Camping

From the ages of one to fifteen I went on three vacations with my family. One trip was to Virginia to visit a great uncle and his family. I was eight. I had fallen in love with an older second cousin on that trip and I cried the whole way home. I just didn’t want to leave him. I never saw him again, nor do I remember his name. It was a lasting love.

A second trip we took was to Florida to retrieve a trailer my grandparents had purchased. That was the year I fell in love with the southern plantations. I thought the Guest Houses in the back were perfect for visiting family. My family was insulted they weren’t good enough for the ‘big house”.

And the third trip was to a cabin in Minnesota. And that year I fell in love with the A-frame home. I thought it was the coolest. For some reason I felt I could live there forever.

In my fifteenth year of life my father built a pop up camper. I have no idea why. He must have felt he could have built it cheaper than making a purchase. Our family friends also built one and I’m sure the two dads conferred a great deal and supported each in their efforts.

My dad welded everything in that camper and those beds were heavy. There was no way that camper was going to fly away in a storm. The tent part of the camper he hired someone to sew and we had the screen net for windows and the plastic overlays to keep out the rain, just like in the “real’ ones.

My dad’s goal was to finish the camper by the summer of 1967 so our family could travel to Expo ’67 in Montreal. It was a big deal for us and for our small town. We were even a feature in our local paper.

It was a wonderful trip and I’m sure satisfied my parents desire to take the family on vacation in a most economical way. So then for the next five years this was our mode of travel. We didn’t always travel long distances, we often just camped a few miles away. It was more for my dad to get away from his business.

My dad loved camping. He didn’t mind the heat, he didn’t care if he was dirty or wore the same clothes he had worn the day before. He could sleep in a lawn chair by the fire all night. He was not that particular. 

My mom tolerated camping. She wasn’t one to fuss a great deal and she was a good sport. She made wonderful meals for us and I have to say camping did give us a good appetite.

My brother, who is five years younger and my sister who is nine years younger, thought camping was great fun. They rode bikes, played in the sand or the dirt and could find even an ant quite entertaining. Often we camped with other families and there were numerous kids their age to play with.

I was a different story. I was fifteen and I wanted to be on the cover of Seventeen Magazine or at least be lounging and reading it. I didn’t want to help crank up the camper. I didn’t want to play with the little kids and I hated the heat. If our camper could have had air conditioning perhaps I could have enjoyed the outside more.

Sometimes there were kids my age in our camping group but often they got permission to stay in town for at least one of the nights and they would drive out to the site during the daytime. My parents were just a tad more restrictive and I had to be with the family at all times. It just fueled my distaste for camping all the more.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if my dad would have taken us to campgrounds with activities, you know a lake with paddle boats or a swimming pool and a club house. Those excursions were quite rare and he preferred to go to someone’s field and all the campers would circle the fire, just like the covered wagons and we would hunker down for the night.

I imagine I was quite a pestilent teen and the family would have been much better off having left me at home. I know there were times I was downright uncooperative and whiny. Camping was not my first or one hundred and fortyfifth choice on my list of things to do.

At some point when I was in college my parents purchased a hardtop travel trailer but by this point I was no longer required to spend weekends with them by the fire. My age and college status, plus I’m sure my past behaviors, gave me an out.

For a few short years of my married life my husband and I tried the camping route with our small children. My husband didn’t relish the pulling, parking and loading of the camper. I didn’t care for the cleaning, cooking and lack of air conditioning. So without remorse we let that fantasy go.

Still to this day when I see a camper I can fondly recall sitting by the fire and roasting marshmallows and just as quickly my mind remembers the mosquitoes and damp clammy feeling of the humid air. I know the work it took to prepare for the trip and to unload upon return. I’m sure to my parents it was worth their time and effort. It served them two purposes; it got my father away from the 24/7 consummation of his business and it gave the five of us concentrated time together.

So camping holds a special place in my past as important family time that I did not get in my home and had my parents started camping with me when I was younger perhaps I would have accepted its minuses along with its pluses with a bit more tolerance. But our life has a specific trajectory and mine seemed to orbit away from the woods and outdoor toilets.