Sun in the morning and the stars at night

Walt Whitman asked this question, “After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, love, and so on what remains?”

“Nature remains”. he answered, “the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”

How many of us feel the pull of the sun by day and the stars by night? I do sometimes, but I know that I have lost touch with my natural self and I know that I would not want to go out camping unless there were a lot of amenities,

When my wife and I were younger we did a tour of Europe. It was fund, but our trip was much the old saying “If this is Tuesday, this must be Belgium.” We had a short period of time and we made the most of it. We did not have much money, so we camped, and I remember campsites that had stores, bars, bistros, working indoor toilets, and swimming pools. In the 1970s in British Columbia if you were lucky you had an outhouse close to your campsite, no pools, no stores, no bars and no bistros.

We enjoyed our time and when we came home, we looked around and realized that if we wanted to have some of those luxuries when we camped, we could not camp with just a tent. So began a ten-to-fifteen-year adventure with a camper on a truck where we took our young children throughout the province. 

We took our own store, bar, kitchen with running water, our own bistro and indoor toilet, but we still had to find swimming holes. We enjoyed every minute of it, but as the kids grew, we outgrew the camper and finally sold it. 

Now when we travel, we book our timeshare or a nice hotel and go for walks on the beach to catch the sun in the day and sit out on the balcony watching the stars at night.