We would load up for a week of camping and head up from Chico on highway 32 and drive into some forest service roads to spots my parents had known for years. Those places were remote mountain meadows with flowing streams and beaver ponds for fishing and exploring. Nothing but good memories and the truck camper my parents had fit in their short bed half ton 4x4.
As I try to replicate this experience for my kids, I am finding it difficult to do. Granted part of my problem is location.
Location is everything.
We do now just as you did as a kid here in Idaho..Campgrounds are loaded with nut jobs and I never use them.. We camp only in remote mountain places with creeks and lakes that most do not know of and do not go...
Dispersed camping only for this truck camper and why I own one.