First years of camping

[loulou57]

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 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.

[Vapor_Trails]

Many, many memories. One of the most prevalent was back in 1978 when the "Rich People" in their big Ol' Winnebago set up their projector and the whole campground watched Jaws!

[LastOfTheBohica]

The trip with my Parents and Siblings that I remember the best was when I was 12 and my brother was 7.

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.

[rfryer]

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.

[Opie431]

In 1940s we wemt camping in a home made pop up my father had traded a row boat for. 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. My parents were sleeping and I woke them up when he got mean. He was about five and I was seven as I remember.
If they took pictures they did not keep them.

[rfryer]

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.

[gcloss]

I first started camping when I was a Cub Scout back in the mid 60's and have not stopped camping since. It's sure a lot different and much more comfortable in a TT vs. a WWII Army surplus pup tent that didn't even have a floor.

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.

[Dog_Folks]

My darling wife led me down the "camping" road. When we were dating in 1972, her mother allowed me to accompany them on the first trip of the year. My wife's mother was an avid camper and camped most weekends when the weather would allow. We went to a local state park, in a truck camper, and proceeded to set up. It was the very first trip of the year and the camper had been in storage all winter. My future mother in law started the refrigerator on propane. A bird's nest in the flue caught the camper on fire! Not a great introduction to the world of camping. The camper was ruined and no camping took place that weekend.

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.

[loulou57]

I just remembered a time when I almost got to go. I grew up in northern England. Camping on the cliff edge with the north sea blowing upon us excited me, even as a child. The family was going camping. I remember being at my gran and granddads the night before we were to leave. I started to itch, the itch turned out to be chicken pox. Gran and granddad were to come along with us but it ended up with the three of us staying home. I never did get to camp on the cliff edge. That journey is definitely on my bucket list!

[Kittykath]

With a family of ten, our camping vacations consisted of my dad setting up our huge canvas tent in the yard of a relative's house or cabin. On our very first adventure, all 8 of us kids were "quarantined" to the tent, away from our cousins, as we were all had some stage of chicken pox.

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.

[2112]

The whole family (9 total) tent camping on either Freeport or Surfside beach. My uncle and cousins from Lake Jackson would meet us there.
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 😞

[classicdude]

My dad started taking me camping when I was 5 or 6. We camped on 'the river' and fished all night (or at least as long as I was able to stay awake). We had a couple of different locations that we used. One place we could drive to, but the other we had to hike in with all our camping and fishing gear. That was a tough haul.
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!

[Peg_Leg]

I remember a primitive campground next to 40 acre fishing pond. The campground had a playground. At the time it was our family with 2 boys, wife's brother's with 2 girls and a duck.

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.

[campersuzid]

Camping was a way to escape the turmoil back than. I can still remember the quiet, the yummy scent of pine, and the wonderful feeling of meeting a challenge and success. Guess something don't change all that much.

[fla-gypsy]

My family did not camp. Us kids stayed in a tent in the yard a few times but that was it. My first real camping experiences were as a teenager with my girlfriends (future wife) family. I cannot share the rest of those experiences here. They are pleasant memories for an old guy.

[TomHaycraft]

Family only camped once or twice, rented pop-up campers in the late 1970's. Where we did spend our time was sailing with a number of overnight stays around various places on Galveston Bay, with the occasional race offshore to Corpus Christi, or day sail down to Freeport, TX. Sleeping overnight on the boat, was very much like camping, but the days could be so different.

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.