One of my fondest memories of kid-dom involved trips to my family’s hand-built cabin outside Golden, Colorado.  It was two-week sojourn every summer … where simpler times prevailed.  And by simpler, I mean there was no indoor commode.

I’ve heard of humans in extraordinary circumstances performing amazing feats of strength and fortitude.  Well, I could go for nearly an entire week without going #2 in the wilderness.   It took forethought, pre-planning and a complete lack of any fiber.

Even though I watched “Little House on the Prairie” religiously, it IN NO WAY meant I wanted to live like a pioneer.  Even at age seven “roughing it” meant watching a black and white TV set with no cable.

To me, the outhouse (complete with crescent-shape moon cutout) was a parallel dimension.  And a breeding ground for spiders the size of my foot.  It also doubled as the catchall storage shed, meaning I had to dodge both arachnids AND a hacksaw poised to fall at any second.  Every item was precariously hung from a rusty nail, which, I swear, the spiders would use as a springboard to land in my hair.  (Thank God I had no idea about tetanus at the time.)

My only solace all week was a trip to the town’s local restaurant.  A quaint little Austrian café where they served homemade strudel, schnitzel and any other type of “el’s” I wasn’t familiar with.  The soundtrack of “The Sound of Music” would blare through tinny speakers.   Servers dressed like fair frauleins would serve steins of beer.  Kraut was offered as an appetizer and dessert.   I would gorge myself to excess knowing that afterwards I could traipse into the bathroom and flush the toilet repeatedly if I wanted to.  I’d walk in to the Austrian restaurant famished and still manage to walk out four pounds lighter.

My folks would spend the first day getting adjusted to the altitude and opening the cabin up after its winter siesta.  The cabin had a musty smell for about 10 minutes and the rest of the time would smell like Pine-Sol, which I found out later turned out to be actual pine.

When I was bored, my parents would drive me to the river where I could easily kill two or three hours pitching rocks and pebbles in to the swift moving, icy-cold current.  To this day hearing a quality “Ker-PLUNK!” still makes me smile.  But only at an elevation above 4,000 feet.

Know what else makes me smile?  Never ever having to pee in a mason jar in the middle of the night because of a lack of indoor plumbing.  Ah, vacation memories.