Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for August 03, 2009

I like dad’s enthusiasm.

SURE THING, CONAN.

At least Mom is hopeful that there will be slimy fish gasping and flopping at the bottom of the boat. I thought fishing has nothing to do with actually catching any. (Jerome K Jerome)

Ugh! I won’t touch that slimy worm on the hook.

Mom finally has something to say. Her timing needs work, though.

If there’s real coffee, then what’s fake coffee?

Apparently, mom isn’t too big on camping, either.

Real coffee or fake coffee , someone call doctortoon , only he can answer that question ( lol ) .

My sympathies are all with Mom. After years as a Scout, then a Scouter I finally realised I wasn’t built for this sleeping on the ground lark!

forget the worm on the hook, wait until he teaches you how to gut the sucker!

Hey, give “Conan” a break. His survival skills just might do you all some good some day. :)

That said, husbands, you really have to be careful where you take some of your wives and children in the mountains.

Camp coffee IS the real coffee.

Yum..any camp food is delish, especially crispy fried trout.

I’m with mom, real coffee comes out of an espresso machine!

Calvin + fishhook?!?! I hope they have an industrial-strength first aid kit in that boat!!

I would appriciate going out with dad into the nature!

Mom will have pan fry the fish.

Seesh, the barbarian !! I don’t understand what’s so barbaric with camping, good grief.

Len, it’s not the camping that is barbarian, it’s dragging an unwilling spouse into it.

Dad has no glasses - I hope Calvin is a fast learner or else dad will stick himself for sure.

C’mon Mom, don’t be such a spoil sport. You’re there, make the best of it..

Dad, don.t forget to bring your binoculars and camera.

If I was Mom, I’d be at the nearest hotel.

Still no glasses. Has he brought extra’s?

My idea of roughing it is staying in a hotel doesn’t have a restaurant. However, that said, I used to love to go fishing with my dad and I used to bait my own hook.

Fake coffee can be instant or decaf, but here she probably means they use a percolator instead of a drip. It has more of a ‘burned” flavor to it. Some campers bring a French press, and that tastes much better…and stronger! :-)

Behold the Elixir of Life!

I feel your pain, Mom!

An unwilling and bad tempered spous can spoil all the vacations!

She probably means coffee one makes, not instant coffee.

Instant or decaf to me is not real coffee. She needs a nice trip to Tim Horton’s for coffee and a muffin. But really I would have flat refused to come. Why should Dad get to choose what they do for vacation? Let her choose where to go sometimes!

Real coffee is from Starbucks! Or Doc!!

Wouldn’t we all like to see a “decent newspaper”? Talk about an endangered species…

How about some pancakes and bacon!

FUN, FUN, FUN!

We go fishing every year and I love it, can’t wait to get to go. Baiting the hook, (Catching the fish!!) getting the fish off, and yes, even gutting the fish. Nothing is as good as fresh caught quickly cooked fish! YUM Not all Moms are hotel resort types! (and don’t get me going on cruises… Not my idea of fun at all!)

At least Dad got Mom to go camping, even if she doesn’t have the right attitude. My wife told me if I ever forced/tricked her into going camping, the divorce papers would be in the mail.

So madampresident, a campground with plumbing-equipped buildings and a large “well-equipped” kitchen (for cooking for large numbers) would count in your book as “major roughing”?

Coffee…nectar of the Gods.

Boy - mom’s REALLY going to be pissed when she finds out the car battery is dead!

(or did Calvin tell dad - NAH!!)

there’s a fine line between “fishing” and “sitting in a boat looking foolish”

and “fake coffee” would probably imply chicory

I still love camping, but “camping” changed as I got older. Went from a tent to a pickup and shell camper, then an in-bed camper, then a full size camper with stove, water tank, and ice box, and now a 27 foot motor home with bathroom and shower, refrigerator, generator (Yeah, but it’s not very noisy at all), microwave, beds, everything, basically, INCLUDING the kitchen sink. It’s not MY fault, it’s the ground’s - the ground has gotten much, much harder over the years. Fun filling up 2 - 20 gallon gas tanks when it was $4.50 per gallon. Still love the wind in the pines, the smells of a campfire and fresh coffee perking, though (AND fresh trout).

If everybody loved camping where would we all go to get away from it all??–-Thank god for the spoilsports!

I don’t like fishing so much. But I like being in the nature, driving with the boat and look to the fishes and other animals and swimming. A cup of coffee is always fine!

A Manic Sorcar joke-cartoon (not printed in his 1983 Indians In America) showed an Indian immigrant (perhaps naturalised to US) family setting up camp. The wife tells her husband, “let me get this straight: you moved us from our native village to Mumbai, then immigrated to the US so we could go “rough it” camping–at a similar comfort-level which we ‘enjoyed’ in the village originally?”

Until my eldest nephew was around 7 years old, he fished with a plastic worm tied to the end of the line. After he hit 7 we let him have a hook and real worms, but stood a good 30 feet away from him. The only one who would stand next to him was the dog……and he hooked him.

Which kind of muffin (corn, blueberry, English…) did mum mean?

Dad looks different without those glasses. I wonder if he can see.

i, too, love being outdoors - though i no longer camp. fortunately, i live in an area with lots of green spaces (i have a pond with a “natural” area right behind my home), and spend a lot of time walking through them (with or without golf clubs - depending on where i walk).

We rented a cabin in Appalachia a few years ago with loft, wood stove. We cooked all meals on the wood stove, chopped the wood for the stove, and even baked. The wife and kids were fascinated. A few weeks ago we rented a cabin in the woods an hour from the beach. We cooked many, many delicious things in the campfire using a pie iron, and putting corn cobs and potatoes in the embers.

Many who don’t enjoy tent/backpack camping do enjoy cabins. There are many degrees of “roughing it”.

Yes BC13, dad can see even better: he’s wearing contact lenses now.

polkadottsss said, about 13 hours ago

If there’s real coffee, then what’s fake coffee?

de-caf

love camping…last year me and a couple of friends went to the border waters in Minnasota/Canada. a million acres mostly water. and can only canoe in . what u take in u bring out. It was beautiful canoeing through the lilly pads seeing moose, beaver, bald eagles , deer, and at night seeing the Milky Way in all it’s glory.

My wife’s idea of roughing it is no valet parking.

To try to do WoodEye one better, my wife’s idea of roughing it is Slow Room Service !

@THEDRIVER—my dad, uncle and me were up in that same remote area many years ago. Stars, wildlife, rain, skeeters, camp fires and butter fried lake trout. ~Awesome experience for a 13 year old!

Who said you had to catch fish to enjoy fishing? Catching fish is the bonus!

I don’t drink coffee, so I can’t personally judge Tim Horton’s, but I must say that I once had a sandwich there and it was the WORST sandwich I had EVER eaten ANYWHERE (and I spent quite a while thinking it over before I came to this conclusion - I have eaten a lot of sandwiches in my time). So would that suggest anything about the coffee? I’ll never know, will I?

And as for Mom, this is the first time I have ever seen her express a personal opinion about what SHE felt and wanted. Otherwise she’s cooking, or washing dishes, or telling Calvin off, or similar. Reacting, to her son or to her husband. This is very refreshing! And her hair is even messy! She actually looks pretty! (a la 1960’s hippy natural-style)

She could have real coffee and a fresh muffin if she gets up and brews and bakes. A newspaper isn’t so easy, but if she smoothes a patch of dirt at night then in the morning she can look at the tracks and see what animals have been by during the night….

-Cougar :{)

Remember to break an egg into the coffeepot to trap the grounds when making camp coffee.

CougarAllen said, about 1 hour ago

“She could have real coffee and a fresh muffin if she gets up and brews and bakes. ”

Why can’t Dad bake and brew? He’s the one who’s functioning so early, after all.

A genuine superannuated flower person knows full well that the correct quotation is: “Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope.” (Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers)

StarBIGbucks is just sludge without the dressing.

Love to camp … more by myself or with friends instead of family. Family can be so demanding. Rather enjoy it instead of being put to task by “wife.” Though, I know my grand-kids really enjoy it, as do their parents.

Last time I camped was with my son’s Scouts. One of the parents suggested an air mattress to overcome the hard ground experiences of my youth. I already put out money for the tent and other camp gear so I went to Kmart and bought a pool mattress. It worked great. I would have slept all night if it weren’t for the high wind, lightening, thunder, and heavy rain. Most of the kids either slept through it all or went back to sleep. We parents and leaders were the one’s huddled in the screened in tent , luckily with a couple pull down flaps, over the top of the picnic tables. We smoked cigarettes, drank cold coffee, and ate granola bars while listening to the radio for the updated weather. We were all dragging the next day but we still talk that it was our favorite Scouting camp trip!

You draw an evocative scene, Dino.

My Miss of 50 years & I used to go on fishing trips over weekends and holidays 2 or 3 times a year . I’m retired now and could go more often . My Grandfather got a free fishing licence . My Father payed $ 1.00 for his . The State of California wont’s me to pay $ 65.00 for the same PRIVILEDGE . When we did get to go 90 % of the time we forgot to take bate on purpose . And 10% we did ,didn’t hurt California’s fish stocks , if we got to clean any .

Some times I donn understand why they react like that? well this all makes a character real n full of traits n live..

haha