Up North

No Dog for me!! He stays home and one of the boys cares for him, I won't go there but another pet peeve!! I don't need the generator to sew I have a battery operated machine. That is where my granddaughter sews actually I have 2 or 3 of them, Good for piecing. I leave in the morning to set up camp and everyone will be here at night.

jljack

I started camping when a child. We would go way up to Northern California up in the mountains so my dad and uncle could go trout fishing. It was a blast!!! As an adult, I loved to camp. When DH and I got married in 2002, I found out he likes to camp, too. So, nearly every summer we do go camping. We bought a 13'x20' 3 room tent to start with and were able to take various kids and grandkids with us. Last year we bought an older tent trailer (pop up), and have only had it out once. It needs a little work, but at our ages it beats sleeping on an air mattress in the tent! :-) We do love it, though.

My funny story is that we took our friends Annie & Paul for their very first camping trip ever. We went to a campground on the Central Coast of California near the end of May. We had a great time on Saturday, then Saturday evening it started to rain. We stayed under our canopy set up over the table, then went to bed early in separate rooms in our tent. We woke up next morning to dark skies and still pouring!! We were barely able to make some breakfast, then pack all the wet gear into the back of our truck and leave!! I thought, this is the last camping trip they will ever take!! But, not true!! They LOVED it!!! They went out the next weekend and bought camping equipment, and we have been camping with them several times since.

Another great trip was the one time DH and I took out our little old tent trailer, we met his brother & SIL up in the mountains, and discovered snow still on the ground. Then we discovered the heater in the tent trailer didn't work! We had to borrow brother's extra little space heater from their big 5th wheel RV. But we had a blast!!!

Up North

I think the best camping memories are when things go wrong, Like rain, Wet sleeping bags Raccoons stealing all your goodies. Skunks in the tent with you!! Well Me!! The trips that go smoothly you just don't really remember. I sure wish I had kept a journal all these years.

rwquilts

OH yes! A camping journal would have been terrific! I think one of our more interesting camping trips was at Clearlake in Oregon...got settled and it rained a bit, but nothing too bad...next day off and on...that night...different story...DH had rigged a tarp over our tent and over the table...woke to DH digging trenches around the outside of our tent and would release the rain from the tarps so they didn't colapse on us, so I got up and helped him...did that for well over an hour til the rain moderated a bit...meantime son was snoring soundly through it all...the next night I had left a package of M & M's on the table and in the morning, you could see the prints of where the rodants had carried off some of them and they'd been in the bag and such...mucky mess and I learned that M&M's are liked by mice and chipmunks alike! The next several days were dry and wonderful...walks around the lake, sitting by the fire and watching the stars at night...what great memories...I've so been enjoying reading your stories...

Lynnc

I grew up camping in Southern Ca. My family was a member of a camping club of 30 to 50 families. We went once a month year around. The teens had their own club. I loved it. Now my husband and I camp once in a while. I have many health problems. We went to Yellowstone last year. It is about 7500 feet. I have COPD. I just couldn't breath. So almost passing out walking to the bathroom we drove all the way home. Next time I'll bring oxygen bottles.
The other bad time is when I was 12. I just had spine surgery and was in a full body cast. We went way out in in the woods to a county park. I started to have a reaction to a medicine. My mom called the rangers and by the time the ambulance got there I was fine. I was so scared.
But I have had so many great times they out weight these few bad times.
When my husband retires we are going to spend the first year camping around the country.