We've also done the whole "campfire" thing. Cooking our own food over the open flames (Sadly, marshmallows and chocolate would be considered a normal dinner at home as well.) kind of gives you that "I can survive on my own" feeling. Hey Tal...we're getting low. Run into the store and pick up another S'mores kit will ya?

See? These things come completely disassembled. How primitive can you get?

So as you can see, we're perfectly at home in the rough and tumble outdoors. I may joke about our camping ineptitude, but I'm fairly sure that we'd be just fine if you dropped us off on an island somewhere and left us to survive on our own (Aruba is an island right?). Still, for those of you who may still have doubts, and particularly for those who offered to pay for our next camping trip, here is our plan for the next time we feel the urge to go "roughing it"...

Park Hyatt Aviara

Cabanas are the same as tents right? Yeah, that's what I thought.

This post is part of Travel Photo Thursday over at Budget Travelers Sandbox. If you didn't get here from there, you should go visit. There's people over there who actually know what they're doing when they go outdoors. They probably don't know where they can buy S'mores kits though, and I'm not telling.