I Can Smell My Vagina Right Now: Observations From A Summer Road trip

5 weeks. 5 provinces. 3 states. 3 islands. 8000 km. Lots of camping. Not nearly enough bathing. Lots of observations. Boom. Here we go.

1. My red wine is heavily cut with cooler water; it's more or less a rose, really.

2.I am now covered in a layer of fur. (It's taking all of my willpower to refrain from posting a picture of this.)

3.I have to beat the living shit out of my breakfast every morning. Normally, at home I would pitch somepecans and walnuts into the food processor to grind them up and then top with bananas and dried fruit. I couldn't find the food processor anywhere at the campsite, so I had to put my nuts into a ziplock bag, place them onto astump and then beat the living shit out of them with a log. It worked pretty well until theZiplock bag exploded and the whole campsite turned into an all-you-can-eat-buffet for every freaking chipmunk within a4 mile radius.

4. It takes a long time to dry the urine out of a down sleeping bag.

This is the look of someone who just urinated in her sleeping bag.

5. It takes just as long to dry red wine out of a down sleeping bag.

6.I can smell my furry vagina right now. When you try to wash your vag in the lake or oceaneveryone stares. Like it's any of their fucking business.

7.I'm standing in line waiting to do my dishes in the same sink as the lady in front of me is washingher panties. Awkward.

8.We eat things we find floating in the cooler water - not always sure what they are.

Grapes, broccoli and a baked potato floating around down there: lunch.

9.Campground Host is just a fancy name for squatter. The flags, the tarps, the kitchy flamingo solar lights strewnall over the place. Now, if these "hosts" offered Brazilian services (see furry vagina) alongwith selling campfire wood, then they'd be justified in setting up rent-free in National Parks for months on end.

10.I am kept awake by a guy snoring three campsites away. My husband informs me that that is actually mesnoring.

11.The car is starting to smell sick...like a bigger version of my vagina. My kids have serious hoarding issues so we keep finding pieces of salami and peaches stuffed into the creases of their car seats.

12.I caught Rob sending a postcard from our car to our mechanic. I don't he wrote it in the car, he actually signed the postcard from our car. That's just fucking weird.

13.It's really unfortuneate if you forget your glasses on a 10,000 km road trip. It did not go over well withanyone in the car when I slowed down for what I thought was a pedestrian, but it turned out to be aSmokey the Bear sign on the side of the highway. In my defence, it was night. On the plus side, I haven't been allowed to drive since.

14.Isla's hair is now a mess of dreadlocks, bugs and leaves. I have completely given up. I'm going to see if the Camp Host at our current campsite will shave her head after I convince him to give me a Brazilian.He seems like a real go-getter who would be keen to try anything.

15.If you get hit in the back of the head with a banana, it is grounds to pull over the car on the side of thehighway and walk the fuck away. If you leave your kids in the car long enough the abandonment will start to feel real and it will buy you a few more hours until you get hit in the head with an iPad and may have to repeat the whole procedure.

16. I just went to Wal Mart, dropped a hundred dollars on movies and booked a plane ticket homefrom Montreal. This is not a joke. I actually did this. Farewell and good luck shit show.