Almost anyone who goes camping on a regular basis has a funny story or two to tell about communing with nature in this time-honored fashion. Here are a few stories based on personal experience, events relayed by friends and family and a few worthy tales from the Internet that might be good for a giggle. The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Sometimes Love Ain’t So Grand

Ever been roused from a deep slumber while camping because a particularly bad smell has assaulted your nostrils? Try sharing a small tent with a spouse after he’s dined on hamburger stroganoff prepared over a campfire with a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup. The two of you sitting out in the open air after dinner doesn’t in any way prepare you for the experience of sleeping in an enclosed space with someone whose digestive tract has been profoundly traumatized by something he’d recently eaten. I couldn’t scramble out of there fast enough! After the air had cleared a bit, I did go back inside to sleep. My husband, however, spent the rest of the night under starry skies.

Teamwork

Our neighbor, Roger, and his brother do a lot of camping. On one particular outing, they’d just finished dinner and were sitting around enjoying the peace and quiet when a raccoon aand skunk wandered into camp. While the skunk held them both at bay, the raccoon handily gathered up various food items lying around. When the masked bandit was done, he and his partner in crime scuttled off – no doubt in search of rich pickings at other campsites nearby.

She of the Traveling Pants

My friend Shelley and her husband, Steve, were backpacking in the Grand Canyon. They’d packed light because it was July and the weather was hot. She wore her only pair of shorts and had packed a couple of extra T-shirts. After setting up camp, the two walked out to a big rock in the middle of the stream to soak up some rays. Shelley’d stripped down to her underwear when suddenly a big gust of wind came whooshing down, sending her discarded shorts flying into the water where they quickly moved downstream. She spent the remainder of the trip in just her underpants, a T-shirt and hiking boots, attracting more than one quizzical glance when they hiked back to the car a few days later.

The Elusive Caribou

Many years ago, a group of friends went camping to hunt caribou in Alaska. They snowmobiled in about 10 miles from the highway and pitched a tent inside an abandoned saloon. Things froze during the night.

At around 7 the next morning (pitch dark), they heard what sounded like a knock on the frozen-solid tent door. Once they pried open the tent flap, they saw a state cop. Looking at their rifles and the eight guys trying to thaw frozen Budweisers over a Coleman stove, the officer said, “You from the Air Force Base?”

“Yup.”

“Don’t play with guns if you’re drinking.”

“OK.”

Then he left. They didn’t get any caribou, but one guy managed to crash a snowmobile through the wall of the saloon.

A Day at the Races

http://askville.amazon.com

“I was never a NASCAR fan until Dad took me to a race. After camping out in the infield at my first race, I was hooked. Since then, we’ve been to at least 15 races and have some pretty memorable stories from our camping experiences there. I remember the time…

“… A guy drove his RV through the pedestrian tunnel instead of the RV tunnel trying to leave the track. We watched the roof of his RV come off like a potato peeling.

“… We talked to a rather intoxicated fellow named ‘Burt’ who honestly didn’t know if his name was spelled with a ‘u’ or an ‘e!’ ‘I don’t reckon having written it down in years,’ he exclaimed, adding ‘are you trying to tell me there’s more than one way?’

“… A man was either asleep or passed out at the wheel of his moving four-wheeler. His head would fall forward and hit the gas trigger on the steering column. Then it would snap back as the vehicle sped out, only to fall forward and hit the gas again. He lunged around like this for quite a while before somebody managed to wrest control of the vehicle. Luckily no one was hurt, but he took out a lot of cones and tents in the process.”

Don’t Mess With My Wife

www.camping.lovetoknow.com

“My wife and I were camping in the Great Smoky Mountains. She was unloading groceries with her back to the truck while I searched for firewood. She heard a noise, and thinking it was me raiding a bag of potato chips, she whirled around and slapped a black bear right in the face. (I was about 50 feet away.) The bear stood there stunned until I started yelling and beating on a table. Then, he just walked away … taking the potato chips with him.”

Good Clean Fun

www.answerbag.com

“I remember on one church camping trip we had a contest to see who could stuff the most marshmallows in their mouth. After a while, cheeks started bulging to the point that the stuffee’s face was totally transformed. When a high-powered, rather stiff-necked attorney suddenly looked for all the world like a squirrel, he got big laughs.

“My head and mouth were bigger, so I had the advantage. When a mouth gets this full, though, the gag reflex is triggered and the salivary glands kick into high gear. At 14 marshmallows, I was herking and drooling uncontrollably. Thus, it was a relief when my opponent finally topped out at 11 marshmallows. Gotta say, though, that while I won the contest for volume, his form, control and technique were unquestionably superior.

“NOTE: It’s a good idea to have bags handy for the used marshmallows, etc.