Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson for July 28, 2009

Sure Calvin we’ll let you out here on the turnpike.

Dad, now’s your chance!

Hey, where’s Hobbes?

I hate annoying bugs, but you have no choice, Calvin! Try to enjoy it!

i loved camping. coolers full of beer, lots of great tunes on the stereo, and a trip into town to play baseball on the local diamond on the Saturday afternoon. wonderful! of course, then we started getting married and having families and camping took on a different image. more like the nature hikes we took as little kids. perspective is everything, but it’s funnier using Calvin’s.

I’m totally with Calvin on this. If the outdoors are so great, why do we live INdoors?

Does Mom have nothing to say? In the fourth panel, she looks like it’s her turn to talk.

Gweedo, it’s Acoma designs that do look a bit like flakes.

rayannina, we are 100% polar opposites! If I could live outdoors all the time, I would!

I feel your pain, Calvin, I love being outside, but I HATE having to sleep there - give me proper plumbing any day.

Misery loves company so Hobbes is in the back with Calvin.

DAHamilton said, about 2 hours ago

Hey, where’s Hobbes?

That is what I try to figure out where is Hobbes? :-/

Ivy0730Lcsq said, about 2 hours ago I hate annoying bugs

Well, then - don’t! :D

swatting mosquitoes .. canned food is not my idea of good time either. But then grown ups never grow up really. In fact they become more childish than when they started.

Does anyone hitch anymore?

City folks are fickle. They spend big bucks trying to turn their back yards into enchanted forests—and when they go camping, they spend big bucks trying to turn the forests into their back yards.

Haha @ grazer - it’s funny because it’s true.

If this is Calvins attitude as a 6 year old, what will he be like as a teenager?

Oh Grazer you are so right. Still I rather live indoors. Oh Calvin, it’s going to be a long week for you.

just like camping in the back yard. plenty of bugs.

I’m with Calvin on this one. MY idea of “roughing it” is staying at a Motel 6 (or its equivalent when I was in Rome a few years ago!)

If God had intended for us to live out-of-doors, He wouldn’t have invented indoor plumbing, central heating, air conditioning, and room service!

So true, Legaleagle. The last time I went camping was when I was 13 and forced to accompany my family under duress. All I can remember was having a cow because I was missing Duran Duran on “Saturday Night Live”.

“That is what I try to figure out where is Hobbes? :-/ ”

Probably at the Four Seasons getting a massage. He’s one smart tiger who knows how to get out of camping.

Dad, I think you’d best get off and let mum drive Calvin & Hobbes back home–and then you hitch a ride to the campsite.

it’s called a vacation if you go there to relax, it’s called a trip if you just go there.

I think one of their vacations, Calvin forgot Hobbes……this might be the one!

When Calvin grows up, he’s going to take his kids camping and boring them with tales of “the good old days when I was your age.” As for Hobbes, he’s no fool–he’s at home reading Calvin’s comics and eating tuna.

Like you Legaleagle, my idea of roughing it is sleeping without an electric blanket. Hobbes is quietly (?) at home trying to figure out the can opener and reading Calvin’s comic books, aaah the life.

I don’t think I’ve ever been camping and that’s fine because I know I’d hate it. I don’t think Dad was fair to drag Calvin (and probably Mom) along on something he knows they hate. If he wants to go camping let him go with friends. I’m with Calvin this time.

He revealed years later that he does it so the remaining 51 weeks of the year will seem like a vacation.

I think, Mom loves the outdoors as much as Calvin.

I love camping, the real camping not the kind where u stay in a motor home! or at a cabin but the pitch your tent and pee in the woods, andlive out of a cooler gets me back to nature=)

Maybe Calvin was told to leave Hobbes at home. I can’t see Calvin forgetting him. Likely though that Hobbes was the only one who could bow out - and took advantage of it.

Like algurka said, he’s back home pigging out on canned tuna and reading Calvin’s comics.

I agree with YYYGUY. Camping was fun before marriage, and it was free.

Mom’s kinda in the middle on this topic. You can tell because her top is a mix of dad’s vertical striped shirt and Calvin’s horizontally striped shirt. ^_O

I drive around the lake everyday going to a part-time position. And see where campers are constantly there. I am always glad to leave go home for comfort.

It would be nice to live off the grid and in the outdoors on a permanent basis. Wonder if this the strip where Calvin loses Hobbes when they are camping.

Hobbes would not appear large in the parent’s presence. I guess this strip pre-dates seat belt laws.

Lived in a tent for 6 months touring New Zealand - loved every minute of it. Would do it again in a heartbeat and I’m WAY OLDER than Calvin. To repeat DA’s question - where the heck IS Hobbes???

ThomasKovacs said, about 8 hours ago

“Does anyone hitch anymore?”

You see people hitchhiking once in a while. In the winter, you stop for them, because it’s dangerous out there after a little while.

Geez! When did Calvin become such a woman?

Buck up lil’ camper!

I’m with Calvin on this one. I don’t want to be “one” with the bugs.

I hope Dad did not by accident put Hobbes in with the luggage ?

I also agree with Calvin. I remember their last trip… rain, rain and more rain. What a disaster! :-D Gotta love Dad’s optimism though! (mom is very quiet) :-D

Calvin would not leave Hobbes at home - he’s his best friend. You don’t see Hobbes because he’s gotten into the wicker basket and is eating all the tuna sandwiches! Mom is not saying anything because she’s just glad that she doesn’t have to be yelling at Calvin right now. I’ve always wondered why Bill Waterson never sent Calvin to Summer Camp. Loads of possibilities…

or at least during summer send him to a summer day camp. like they did in the strip BETTY. The camp counselor look like a marine drill instructor. I can see calvin running amock in that situation.

Calvin leaves Hobbes at home when he went to a wedding, not when going to camp.

Is this the burglary thread (the one where Hobbes was at home while Calvin and his parents were “on vacation” and burglars went off with the moron-box–and Hobbes later claimed to Calvin “I scared them off after they had taken the TV”)?

My parents sent me to camp so I would behave or the rest of the summer, and well into school.

With sado-masoquist parents like these, no wonder Calvin is so “creative”. Only cavemen likes nature.

Calvin’s dad is bleeep mosquitoist.