You forgot being awakened by your scoutmaster 10 minutes after you crawled into your bag so you could come back out and watch the northern lights dance across the night sky or sitting on a hill side over looking a lake and watching eagles soar and dive for fish on a sunny afternoon!
I can still hear the voices today as I watch a campfire die...
All the wealth of Earth and Heaven,
bless thy woods and dales.
Over all thy lakes and forests,
happy youth prevails.
So may Scouting's bonds of friendship seal our loyalty.
To the camp so dear to memory,
HAIL OWASIPPE!
Big Jim
2005 Arlen Ness Victory Kingpin
2003 Victory Touring Cruiser
American By Birth, Biker By Choice, Proud To Be Both
34' '93 Fireside XL Travel Trailer
Tranquil Timbers (Formerly Quitewoods North) Camping Resort
Sturgeon Bay, WI
When I was a kid we had an annual three-day canoe trip I'd take with my dad and some other friends. If it didn't fit in the middle of the canoe...it didn't go. The first few years we didn't even take tents. If it rained, you rolled up in your pancho. However, eventually we relented and bought a pup tent. Those were the best memories of camping for me. Nothing like cooking over an open flame and sleeping under the stars.
Now I connect my portable grill to my propane tank for the steaks, cook the potatos in the microwave, and watch TV while I'm eating
This is a wonderful story of "how it used to be". I am in the younger crowd (born in '71), and I enjoy our hotel on wheels now. Just think of the stories I'll be able to tell my grandkids 30 years from now about the way we used to camp in 2005.
Sorry, my farm raised kids (all under 21) know what clear skies, green trees, and a campfire look like. I can remember the crappy camping gear we had as kids and my poor mother trying to keep 6 wild kids clean and fed with the horribly ancient and labor intensive tools she had to work with. It sure wasn't any vacation for her. Times change and new gear is definitely better - at least there's more time for enjoying yourself. And if you've ever hiked more than from the restroom to your camper, you'd appreciate the difference between a canvas and a nylon tent. Better "in the old days"? Oh please, I was a scout too - miserable is miserable; I'm old enough to remember them as being different, sure, but apparently my memory is still good enough to comprehend that it wasn't "better".
Miserable is a state of mind. I will agree that when I was a kid, camping gear in our family's budget range was archaic. Cooking on campfires that took forever to start, even with a wax fire starter, because the wood was damp. Sleepless nights in a kapok sleeping bag, no air mattresses, half-cooked food cooked in foil. Mud being tracked into the tent. Unannounced storms, pump-up stoves and lanterns. Cold, damp mornings when nothing seemed to warm you up.
But you know, it had an unmistakable aura of fun about it. My fondest camping memories came from my time as a Boy Scout. It was a trying time of dirt, and cold, and mud, and half-cooked food. But it was also camaderie, campfires, hikes, and seemingly endless adventures around every turn. To this day I can remember it like it was yesterday.
Would I go back to that time? I don't think so. Would I give up my RV. Not on your life. Would I go back to tenting if there was no other way? In a heartbeat! The memories of my youth are golden. And now I am forging more such memories in my golden years. Life is great!
My "other" RV fits into my back pack. Today's camping can be even more remote, isolated, and still enjoyable, due to the advancements in gear. I split my time between the bed 'n breakfast on wheels and the tent in the back country. So, with the exception of not taking a tarp, I still am making those memories - burned / raw dinners, stars bright enough you have to sleep with something over your face, etc.
Man, I won't give up my light-weight pad. Now, if I could just have my camp fire again (a number of national forests have prohibited them from anywhere in the forest except established camp grounds).
I agree completely. My camping trips as a boy were eerily similar. My dad worked double shifts every day to buy back the family farm that we had to sell when my brother and I were very young. These camping trips, even with the rain leaking through the canvas and the end of the cot (when we were lucky enough to get them) broke in the middle of the night and one of us would slide out of the tent and down the muddy hill, made my dad very happy and relaxed after a long week at work. He enjoyed them so much that he became our scout master. I remember being so proud of him standing there in his uniform telling us about our next camping trip. He has been gone for a long time now and I want to thank you for reminding me how much fun a pup tent and backpack was.
Gordon, Susie, Diane, Catie, Susan, Shawn, Annie, Jessi, Keith, Selena.(Yes, 8 kids)
1 Dog Bonnie.
96 Rexhall Aerbus Class A (The Dawghouse II) Castaway Campers site
As first married's our only car was a tiny stock TR4A, so for holidays we packed it with the tent, mattresses, camp stove and other gear, and top down and every spot including the trunk full, we headed out.
When we got near our destination we would stop at a nearby grocery store and ask for old newspapers and a couple of enpty cardboard boxes. From this we fashioned a cooler for a few days, and the DW carried it back to the campground on her lap full of perishables while I drove. After a few days, the ice had melted, we through the box in the garbage, and drove on to the next spot...yeahhhh.
We had such fun, and were what we thought of as "completely equipped", but now...old bones, the thought of ice cubes for the scotch, and freshly brewed coffee in bed....ahh...
Still though, in a normal season we never use the furnace, don't have a generator or a TV, make coffee through a filter into a thermos, and presto, we can be on the road in only about 15 minutes if we want to be.
The new DW when we met said "Will you take me camping?" And I said yes, and off we went, in tents and air mattresses again, and loved every minute of it just as much.... but now our truck and camper fulfill our needs completely.
Mike and Carole
Mike and Carole
2006 Triple E Regency 27 foot SXL
2005 16.6 Double Eagle
No matter how you do it, it's the family togetherness time that counts.
I remember tent camping as a kid, and had some great times. But honestly, if my family had to tent camp now, we'd go a lot less often! Thank goodness for our TT (and before that, our TC)! We're not sleeping out in the open, but we're making great memories regardless, all year around. Wouldn't trade that family time for anything!
What a fun thread!
Two adults, two kids, one big dog
2001 2500HD CC
2005 Jayflight 27BH
Offline
"Nytta Minne"
