camping equipment is like crack to me...

And REI is my pusher.

I spent much of this past weekend packing for Bonnaroo.  We don't leave until Wednesday morning, but I wanted to get a head start.  My personal goal is to be completely packed tonight so Tuesday I can actually go to sleep early and be bright eyed and bushy tailed for the first leg of our journey. 

So I was sorting through all of my supplies from previous years and for the life of me, could not find the bladder for my faux Camelbak.  I distinctly remembered seeing it maybe a month ago when I was cleaning up for Passover and that I put it somewhere very safe and very logical.  Which, of course, meant that I couldn't find it when I actually needed it.  Fab.

I carted myself off to Target because I had other items to buy and I was hoping to get it all done at one store.  No luck.  Luckily there's an REI just down the street so off I went.

I stepped inside and it was like angels singing.  Floor to ceiling camping equipment.  Heaven.

Now, I am not a camper.  Never have been, probably never will be.  I'm definitely not what one would call outdoorsy.  But my secret alter-ego is and I like to indulge her every so often.  This year has been great because I NEEDED a new tent - my former tentmate wasn't coming and her tent broke last year anyway.  And sure, I could have borrowed one or asked my friend Sarah if I could bunk with her, but my inner camper made me buy my own.  She also made me buy a cot.  And two EZ-Ups. 

And yesterday, she made me buy not only the needed bladder, but a thingamabob to turn my water bottle into a hydration system, a floral headband AND a cooling neck tie jammy. 

that's totally my alter-ego wearing my new navy floral headband, rocking her washed-in-a-river-no-I-don't-need-product-to-look-like-this waves

I really wanted to spend the rest of the afternoon just wandering around the store and picturing me wearing hiking boots and sleeping in a 1-man tent on the side of a mountain with a sturdy walking stick propped on the nearby tree and having just finished cooking my dinner over a camp stove with ingeniously designed folding utensils or somesuch equipment.  Doesn't help that I'm currently reading A Walk in the Woods.  But I stopped myself, went home and kept on packing for my real camping trip. 

Maybe one day.  For now, I'm just a hippie-music-festival-loving Bonnarooster.  And I'm cool with that.

BTW - I found my bladder as soon as I got home.  I remembered that I also had some paper lanterns and a head lamp and some $1 emergency ponchos and they weren't with everything else, either.  Went back into the attic and found the forgotten box - right on the top was the bladder.  Murphy's law.  Though I have to say, my new one is much better than my old one so I'm keeping it.