Though camping is a relatively simple affair, the planning for the second annual girls’ weekend was anything but. At least fifty emails were circulated, including an excel spreadsheet, an e-vite, and a food chart. Tents, stoves, and sleeping bags had to be amassed, transcontinental schedules had to be aligned, and a jaffle maker had to be secured. Finally, at 6 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, the flights had landed, the cars were gassed, and a gaggle of girls was ready to hit the road.
We were heading to Big Sur, a magnificent stretch of central California coast that is flanked by the Pacific Ocean on the West and the Santa Lucia Mountain Range on the East. Big Sur is home to beaches, state parks, and rugged wilderness, though wilderness is not something every woman readily sought.
“Did you get my down pillow and blankie?” asked a novice camper as we drove south on Highway 101.
Between the coolers, the chairs, the tents, the sleeping bags, and the groceries, I couldn’t see a lick out the rear window. Something had to be cut, I explained, and “your pillow and down throw blanket were it.”
There was a look of horrified shock from the back seat. What some of us saw as camping frivolity, others saw as necessity. Although we had forsaken pillows, we had managed to squeeze in truffle oil, Johnny Walker black label, and bottles upon bottles of red wine. Car camping, after all, is about being close to nature, but even closer to creature comforts. Which is why—for a group of fourteen women with diverse opinions on what constitutes comfort—it is the perfect outdoor getaway.
After two and half hours on the road, we arrived at the Ventana Campground, an eighty-site plot tucked into a redwood-lined canyon. Through the trees came a hoot and a holler as five friends directed us into camp.
After hugs and greetings, we were shown around our communal campsite, which had been cleverly separated into “nations.” There was tent nation, an open space where we would be sleeping; kitchen nation, where the cups, bowls, and plates were held; cooking nation, where stoves and grills were kept, and eating nation—a picnic table scattered with bottles of wine, barbequed chicken, and potato salad.
If you have ever planned a trip with a group of women, you know that there is nothing unusual about having three-quarters of our “nations” devoted to the preparation, cleaning, and consumption of food. For women, food is of paramount importance: we need to be fortified at least and completely satisfied at best. No matter where we lay our heads, we had to ensure that all of our carnal desires—chocolate, carbohydrates, booze—were within an arm’s grasp. And indeed they were, as we settled in around the fire, debating the finer points of marshmallow roasting (browned versus burnt), compiling s’mores, and chatting well past camping lights out.
The next morning, after the blue jays and blackbirds gave us a rousing wake-up call, a ranger stopped by to tell us that, eh-hem, some of the campers had complained that we were too loud the night before. This was not an unusual sentiment. Although our collective average age hovered around thirty, get us in a group, and we regressed to earlier times. Most of us had been roommates during or after college, and had lived in San Francisco during our twenties. Back then, we always seemed to be trolling the city as a large group of girls, every additional person or cocktail ramping our decibel level up another notch. Now that we are older and more geographically spread out, our large gatherings are less frequent and more organized—but still very loud. Maybe louder. We had to make up for lost time.
But we didn’t want to be those people, so we promised to be, or at least to try to be, quieter that night.
