The Dutch like to go camping. Well, sort of. They pack their clothes, loafs of bread, jars of peanut butter and cartons of milk in their car or caravan (can't trust foreign food), drive to a camping site with electricity, communal bathrooms and wifi, and sit bare-chested in front of their tents drinking Heineken for 3 weeks.

Since a couple of years, a bunch of Dutch Mormon camping enthousiasts - "29 families and 29 persons" this year - pitch their tents together on the same site and sit around being Mormon all day (that means no beer and no bare chests, and shorts well over the knees). They call it "Zion's camp". Of course, no one has a clue what the real Zion's camp was all about.

Good, clean fun, as can be deduced from this Facebook-post afterwards:

"A wonderful, emotional yet beautiful and speshul week is over. Everyone thanks for your participation and input. We shall enthousiastically start to plan Zion's Camp 2015. More to follow shortly."

How I miss being Mormon. Here our wretched atheist exmo-family were, stuck in a nice air-conditioned hotel in the French Provance sipping wine by the pool and discovering the architectural remains of the Roman Empire in the area.

Still, as my wife pointed out, we also experienced a Biblical miracle. By the time we got home, all the bottled water we had brought on the trip (we don't trust French mineral water) had changed into bottles of wine...

So, how was your vacation this year?

rt Wrote:
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> Good, clean fun

Woohoo!


> So, how was your vacation this year?

I went camping with my TBM wife and our kids. I enjoy camping, but bare chests and beer sounds like the needed secret ingredient that was missing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2014 03:18PM by Good Clean Fun.

"there's only two things i hate in this world... people who are intolerant of other people's cultures... and the dutch."

Sorry rt, I couldn't resist.

In fact I love the Dutch, and I love your posts...

As for camping, I went camping with a large group of gay men last summer at Lake Sonoma.

You could only reach our camp by boat.

Zero amenities except for out house and fire pits.

We ate and drank like KINGS!

Were there's a will, there's a way!!

Great time!!

sonoma Wrote:
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> "there's only two things i hate in this world...
> people who are intolerant of other people's
> cultures... and the dutch."
>
> Sorry rt, I couldn't resist.


No worries, mate. Is this a quote from someone famous? Anyway, I'm not a fan of Dutch campers myself.

By the way, I forgot to mention what made Zion's Camp so emotional yet beautiful and speshul this year: the 6-year old son of one of the participants (one of them "persons") drowned on Tuesday.

Still, no need to cancel the Camp or the road show on Thursday. This stuff drew everyone so close together, it was really wonderful.

Seriously, how is this not a cult?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/06/2014 03:30PM by rt.

It's a quote from Monty Python's The a Meaning Of Life.

So silly, it always makes me laugh.

Aside...

One year at a LDS Youth Conference on Catalina Island, one of the advisors drowned while diving in the first few hours.

Everyone got over it in a couple hours.

Nothing cancelled.

Made for a "super spiritual" Testimony meeting later.

Mormon McCulty!

Face it, despite the Dutch being gentle and tolerant folk, they do weird stuff that defies explanation. The weirdest for me is how they never draw the curtains or blinds even when they live right on the main square by the cathedral, and have no problems with you walking by and seeing them watch TV in their underwear and stuff like that. The second weirdest is how when the Dutch drive through other countries and want stop to eat, they will picnic right in the median of a busy highway or, even worse, pull out a card table and picnic right on the shoulder of the road. I don't know how they can deal with the fumes and the other cars blowing their food off the table when they pass by at high speeds. Who else does that kind of thing? No one!

I think that the weirdest thing they do is when little dutch boys put their fingers in dykes.

Dykes don't appreciate that kind of thing...

LOLOLOLOL There aren't enough LOL's in the world for that one!