posted by familycampman on Jan 7
If you’re like me, you can remember fairly clearly your worst camping experience. There are a lot of great ones, but the worst ones truly burn an image into your brain that will last forever. My camping nightmare took place over 20 years ago, but Lysol will never be used in my house because of it.
The incident took place at Camp Kiwanis in Hanson, Massachusetts. I was introduced to this campground when I was in Cub scouts, but my family soon started camping there because they had a great campsite with a private cabin and nice spot for the tent that my folks used. As usual we brought Lucky, the family dog, on the trip. Lucky was a fairly stupid, but good German Shepherd mix and was really fun to bring on camping trips. This trip was like all our other trips with my dad struggling to put up the old Coleman Cabin tent and bringing the uncut slab of bacon for breakfast. Everything was in place for a great family camping trip.
I think it was the first night of the trip. My brother and I were sleeping in the cabin in our brown sleeping bags when the incident happened. One of us woke up smelling something foul. It didn’t take long to realize what the smell was. Lucky went poop in the cabin. It also didn’t take long to realize that this wasn’t an ordinary poop, but a bad case of diarrhea. Somehow she had gone all over the floor of the cabin and somehow it reached the bottom portion of my sleeping bag. We ran to my parents tent and rushed them to cabin. My mom did the best she could to wash it all off, but ended up spraying what must have been an entire bottle of Lysol Air ‘freshener’ into the cabin. We’re not talking the nice aromatic varieties of today, but the not so great original scent. The result was an odor that made my eyes water and my stomach turn. I tried to sleep in the car, but to no avail. Amazingly, I eventually returned to the cabin and crawled back into my now somewhat clean sleeping bag.
So ladies and gentleman the lessons learned here are quite simple:
- Don’t let your dog go poop on your sleeping bag
- If your dog does go poop on your sleeping bag, don’t try to cover the smell with the original scent Lysol
Do you have a nightmare camping story? If so, leave a comment because I’d be glad to hear it. I’m sure we can all learn from each others story or at least get a good chuckle.
Eric
No, this isn’t a post about Barak Obama. It is about my wonderful jar of change, which I intend to use to buy my camping gear via an Amazon.com gift card. Please see my 
This is a Coleman Colossal 20 degree sleeping bag. It’s over-sized rectangle shape which I think will meet her needs since she tends to move when she sleeps. It is also flannel-lined which she’ll like compared to the nylon lined which my son and I have. The 20-degree rating is probably a farce, but I expect it to accommodate the late spring into summer temperatures we’ll be camping in.
