The Best is Overrated

I am happy to report that my boyfriend and I have just made it over the next Great Relationship Hurdle. No, I am not pregnant, nor did we sign a lease or join bank accounts. There is no little orphan rescued from the SPCA wagging its tail at my feet, and I’m pretty sure neither one of us is getting down on one knee anytime soon. But, the announcement still sends a little shiver down my spine: we just returned from our First Vacation Together. I should add: Outdoors.

Alright, alright – the car was always twenty yards away, at most. But even though we didn’t backpack over rough terrain with terror biting at our heels, I believe that camping lends itself to unique, and possibly challenging, relationship experiences. For example, in the morning he gets to see me before I can escape to a mirror. He gets to smell me for who I really am too, for that matter. Am I high maintenance, quirky, overly sensitive? Maybe. But these seemingly small details can make quite a difference when you are camping, as we did, in the desert. 

We made the decision to spend Spring Break exploring Joshua Tree National Park and Anza Borrego, two deserts located in southern California. It wasn’t a hard decision to make – after three weeks of San Francisco fog in April, we could barely stand to look at each other anymore, layered as we both were in sweaters, jackets, and scarves. We needed to go somewhere that was unequivocally hot, so hot that a cold shower felt like a luxury and a bikini felt like way too much clothing. So hot that there stood the remote possibility that upon return we might find a smidgen of gratitude for the fog deep down in our once frozen hearts.       

I was excited for our adventure. My boyfriend impressed me, as he knew he would, by offering to help pay to get the brakes fixed on my car, as well as plan where we would camp and the hiking routes we would take. I tried to impress him by calling him from the REI store and using what I thought were big, outdoorsy words, like “polypro,” “goretex,” and “freeze dried fettuccini.”