First years of camping
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-17-2013 05:00 PM
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 hear my father in his broad Yorkshire accent, cursing about forgetting the tent poles in the driveway. The tent, hot pans, likely some supper and kids tossed back in the car and driving 5 hours home.
I never camped again until I was invited to go along with boyfriends family. Four boys and myself, the mom and dad, all squeezed into a small tent trailer. 2 beds and a fold down table. There was an add a room that served as kitchen. I remember it being full of boxes of food. No worries about, fridges, air conditioning, bathroom or tv. The only worry you had was if you were going to get a mattress to sleep on.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-19-2013 03:01 PM
2019 Grand Designs Momentum 25G
2020 RZR Pro XP Ultimate
A day without fusion is like a day without sunshine.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-19-2013 12:56 PM
We had borrowed my Uncle's canvas tent. It was a big outfitter type tent. I can't remember the exact size but it was at least 12' x 8'.
WE pulled into Jasper and my Dad starting trying to figure out how to set the tent up. We soon ran out daylight and my Dad was still trying to get the tent set up.
My brother started running around the tent, singing "This isn't gonna work out!" over and over.
My Dad finally lost his cool and told my mom to shut that kid up.
The tent went up once my dad listened to me and agreed that the support poles went the other way.
2011 Ford F350 SD, PSD 6.7, SRW, CC
2011 Komfort 3230FRK
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-19-2013 12:32 PM
Opie431 wrote:
I remember fishing at the shore of the lake we were parked on and my brother getting drunk on my father's perrpermint schnapps that he thought we hidden.
Are you kidding? Drunk at five on schnapps.:B Is that some sort of record? I’m curious, does he still drink or did that cure him? My dad smoked cigars and occasionally chewed tobacco, a carryover I think from when he worked in the mines when he was young. When I was a young teenager I thought I’d emulate him and chewed some of his tobacco and smoked a cigar. I was so sick I’m sure I was green and I never did that again.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-19-2013 04:54 AM
If they took pictures they did not keep them.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 12:57 PM
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.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 09:59 AM
In my late teens I meet my DW and her family had been camping for years in a 1969 Nimrod PUP. I went on many a camping trip with her family before we were married. About 5 months after we were married we came across an old used Coleman PUP for $425. In the 5 years we owned the Coleman we camped all over the East Coast, traded it in 1984 for a brand new Rockwood PUP. We kept the Rockwood for 21 years and raised two kids camping. Both of our kids started camping when they were about 6 months old and still go with us today when they can.
We always camped with family, in-laws, aunts & uncles and cousins. Sadly though many are no longer with us, but we have memories that could never be replaced.
When I purchased the Rockwood PUP in 1984 the salesperson gave us a Camper's Log Book. I started keeping a log of every trip we went on beginning in August 1984. The log has dates, campgrounds, weather on the trip, who we camped with, who we met along the way, costs, etc. I still keep up the logs for our trips today. I have 29 years of camping logs and tons of great memories.
Camping today in our Jayco Eagle is far different when all we could afford was an old used PUP, but at least we camped and had many great memories.
5.7 Hemi, 4x4, 4.10
2015 Jayco Eagle 284BHBE
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 07:06 AM
A year later, we married, and with the very last of our wedding cash, bought a tent, and some supplies for camping. As is the case with many camping couples, we “upgraded” as time went on. We had a series of tents, a truck camper, a pop up camper, and four different travel trailers during our working life. Each unit was a little bigger and more complex.
So I started camping to be close to my wife. After 40 years of marriage, I still want to close to her.
2005 Dodge 3500 - Dually- Cummins
2006 Outback 27 RSDS
We also have with us two rescue dogs. A Chihuahua mix & a Catahoula mix.
"I did not get to this advanced age because I am stupid."
Full time since June 2006
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 04:37 AM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 04:32 AM
It was a very long 7 hour ride home in the station wagon. Ten crabby people, eight with chicken pox, no air-conditioning and black vinyl interior. Ugh.
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 04:17 AM
Nothing you ate did not have sand on it. Nothing you touched did not have sand on it. Sand would find its way into your bed sheets. Sand, sand, sand, everywhere sand! But man, it was a blast.
Walking up and down the beach collecting drift wood during the day so we could have a huge bon fire each night. Yep, in the sand.
I can't talk about my childhood camping without thinking about sand 😞
Timbrens
2013 KZ Durango 2857
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-18-2013 04:01 AM
It was on these trips that I learned things like how to swim, telling which way is north by the north star, telling time by the big dipper, and getting my first glimpse of the 'new' Russian satellite (Sputnik). Didn't take long to develop my mindset and skills for a lifetime of enjoyment of being in the outdoors. My little brother followed that same path a few years later.
We did camp as a family on a few occasions, but 'the river' was too dangerous for that since we sometimes had to move fast to get out. We didn't have cell phones with radar, so we had to check the water level every half hour to be sure a flash flood wasn't headed our way unknowingly! By today's standards, I would probably have been considered and 'endangered child'!
That bonding time with my father was irreplaceable...wish I could go back in time. Actually, I think I just did!
2000 Silverado 1500 5.3 3:73
Drawtite WD 1000#
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-17-2013 09:43 PM
The duck had some strange habits. It would stick it's head in the boot of a roller skate and push it all over the place. It would sit on a skate board and push with one foot.
BUT, this duck had a thing for white socks. I remember a kid, not one of ours, being on a picnic table inside a screened room just screaming his head off. Guess he shouldn't have been running around without his shoes on.
Crew Cab long bed 6.0 gasser 4.10
2019 Open Range OF337RLS
Yamaha EF3000iSE
retired gadgetman
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-17-2013 09:23 PM
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-17-2013 07:33 PM
09 SuperDuty Crew Cab 6.8L/4.10(The Black Pearl)
06 Keystone Hornet 29 RLS/(The Cracker Cabana)
- Mark as New
- Bookmark
- Subscribe
- Mute
- Subscribe to RSS Feed
- Permalink
- Report Inappropriate Content
Sep-17-2013 07:03 PM
I took my boys out to various state parks when they were young, tents or simply the open bed of a pickup truck. Times were simple.
The boys, now 20 and 26 are nowhere close to marriage, hopefully equally as far away from fathering kids. I do look forward to the time, to help arrange for them to get their families out, see what I can do to help influence their interest in the outdoors.
2017 Grand Design Reflection 303RLS - TST 507 TPMS