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Outdoors: Richardson: Try camping to relieve stress

Sometimes I just need to soothe my frayed nerves. I normally can accomplish this by pretending to be a fishing guide (for no pay) or playing a little golf with my buddies (for money).

When these two activities don't work I always have my go-to strategy. Break out the camper and head for the hills.

This is a sure-fire method for lowering blood pressure and smoothing out my anxiety issues. As usual, my instincts were right. This camping trip did the trick. There's nothing like communing with nature to put one in a better frame of mind.

Now I must confess: this is not pioneer camping that I refer to. We did not cook our supper on a campfire or sleep under the stars. Neither did we drink water out of a babbling brook or hit the woods when nature called. No, this is the modernized version of experiencing the great outdoors.

First, you have to hook up a camper about half the size of your house to the old pickup truck and then try to put everything you own in it. All the kitchen utensils, everything in the refrigerator, any bathroom item you can think of, laptop computer, satellite dish, and the television to name a few. Make sure that the indoor restroom facilities (in the camper) are in working order and under no circumstances do you pull out of the yard until you are positive that the air conditioning in the camper is functioning properly.

So you see what I mean. We are not exactly roughing it, but it is fun and hopefully will be relaxing.

So Laura and I along with Steve and Vicki Cisson headed out for the western boundary of South Carolina with high spirits and the anticipation of fun in the air.

Upon arrival, we noticed that the campground was fairly crowded. There were vehicle tags from lots of places, there were several groups who displayed their favorite college team's colors, and as things got a little quieter you could hear that there were accents of people who were not from Georgia or South Carolina.

The accents I heard were distinctly similar to those I've heard from north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I don't have a problem with any of them, but there are certain cultural differences in those who live in foreign countries like New Jersey, New York, and Vermont.

At one point, all four of us were sitting around our campsite after dark and began to get a whiff of a strange aroma. It was the evil smell of left-handed cigarettes.

We knew which way the wind was coming from so we knew where the smell originated. The culprits in the next site were from one of those aforementioned foreign countries. I knew this from their car tags the twang of their language.

Not long after detecting the smell much giggling and loud talk ensued. The sound of several bags of po

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