Mountain of laundry vs. mountaintop experience

Summertime for me, means camp. Church camp, and camping with my family. I love being on a mountaintop, off the grid, away from the city. I just hate what I have to go through to actually get there. I'm preparing to leave for a week counseling junior high kids at church camp. I love it. But camping, if you have a family, means laundry... lots of it.

Funny how all those years that Brian and I were planning our family, thinking we'd probably have 2 or 3 children someday, I never considered the laundry. I've done laundry in many different places over the years. At home with my parents, in the basement of my college dorm, in the basement of our first tiny apartment, at the laundromat when our 2nd apartment was renovating their laundry room. I don't actually mind the chore itself. In fact, it can be soothing to let my mind wander as I sort, carry, load, unload, dry, carry, fold.

But we live in a townhouse now - it has 3 floors, and 2 sets of stairs. I swear the steps get steeper every time I trudge up them. I once figured out that in a normal week, I do 8 loads of laundry. Normal meaning that no one came down with the flu or needed extra clothes for some reason. Six loads of clothing - light, dark, medium, and reds (yes, really - it eliminates accidentally dyeing things pink!). One of sheets, one of towels. Normal week.

Camp week - ugh. Sleeping bags (only 1 fits per load), other camp related bedding, extra towels, extra out of season clothing (gets cold up on that thar mountaintop). I'm finishing up the nth load. I've lost count. Sometimes I wonder if our electric washers and dryers really save us work, or just give us different work. I don't have to hand scrub clothes with lye soap and a washboard, rinse them by hand, run them through a wringer and hang them to dry. But I'll tell you what - by the time I've lugged some dozen loads down the steps and up the steps (with extra trips for the delicate things that don't go in the dryer) I feel like I could give those pioneer women a run for their money.

I won't be volunteering to churn butter anytime soon, however...

When all the equipment is finally gathered, all the lists checked off, the car packed, and me ready to head off into the sunset, I've noticed I don't breathe a sigh of relief....yet.

There's a magical point where that happens. As I turn onto Route 9W and begin winding my way through the back country roads up to Maryland, there's a point where the road levels out and the countryside opens up. Suddenly I am surrounded by gently rolling farmland, with the misty purple mountains up ahead in the distance. A deep breath and a sigh - this view makes me smile, every time. I'll see you at the mountaintop...