Bacon, Coffee, and Dirt. That's Everything, Actually.

It started every summer the same way.

We'd pull into a campground about fifteen minutes from our house, the one that's only five minutes away now since we moved to our smaller town, and something in me would just exhale. Like I had been holding my breath for months and didn't realize it until I stopped.

That's what the outdoors does for me. It lets me breathe again.

Some of my favorite memories as a mom live in campsites. Not in fancy hotels or anywhere with a checkout line. In the dirt, under the trees, with the smell of bacon drifting off the outdoor grill at 7:30 in the morning while a warm Midwest breeze moved through the site and my kids hadn't woken up rowdy yet.

Just the quiet. The coffee. Chris making breakfast. The kids with their sand toys making mud pies and finding sticks and entertaining themselves with things they pulled straight from the ground.

No screens. No schedule. Just us.

Summer into late fall was our season. We did small three-day weekend trips within a few hours of home, some of them timed around Rori's softball schedule so we could squeeze in both. And every year we made the drive to Mahoney State Park in Nebraska for a week-long trip that I still pine for.

When Rori was little and it was just the three of us, tent camping, she was a completely different version of herself out there. Carefree in a way kids sometimes lose as they get older. She hunted bugs. She laughed constantly. She was a little shy, but she'd work up the nerve to make friends at neighboring campsites and then they'd all disappear on their bikes together like kids used to do. We played games. Went on walks. Made our own fun out of whatever was around us.

I loved who she was out there. I loved who we all were out there.

When Donovan and Harleigh came along we graduated to a camper and those slow mornings got even better. Watching the littles discover the outdoors for the first time, toes in dirt, faces in the sun, completely unbothered by anything that wasn't right in front of them. Kids are so naturally good at being present. Camping reminds me to be more like them.

We sold the camper when the twins were coming.

It was the right decision. A camper that fit our family of five was already tight, and adding two newborns to the equation made it impractical in ways we couldn't ignore. We knew it. We did it.

But it was grief ridden in a way I didn't expect. We were finally back into the “camping life” and something we loved and then life, beautiful chaotic life, made it the responsible choice to let it go. Our kids still ask when we can go camping in our camper again. Every single time it pulls at my heart strings.

The answer is someday. And I mean it.

Because here's what I know about myself after all these years: I am not a person who needs luxury to feel rich. I need open sky and the sound of nothing in particular. I need to feel the ground under my feet, or sand between my toes, or a breeze that doesn't come from an air conditioning vent. I need slow mornings with coffee and mostly, the people I love most, not rushing anywhere.

The outdoors gives me that in a way nothing else does. It's quiet and comforting and it makes me genuinely, simply happy in a way that's hard to manufacture anywhere else.

Which is probably why my retirement dream looks the way it does.

Somewhere by mountains. A slow morning with coffee and a book. Walks with Chris. Kids and grandkids drifting in and out, always welcome, never scheduled. Fishing. Sitting around a fire. Feeling small in the best possible way next to something big and permanent and unbothered by deadlines.

An RV. A patio. A garden. Maybe some chickens. 😄

I've worked since I was fourteen years old. And before that, babysitting. I can't remember the times when I hadn't worked. And I am proud of that in a way, genuinely proud of the life that work has built for my family. But someday I want the work to be the things that fill me up instead of the constant shuffle of deliverables and laundry and running and making sure everything is handled for everyone.

Someday I want the slow mornings to be the whole point.

Until then I'll take them where I can get them. A campsite fifteen minutes from home. A backyard with breathtaking sunsets. A 7:30 a.m. breeze, a cup of coffee and kids who are still too sleepy to be rowdy yet.

That's enough. That's everything, actually.

We're getting another camper someday. I've decided.