The Ten Essentials

Hey y'all - 

When I first started dating your dad, we would go on long hikes and he would tell me all kinds of things I didn't know about hiking and camping and basic survival skills. It wasn't very hard for him to find outdoorsy subjects I was unfamiliar with.  If you blindfolded me and took me shopping, I could tell you which store we were in just by the smell, because (for example) Bed Bath and Beyond smells like a river of liquid soap and Walmart smells like a combination of bread, disinfectant and despair. But that's apparently not a handy skill to have when you're in the backcountry being pursued by a bear.

He would tell me about things called "carabiners" and "Nalgenes" and mentioned that if you're going to spend any extended time in the wilderness, you should pack "the ten essentials." And then I would get home and call my (equally citified) friend Karen and try to fill her in on all that I'd learned, but it was like telling her about some exotic foreign exchange student I was dating whose language I barely spoke:

Brooke: Did you know there are ten things you should always take with you when you go camping, and they're called "The Ten Essentials?"

Karen: (gasp) No! I had no idea! What are they?

Brooke: Um...matches?...and...nine other things. 

Six years later, and your dad and I have two children joining us on our hikes: 

Ella is almost eleven years old with severe arthritis, and still acts like we're the big lumbering idiots who are holding her back. Sometimes, we're such a disappointment to her that she pretends not to know us on the trail.

When we parked at the trailhead yesterday, Laney asked if she could take her princess lunchbox/purse on the hike, and I said what every mother says in this situation (all together now), "You can bring it, but I'm not carrying it when you get tired of it."

She carried it for all two or three miles of our hike, and as we were walking back to the truck, my curiosity got the better of me: "Laney, what is IN that box that was so important you wanted to carry it on our hike?" She opened it up and showed me. "It's a pair of bedroom slippers and two rocks and some Play-Doh... in case we need a snack."

There you have it: The Three Essentials.

Love,

Mom