Flash Friday ~ Effortful Fun

 

I first read the term "effortful fun" in Laura Vanderkam's email newsletter last Friday morning. Vanderkam's example of effortful fun was reading, which is interesting, because even though I love to read, I don't exactly consider it fun, and I also think of it as more of a lazy default activity rather than something that requires effort. At the time I read the newsletter, I was going through my email as a way of procrastinating getting ready to go camping, which is an extremely effortful, but fun, activity.

We'd planned the trip a few months earlier, then rescheduled it due to a friend's daughter's graduation party that would fall in the middle of our original weekend. We'd be going to our favorite spot, the place we'd gone nearly every year for the last 16 years. But still, I dreaded the prospect. Not the camping. Not the location. Not even the inevitable rain. But the massive amount of work required to find, sort, and pack all our camping gear and shop for and prep all the food. Not to mention the unpacking, cleaning, and putting away when we returned (a process I've dubbed "decampression"). Wouldn't it be easier to stay home?

Perhaps sensing my foot-dragging-ness, C stepped in and carried out some of the tasks I usually do--hauling the gear up from the basement, grocery shopping--on top of his usual jobs of loading about a cord of wood in the truck, getting together hatchet and lanterns, filling the water jug, washing water buckets, and tuning up the old Coleman stove. I eventually rousted myself out of my funk enough to sort through the gear and decide what we should take, wash the dishes that had been sitting in the musty basement all winter, load the coolers and organize the food, lug everything out to the car, and write a list for the children of their packing duties.

C and I headed out in afternoon in the pickup, with the tents, the coolers, the dishes, and the wood. The kids would follow later, after E and Z got home from school, M got off of work, and they had all packed their personal items into the car, with the sleeping bags and mats, duffel bags and pillows. It was cloudy and chilly, and I was tired. I still didn't feel like going camping. I dozed in the not-that-comfortable passenger seat, while C drove and surfed radio stations.

After we crossed the Kennebec River, drove under Route 1 in Bath, turned down the peninsula, and passed the shipyard, I began to perk up. I could sense the sea air. When the mudflats and estuaries came into view I could feel my body relax. Near the tip of the peninsula, I began to feel excited. We were going camping! A whole weekend away from screens and news and housework and real life. We stopped at the farm stand and bought two gorgeous pies---strawberry-rhubarb and raspberry-blueberry---and headed across the causeway and onto the island. We picked a campsite well removed from other campers, but not too long a walk from the beach, set up two tents, started a smoky fire to beat back the mosquitoes, and cut two generous slices pie. This was the life. Effortful fun. A lot of work, but so worth it.

What's even more effortful than car camping? Backpacking! And what's more fun than going backpacking? Reading about someone else doing all that work. If you want a little effortless fun, check out my book, Uphill Both Ways: Hiking toward Happiness on the Colorado Trail. 

Free and Fun

Free and Fun has become my mantra for the summer. I fully anticipate that this will be my only summer "off" with the kids (other than those two maternity leave summers, and, of course, last year's hiking summer) and I want to take as full advantage as possible of all summer has to offer. Unfortunately, since I've been "off" for a year now, we have to be judicious with the cash flow, and so I want to take as full advantage as possible while spending as little money as possible.



We got started right away with a trip to a nearby pond, two days after they got out of school (their first day off we spent running errands, which is neither fun nor free). It's a pond I've known about for years, but not one we've ever visited before, since the choice of public access is either the edge of the road or a short hike through the woods to a rock jump-off spot. Not exactly an ideal spot to take little kids, but perfect for big ones. I convinced E and Z that they wanted to try this new adventure by craftily inviting along their BFF.


The day was nice, the water pleasant and the pond just the right size for 12-year-olds to swim across. Their friend made several leaps off the rock, but only Z mustered up the daring to try it—once. Which is fine with me—I spent too many years as a lifeguard, where the dangers of jumping or diving into mysterious waters from heights were drummed in ad nauseam.



When Monday rolled along I threw around some ideas of how to spend the day. I wanted to go to the beach, mainly to sooth the rash from my brown tail moth run-in with cold saltwater. M wanted to do nothing, it being his day off work, though he proposed sending me grocery shopping while they played tennis. E's enthusiasm for returning to the pond overruled everyone else's ideas and so that's what we did, even dragging M along with us.



The rest of this week, E and Z went to a canoe and paddle board camp—also Free and Fun! thanks to our local conservation organization and a grant they have to get more kids outside. Now, looking ahead to July, I'm looking for more ideas of Free and Fun! things to do. Any ideas?

Weekend Things ~ Better Late Than Never

There's a little amusement park in New Hampshire, called Storyland, that it seems everyone (around here) takes their kids to at least once in their lives, but to which we hadn't gotten around to going yet.

It's geared for younger kids, and I realized this summer that we'd better go now, before it was too late. I was surprised that M, who had gone when he was about nine with relatives, was happy to go with us, and happy to go on even the tamest of rides.

There were a few more thrilling rides, including the Polar Coaster, and a brand-new wooden roller coaster. It's been a good 20 years since I last rode a roller coaster, and while the Roar-o-Saurus wasn't the wildest roller coaster I've ever been on, it's clear that I've gotten old. My thoughts each time I rode went something like this: "I'm not going to like this. I don't like this. Oh, that's not so bad. Never mind, I don't like this. I really don't like this. Wait a minute, I kind of like this. Yes, I do like this. Let's do it again!" Kind of like having babies.

The park, as you may have guessed, is fairy-tale themed, but is uncorrupted by commercialized versions of those tales and has a quaint, old-world feel to it.

With attractions like the antique German carousel.

And antique car track (the only one we had to wait more than five minutes to ride).

I loved Heidi's grandfather's hut (which just might have been the spark needed for the boys to let me read them that book, which is one of my childhood favorites).

And the Cuckoo Clockenspiel is probably the most beautiful amusement park ride ever, with adelweiss-embossed beer barrels spinning around Maypoles.

When we first arrived, I saw mostly toddlers and little kids, and was afraid I'd missed my chance of getting there before it was too late, but after a while we saw more older kids and teenagers (and possibly some unchaperoned adults).

The low-tech attractions we as entertaining as the wild rides.

(She had so many children, she didn't know what to do...)

We stayed at nearby inn that I'm certain was haunted (with generations of dead mice in the walls, if nothing else) and which had an old-school playground in the backyard.

They had as much fun trying out these novelties--they had never seen a teeter-totter before--as they did at the amusement park.

And considering the injuries Z has already acquired from the school's brand-new playground, I don't think these are any more dangerous.

All-in-all, a great weekend, and we made it just in time--before we all were too old--and, as I said to C after we got home, "That was fun, but I don't need to do it again."