Heidi in Real Life

Consider this a city-girl's guide to coping with the wilderness. 1 .  Never Shine Your Flashlight into a Rustic Toilet “Eyes on me--do not look down,” I commanded my daughter last weekend at a Wisconsin State Park facility while on a waterfall tour.  The fact that I knew how to coach her in the proper use of a rustic park toilet speaks to my previous experience in such things. When my son, David, was 9, he had to use the outhouse at night, while camping in the woods, and he made the life altering mistake of shining his flashlight down into the vast hole beneath the plastic seat.  He froze, and dropped the flashlight.   “I am not going,” he announced, the fear-induced adrenalin-rush enabling his body to “plug up” like a hibernating bear.  We departed the next morning, but it wasn’t until days later that he relaxed.  2.  Speaking of Plugging Orafices...Invest in Some Good Earplugs  “Tweet.  Tweet.  Tweet.  Tweeti...

Once upon a time, on a camping weekend, we decided to go tubing.  I have never tubed before, but as it was described, it sounded harmless and fun. “You’ll have to leave your belongings locked in your car,” the clerk at the tube rental place said, “and walk your tubes down to the river.” “Along that busy street?”  “Yes.” God. Holding a tube over my head, wearing just a bathing suit was going to embarrass the Hell out of me forever, but, wearing just my bathing suit marching along a busy highway?  Kill me.    My daughter, Krista, had already begun the trek down the road so I tried to hold the tube at my side to shield the drivers.  But, I dropped the tube and had to bend over to pick it up.  A car horn honked, then brakes screeched.  With my un-tan, poultry-white leg-skin, I must have looked like a tailless, albino mare. “What is that?”  I imagined the driver saying to his passenger.  “That’s something’s...