Earliest Camping Memory

[ctpd814]

I was setting in a zero gravity chair earlier today at our camp site. My feet were up and eyes closed and I began to think about how I got to this point in my camping life. I then began to think of my first camping memory.

I was about 6 yrs old. My mother, younger brother and I went with my grandparents on a camping adventure. We piled in my grandparents motor home and headed north. We were headed to the U.P. I wasn't sure where this was, but it was going to take a few hours to get there. Then came the first big memory, crossing the Mackinaw Bridge. I remember being called to the front and seeing it looming on the horizon. It was amazing. As we reached the half-way point, I could not believe how far up in the air we were. Our journey continued until we reached Curtis MI.
My mom, brother and I stayed in a tent outside of my grandparents motor home, at least for the first night. The old green canvas style tent with the wooden poles. I can still smell it. When we got up the next day, a worker from the park came by to make sure we were not leaving any trash or food out. Why? young inquisitive minds wondered. A bear had been in the campground the night before. We stayed inside the motor home from then on.
I also saw the biggest bluegill of my life. My grandfather caught it. He kept it in his freezer so that when he told the story he could show people. I don't recall the size, but to this day have not seen anything like it.
It has been over 35 years since this time but still remember.

What's your earliest camping memory?

[05kzep241]

When I lived in Mexico I went camping with 3 cousins and we had a blast. A year later I bought a tent and my then girlfriend (now wife) and I where always planning on going camping but never did. A couple of years later I moved back to the US and then got married. Work got the best of us and we forgot about all the dreams we had when we were dating, because we had to work to have money for bills, mortgage, etc, etc. Last year, after my wife donated me one kidney, we sat down and erased all plans and decided to change our lives. We went to Kmart and bought a $25 dollar tent and a few goodies, packed the truck and started driving to the UP (we live in Michigan too). We camped in the Lake Superior campground, which is on the Lake Superior shore, about 40 munutes east of Grand Marais (Pictured Rocks). It was the best night ever, sleeping to the sound of the waves crashing against the rocky shores, the wind blowing the tree leafs...

Kidney transplant aside, that night completely changed our lifes and since them we upgraded to a 25 ft travel trailer and we use it as much as we can.

Actually we are planning for a week vacation to the UP the week of labor day, weather looks very promising.

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[richf28]

I was around the age of 7 when my parents bought our first tent. It too was the heavy green canvass with wooden poles and the musty smell. The outing was a family reunion at my grandparents farm in the Allegheny mountains of Pennsylvania. It was Labor Day weekend and all my relatives also had tents of all different sizes. I remember my uncles. It was so large you could put everybody else's inside it. Cooking was done on white fueled Coleman stoves and a campfire. The smell of bacon cooking in the morning and pork chops at supper was a rememberance too in itself. Shortly after I was camping with the Boy Scouts . "Oh the good ol days"

[Randy_K]

I remember camping when I was around 5. I remember the smell of the old canvas tent. My Mom has tons of old photos of those years. The one cool one is when my parents were camping with friends. I am standing beside a crib with a cute baby girl in it. That girl is now my wife. I don't lie when I say I have known my wife as long as I can remember.

Too bad more people don't remember the times they did stuff together rather than what material things they did and did not have. My parents did not have much money but we did a lot of camping on a cheap budget.

Randy

[jsmith948]

Well, this is really a great thread! In a 1952 Mercury - 4 door-black-flathead V8 with an OD 3 speed manual. We had a set of green canvas tents that Sears sold - two cabin tents and a 'kitchen tent that attached to the trunk of our car. Coleman white gas stove. I remember the huge (to me - I was 5)steel ice chest that we carried - hardly any room inside as it was all insulation and the galvanized, insulated water cooler. We traveled for two weeks that summer along the Skyline Drive in the Smokey Mountains.and on into the Carolinas. Camped on Mt. Piedmont during the worst thunder and lightening storm I can ever remember. Good times

[davidjsimons]

I was about 6 years old. We went camping in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. My father had a Dodge D-100 with a truck camper mounted in the back. I saw my first real bear on that trip and caught a rainbow trout on just a stick with some line and a hook and a piece of corn.


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[chris199]

I was in my early 20's. My wife and I had been married for about 5 years. She suggested we try camping. Our daughter was 4 years old. Our son was 2 years old. We camped at Pennsylvania Power and Light campground in Lancaster Pennsylvania in an overflow area. Well it rain cats and dogs. We were in my father in law's old canvas tent that I'd spent hours and hours sealing prior to our trip. Needless to say water was coming in from the bottom, in from the of sides and dripping from the top. We had trash bags of clothes on the floor. It was dark and wet.

I can still hear my daughter asking me "Daddy, do you know what I want to do? I just want to go home Daddy. I just want to go home." We left the tent there and headed off to find a motel for the night...got a new tent and tried again.

Our daughter is now 32 and still camps with us a lot.....so no permanent damage done..lol.

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[chris199]

Sorry...tried to edit my post and generated a new post by mistake. Couldn't delete the bad post.



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[Cougarfamily]

My earliest memory involves blood and crying. When I was a youngster in the early '70's, my parents had rented a camper on the lake in Kansas that would go on to be our favorite place to spend summer weekends. For some reason, I was climbing the stairs quickly, and I tripped. I did a face plant on the sharp edged metal door frame. Did the trick pretty well of cutting my forehead and chin.

Needless to say, it had no effect on the lifelong bug I have had for camping. I am trying to instill that in my young one as well.

[richf28]

I also remember the last time I camped in a tent. Married with three sons and we were camping at Darien Lake park on a Father's Day weekend. It rained so hard that Saturday night! I remember our one son waking up and saying in the dark. "I'm getting wet". Sure enough. Water was going through the tent like a river. Spent the rest of the night putting things up high and curling up in the truck for some sleep. That week the tent was sold and a new popup camper was bought.

[byrdr1]

Nice thread.
My dad was career US Army so we had a tent, a Coleman stove and a lantern. We lived in SC, GA, NC and FLA most of my dad's career. So the Smokey Mountains were my dad's favorite place to go camp along with few of the Corp lakes. BUT my earliest camping trip that I still remember was Cherokee, NC camping beside a creek. MY dad had an olé' B&W TV hooked up so we could watch man walk on the moon. He brought it just for that reason, he said this was something we did not need to miss. So we watched the B&W fuzzy TV as we heard Neil Armstrong say those words, "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
Thats my earliest memory of a camping trip, We camped like that for years. At Lakes, public and private campgrounds, in tents, several older popups the kind that folded out the metal tops and it had a popup style tent. A slide truck camper box for an Datsun pickup pulling a 15' boat. Dad bought that shell, he and mom outfitted it to camp. She sewed the cushions and dad made all the furniture to use it right. We had that when he retired and then back to a tent they went with cots and air mattress.
So thats where my love camping came from, but it took me a while to get my wife to camp many years really but the last going on 12 years we have moved from tent to popup, popup to used TT, used TT to new TT, TT to our 5th wheel we have now. MY kids have been camping with us since that time. My oldest and her husband have a brand new 5er with their son camping with them. My youngest has gone to college in the mountains of NC because she loves them from our camping there. My son regularly camps with friends of his in a tent ...plus his time in the military.
AHH the memories...
Thanks guys and gals,
randy

[Carmen D]

1969 we lived at Whidbey Island, WA. My father was in the Navy and during the summer a few Navy families would get together and camp out on some of the islands. The parents had 4 boats loaded with supplies and after the long haul out to the closest island it started to rain, all the tents were still erected and we still had a campfire with hot dogs. There was no way the parents were going to let a little rain, rain on our parade. In our family there were 4 kids, everyone of us still love to camp out. None of us own a boat but love the luxury of a Travel Trailer. What an adventure!

Thanks for making me think back to great adventures, Carmen

[suza]

Seems a lot of Forum members have memories of the infamous "green canvas tent", myself included My first camping recollection was, at the age of 5, going to Big Basin State Park in the redwoods near Santa Cruz, CA. I slept on the ground, in the musty smelling, canvas tent, on a blue and white blow up plastic swim raft. I remember the Colman lantern, cooking on a camp stove, feeding the deer and the aroma of redwoods on a warm summer day. The smell of redwoods is now engrained in my brain, as we eventually moved to Felton, nearby, where I spent the next 12 summers.

Camping just isn't what it used to be. But, then, neither is anything else

[Andymon]

I was maybe 5 years old. We loaded up the 56 Buick with the tent and everything else. Left about 4 in the morning and drove nonstop to Medicine Bow National Forest in southeast Wyoming. It was beautiful. We went there every year. When I was 6 I feel in the creek and thought I was a goner. One year it snowed during the night. the ranger came by in the morning and had my mom and I go up to his trailer and make breakfast while he and my dad got everything together. We had to make a big detour north as the pass was closed.
Went via Thermopolis and then on to hell's Half Acre. It was a great trip! I remember once hiding a can of soda in the creek beneath some rocks hoping it would be there the next year...it wasn't.

[Randy_K]

I'm just sitting outside watching the rain and having my coffee while thoroughly enjoying this thread. THANKS!

How about a few old old photos of camping as a kid, there has to some photos of the old canvas tents around.

[Randy_K]

I'm not sitting outside watching the rain and having my coffee while thoroughly enjoying this thread tents THANKS!

How about a few old old photos of camping as a kid, there has to some photos of the old canvas tents around.

[geo]

My parents never camped. I started camping while in high school in a $6 pup tent from OTASCO (Oklahoma Tire and Supply Co.) with a surplus wood cot. From there moved to the "student" camping while majoring in geophysics in college - anything from rolling out the sleeping bag next to the road to rickety old wood cabins outside of Canon City, CO.

The "real" camping experience I should tell is about my DW's first camping experience! She had never camped before in her life. And it was time to do research for my Masters. We headed off to Chaco Canyon National Monument in late May 1974 in an Opel Stationwagon pulling an old used pop-top which held a Cushman SuperEagle, a 9x12 tent, and a 10x10 awning. We camped in the Chaco campgrounds for a few days shy of 8 weeks - 60 miles from the nearest ANYTHING. Drinking water - we either begged off the reverse osmosis unit from the NPS or hauled 60 miles from Farmington. At least we were camped next to the flush toilets! But no showers. Oh, did I mention we had our 2 year old daughter with us? DW and DD kept themselves entertained by visiting with the NPS residents and helping. One week, DW and DD went into Farmington at least once a day, Crownpoint several days, and didn't drive the Opel a single mile! High temps in the 105+ range and lows in the 60s. This time period was the last big "dig" at Chaco, so there was a lot of activity and plenty of archaeologists (and stories) around! (Note: never ask an archaeologist to dig a barbeque pit!)

We still laugh and recall the good times we had! A far cry from the fiver we now call home!

Here's a picture of the campsite. The signs were "rescued" from the burn pile. Twice a week, NPS would hold an evening talk at Casa Rinconada and have a fire. They used primarily the old signs and dead juniper wood.

And can you believe it, though she still shakes her head and says she had no idea what she was getting into, we are still quite happily married after 42, almost 43, years!

Ron

[ctpd814]

Great stories. I find it amazing that many of us started in a similar fashion even though some started in the 50s and some many years later. Thanks for sharing. I know there are photos of our first trip but finding them is another story (still trying).

[suza]

Originally Posted by Randy_K

I'm not sitting outside watching the rain and having my coffee while thoroughly enjoying this thread tents THANKS!

How about a few old old photos of camping as a kid, there has to some photos of the old canvas tents around.

I know I have some pics of me camping at Big Basin. I might have one of the canvas tent.

[LM3929]

My earliest memory is travelling in a 49 ford 2 door Coupe that was pulling a homemade 18? foot travel trailer and staying in Larrabee State park in WA

LM