Farrell: Women find secret to make camping more glamorous

When DeBorah Loomis pulled into Camp Lake Jasper in Hardeeville on Friday she jumped out of her pickup, the one she got after trading in her Mercedes two-door.

She began to scream.

“I DID IT! I DID IT! I DIDN’T THINK I COULD, BUT I DID IT!”

Loomis had done it all right.

She made the five-hour drive from Canton, Ga., and pulled her 2015 Shasta 1961 Airflyte reissue in polo white and seafoam green without incident and, more importantly, on her own.

She did that.

And now she could relax along with 24 other women, some of whom had performed similar feats of personal achievement to get there, whose tiny and prettily decorated campers were perched throughout the RV park.

The women were glamping — which is short-speak for “glamorous camping.”

If you’ve never glamped before, allow me to introduce you to this highly fashionable activity.

When you are “glamorous camping,” you first need to get a blow-out that incorporates some sort of “Hunger Games” braid … but with beach waves.

You can still wear your heels, but boots with a wedge would be considered outdoors-y-er.

When you see your accommodations, it is typical to make remarks about how “this ain’t the Ritz” or to say “Ew” or even to ask innocently for the valet so that people will get that you’re “so above it.”

Whenever a bug flies by your head, squeal so that everyone else knows you were startled for one half-second. And absolutely say “What was that?” “What was that?” “What was that?” at every snapped stick from the woods.

At the end of the day, when you’ve gathered around the fire that someone from a neighboring camp made for you and when you are nearly out of pinot grigio, it is time to begin a traditional glamping game, which is to gang up on the friend that’s easiest to gang up on so you can verbally beat her into submission until she admits her 4-carat engagement ring is a fake.

You do this because you are B-O-R-E-D with your L-I-F-E.

I’m just kidding.

That is absolutely NOT what glamping is — except on “The Real Housewives of Wherever,” which is where I first heard of the term and, by the way, Alexis’ diamond is totally a fake. She admitted it.

Real glamping, though, is the same as regular camping, but with no — or next to no — men.

It is a celebration of independence, of being able to physically solve the problems typically left to the larger and hairier among us.

It is pulling a camper through traffic and backing it into its spot. It’s knowing the manufacturing details of vintage campers so this or that can be fixed in a jam. It’s being part of a group and being able to safely travel the countryside and enjoy the great outdoors with or without a spouse.

It is taking what is rough and tumble and making it cuter and softer.

Mostly, though, it’s about walking and chatting and visiting and laughing — and sometimes there’s even some fishing.

“The women connection is really special,” Peggy Randall of Sun City Hilton Head said Friday as she was setting up for the potluck dinner that would later be held outside her 1959 Monitor by Coach. “It’s just really about friendship, good friends, and relaxing.”

Her husband, who was home planning for the couple’s future trip to Grenada, didn’t understand the concept when Randall first started glamping.

“What did you guys do today?” he’d ask her.

And she’d tell him.

They walked and chatted and visited and laughed.

What else?

Some of the women glamping this past weekend were also members of Sisters on the Fly, a national outdoors adventure group exclusively for women.

Loomis became a member after accidentally insulting a Sister at a Country Living/HGTV expo in 2014, where she was giving a talk on decorating with repurposed items.

She saw a woman dressed in a tutu and a cowboy hat and boots and had to find out what it was all about.

“What are you?” Loomis asked the woman.

“What are YOU?” the woman shot back.

“No,” Loomis corrected herself apologetically, “I mean, what are you trying to be?”

“What are YOU trying to be?” the woman sassed back.

When the fake confusion finally cleared, the woman introduced Loomis to the life of a Sister, complete with over-the-top and highly decorated vintage-style campers.

There was no looking back.

She bought the Shasta. And a pickup.

After a year of problems with her camper, though, Friday was her first real campout with it.

“I’m determined,” she said. “I’m going to get the hang of it.”

Jennifer Megliore of Bluffton said the vintage camper lifestyle can be addictive.

“They’re like cats,” she said of the small campers.

You get one and suddenly you find yourself thinking about taking on another. The campers become a labor of love and often serve as a “girl cave” even when just sitting in the driveway.

“We as women give away so much of ourselves. Just to have the time for yourself … (that’s why) we have no agenda (here),” Megliore said.

“Oh,” she corrected herself. “We don’t talk politics.”

“Except last night,” said Lisa Alston of Pisgah Forest, N.C., and a former Beaufort resident.

“That’s a stick of dynamite ready to blow,” Megliore laughed.

After dinner, the women gathered around an open fire and introduced themselves, told a personal story if a personal story was on their mind and talked about how they came to be a glamper.

In the distance, the rumble of I-95 traffic and the sound of a train echoed through the woods.

To start, Megliore encouraged the glampers to burn anything they might want out of their lives.

For her, that was a white “blouse” with black feathers painted on it that she had ordered online and that came months later. The shirt was flimsy and several sizes off its label.

A real sartorial disappointment.

“Feel the luxurious material,” she said to the women as she passed the shirt around. “I believe that’s called ‘shower curtain.’”

She threw the shirt into the pit. It melted as soon as it touched the flames.

We all stared.

Loomis broke the silence.

“I think that firepit is big enough for a body.”

And the laughter overtook the highway.

This story was originally published March 7, 2016 at 5:46 PM with the headline "Farrell: Women find secret to make camping more glamorous."