Camping takes us back to an ancient time. Out in remote areas, making your own food, gathering around the fire, life becomes tribal once more, ancient in its rhythms. Up with the sun, to bed at dark. The gypsy caravans, the covered wagons have been replaced by modern vehicles. But the feeling of refuge from the world outside is the same.
As I walk Charley, and the night closes in on us, the oak trees reaching to the sky, I imagine travelers from another time, another era, making their way on foot, weary from the journey, looking for a place to stop for the night to seek safety from animals, thieves and worse. Instead of the campfires that they would have seen, as I round the corner to the campground, I see the LED lights of camper vans, RVs, and tents, and it is a relief. We have made it back, we have conquered the dark, and the world outside.
Inside the vehicles, lamps and electric lights reveal people having supper, reading, all of us cocooned in our campers, the hot light of the TV casting its glow over our entranced faces, replacing the storyteller around the campfires of old
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