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It’s fun getting out the old two-person tent I had when Catherine and I met in the early ‘90s, cleaning hotel rooms near the entrance of Denali National Park. We hiked and camped on our weekends, by far the most camping I’d done in my life.

I could count on two fingers the number of times I’d camped before. The first was around age 10 or 11 with my friend Andy Shuttleworth’s brother, dad and another father and son, somewhere in the Carolinas. Except for me, it was a bunch of present and former Boy Scouts.

When the older boys got to hike back to the car ahead of the group, but Andy and I had to stay with the dads, I complained. I was big on fairness in those days. And I could complain like nobody’s business. When God was handing out the ability to complain, I probably complained.

I assume I was being extra annoying because Mr. Shuttleworth told me that if I were his son, he’d give me a beating. I took the hint and kept my next thought to myself, something like, “If you do, my much nicer and stronger firefighter dad will give you a beating of your own.� Not that he would have, but it comforted me en route back to the car.

Strike one against camping. Mr. Shuttleworth was probably just grumpy because we’d slept in tents and no one ever sleeps well in tents, which is why approximately 97% of people who “camp� drag small houses with them.

The second time I camped, I was 23. A friend and I hiked to the top of Rabun Bald, the second tallest peak in Georgia, ate beans and hotdogs and slept in our sleeping bags out under the stars. I expected to wake up in the teeth of a bear or cougar, but instead it was just the morning sun. I felt great.

When we got back to Athens, where we went to University of Georgia, it was just in time for me to enter a skateboard contest happening that day at the local skate shop’s indoor ramp. I didn’t even get to warm up and I got second place. A point for camping.

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Obviously, the summer I did little more than camp with my future wife on the weekends meant more points for camping.

Raising kids, camping became less about the backcountry and more about staying in state park yurts.

I remember one rainy trip to the coast where the slow drip from a tree above was a waking nightmare of torture. Once our kids were out of the house, Catherine and I started camping more frequently.

We chose Crane Hot Springs because Catherine had followed an account that tells you when Milky Way viewing is going to be good, and so we’d booked out east with the stars in mind.

We woke up Saturday to a Burns-area forecast for nothing but clouds well into Sunday. We decided to go for it because, news flash, forecasts have been wrong before. And it was wrong, just not in our favor.

It was 88 degrees, and we thought we’d wait for nightfall to get in the hot springs. Then major thunderstorms marched in, lighting up the sky.

We noticed the tent was about to blow away with not much stuff in it.

Eventually, I realized we hadn’t used all the stakes that anchor the tent to the ground.

I hopped out with a handful of metal stakes in an electrical storm, hooked them to the rings in the corners of the tent and used a rock to pound them into the dense, clay ground.

Speaking of dense, we hung out in the tent a bit longer before nearby lightning reminded us we cared about our lives more than we did a tent.

Back in the RAV, we conked out for an hour or so.

The rain had stopped, and we could hear people over in the hot springs pond, open for swimming 24 hours when there’s no lightning.

From about 11 to midnight, we soaked and swam in the pond and watched lightning flash in the distant sky.

Stars began to emerge.

We got our hopes up, but then black clouds began to cover them, and it began to rain again.

We went to sleep, and I probably woke hourly as my body begged for mercy on the hard floor of the tent.

After a gallon of coffee, we did our third and final lap on the path around

the wildlife pond next to the campground.

Catherine downloaded this birding app called and identified a few of the species we saw, including killdeer and a .

I came home with no stories of incredible Milky Way viewing, but thanks to the elements, the hot springs and the many birds of the Malheur area, we enjoyed a scenic, memorable, story-worthy weekend all the same.

Maybe we camp because we don’t really know what’s going to occur. Dry, reliable home is also predictable.

Predictability can become monotonous. Outside is where the out of the ordinary happens.

But getting back to my own nest is definitely the best part of camping.