First years of camping
What do you remember about your first experiences camping? My dad driving 5 hours to a campsite, 3 kids in the back asking the age old question. My mother cooking supper on an open fire, only to h...
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Your comment about the Yorkshire accent caught my attention. Both sides of my family emigrated from that area in the very early 1900’s. Even though I was born in Ohio, growing up with family with that accent I acquired a little of it myself. When I went in the Army at 18 everyone struggled to figure out what part of the country I was from. Even when I came to AZ at 22 I still had a hint of accent that bugged people.
But my family didn’t camp so I have no memories of that. I don’t know if the field ops in the Army could be called camping, but there were a lot of similarities. When I was 17 a couple of friends and I would drive as far back in the mountains of W VA and KY as we could and just wander the hills. We usually drove until we ran out of any form of road and a couple times we even drove a short distance up ravines – in a car. We had no camping gear at all so I don’t know if you could call that camping, either. Just food, water, firearms and matches and we slept in the car or on the ground.
A few times we stayed with some locals in shacks on the sides of hills and that’s where I developed my taste for biscuits and gravy. Even over 55 years later I still have it fairly often. They always refused any money but we discreetly left it anyway, they didn’t have the resources to feed three teenage boys. And we liked the people and didn’t want them to think we were freeloaders. A couple of times we ran into some “interesting” characters and the movie Deliverance reminded me of them. But we were armed to the teeth and no one bothered us. Only once did things get dicey. We stumbled on a dance one night. Being the new guys in town we attracted the attention of some of the girls and shortly the local boys were glaring at us and you could cut the tension with a knife. I told my friends unless we were prepared to recreate the gunfight at the OK Corral I thought we ought to leave. So we said out goodbyes and did.
My first real camping was after I came to AZ and began big game hunting. At first I worked out of the back of a station wagon, but that didn’t last long until I graduated to a tent and real camping gear. I don’t remember many details now, but I’m sure it was amateurish at first. Poor food, some burnt, things I forgot and had to muddle through without, tent poles breaking in a storm, getting lost in the boonies a few times, and so on. More or less what you’d expect from a newbie. That evolved into just tent camping trips with the family but by then I had made most of my mistakes and didn’t make any big goofs. But sometimes things still got forgotten and I jury rigged or replaced them on the road.
But my family didn’t camp so I have no memories of that. I don’t know if the field ops in the Army could be called camping, but there were a lot of similarities. When I was 17 a couple of friends and I would drive as far back in the mountains of W VA and KY as we could and just wander the hills. We usually drove until we ran out of any form of road and a couple times we even drove a short distance up ravines – in a car. We had no camping gear at all so I don’t know if you could call that camping, either. Just food, water, firearms and matches and we slept in the car or on the ground.
A few times we stayed with some locals in shacks on the sides of hills and that’s where I developed my taste for biscuits and gravy. Even over 55 years later I still have it fairly often. They always refused any money but we discreetly left it anyway, they didn’t have the resources to feed three teenage boys. And we liked the people and didn’t want them to think we were freeloaders. A couple of times we ran into some “interesting” characters and the movie Deliverance reminded me of them. But we were armed to the teeth and no one bothered us. Only once did things get dicey. We stumbled on a dance one night. Being the new guys in town we attracted the attention of some of the girls and shortly the local boys were glaring at us and you could cut the tension with a knife. I told my friends unless we were prepared to recreate the gunfight at the OK Corral I thought we ought to leave. So we said out goodbyes and did.
My first real camping was after I came to AZ and began big game hunting. At first I worked out of the back of a station wagon, but that didn’t last long until I graduated to a tent and real camping gear. I don’t remember many details now, but I’m sure it was amateurish at first. Poor food, some burnt, things I forgot and had to muddle through without, tent poles breaking in a storm, getting lost in the boonies a few times, and so on. More or less what you’d expect from a newbie. That evolved into just tent camping trips with the family but by then I had made most of my mistakes and didn’t make any big goofs. But sometimes things still got forgotten and I jury rigged or replaced them on the road.
