A Stove of One's Own

I blew a couple hundo this week at REI. I shouldn't be allowed in that store without a specific list of items pre-approved for purchase and someone to make me stick to the list. I'm now the proud owner of a Windpro remote-canister stove, by MSR (among other things). The stove was the main purpose for my trip to REI.





It's kinda cute. It can boil a liter of water in 4.25 minutes and it weighs only 10.5 ounces. Whoooo! Yhee!

This stove (and the ultra-light set of camp pots that I bought with it) signify a step in a new direction for me. I'm slowly but surely putting together my own complete set of camping gear. The only thing I still need to get is a tent. With that acquisition, I will be able to camp or backpack alone without having to borrow anything (except maybe a car). But that's not really the point.

Traditionally, camping has always been a couple-y sort of activity for me (since high school, really). Camping is not obviously romantic, since you're away from things like soft bedding and warm showers, but it can be romantic in a different way. You have to be pretty down with someone to spend days together with only trees and a creek for entertainment -- without the distractions of the Internet, phones, email, TV, or IM. You have to think your company is funny and interesting, and you have to be okay just doing nothing together. Peeing in bushes and checking each other for poison oak brings a whole new kind of intimacy to a relationship. I suppose it's for these reasons, that 95 percent of the camping I've done has been with a long-term boyfriend... someone whose preferences and habits I'm already very familiar and comfortable with, and, more relevant to this discussion, someone whose camping gear filled in the gaps in my collection of gear to make a complete set. I believe the biggest and most sincere commitment I've ever made to someone was to buy a set of sleeping bags that zip together to make one big bag for two.

The move to the single way of life has left me temporarily unable to camp in the manner which I am accustomed to. So ultimately, I view this camp stove as a step toward independent womanhood and self-sufficiency. The point is that I love camping and want to make sure it is always a part of my life.