I love to camp.
By camping, I mean real camping, not ‘camping in a can’, sleeping in an aluminum box surrounded with the comforts of home and smothered by the hundreds of others ‘roughing it’ just a few scant steps in every direction.
My idea of camping is in a tent or sleeping on the ground under the stars.
My first memory of camping is one of spending a spring weekend on the shores of Lake Cumberland’s Lilly Creek with Dad, PopPop, Uncle Herman and Teddy.
They camped there many years in tents, cooking on open fires and eating their meals while perched atop stumps and red Coleman coolers. I can still hear the looping trill of the whippoorwill and the hooting of the barred owl as if I was still curled up in my sleeping bag in the big musty canvas tent.
Years ago I was a backpacker. I traveled many miles and spent countless nights in my old Eureka tent and cooked many a one-pot gourmet meal on my Svea brass stove.
Some of my most memorable trips were a few that I soloed. My excursions all alone to Dolly Sods, Cranberry Glades and the Red River Gorge allowed me to experience nature without any interruptions from the outside. I could sit for hours and just observe the clouds, rushing streams, squirrels, rocks, wildflowers and the subtle beauty of a laurel thicket.
I can still taste the tartness of the rusty apples I gathered from an ancient homestead on a West Virginia mountain side and feel the frost on the bandana over my mouth and nose as I slumber beneath a Swift Camp Creek rock shelter in mid January when the mercury dipped to 14 degrees.
I loved to be out there, on the ground! I can only recall one time, where I sought refuge from the comfort of my tent. I was at 10, 000 feet in the Bridger Wilderness of the Wyoming Rockies peacefully asleep in base camp on Gypsum Creek. I was camping with my relatives that were hunting elk and anything “what mashes the earth”. I awoke, remembering that I was sleeping about 15’ from the ‘meat pole’ which was adorned with elk and antelope dripping blood onto the dusty ground. One thought shot through my mind…Grizzly!!!
My idea of camping is in a tent or sleeping on the ground under the stars.
My first memory of camping is one of spending a spring weekend on the shores of Lake Cumberland’s Lilly Creek with Dad, PopPop, Uncle Herman and Teddy.
They camped there many years in tents, cooking on open fires and eating their meals while perched atop stumps and red Coleman coolers. I can still hear the looping trill of the whippoorwill and the hooting of the barred owl as if I was still curled up in my sleeping bag in the big musty canvas tent.
Years ago I was a backpacker. I traveled many miles and spent countless nights in my old Eureka tent and cooked many a one-pot gourmet meal on my Svea brass stove.
Some of my most memorable trips were a few that I soloed. My excursions all alone to Dolly Sods, Cranberry Glades and the Red River Gorge allowed me to experience nature without any interruptions from the outside. I could sit for hours and just observe the clouds, rushing streams, squirrels, rocks, wildflowers and the subtle beauty of a laurel thicket.
I can still taste the tartness of the rusty apples I gathered from an ancient homestead on a West Virginia mountain side and feel the frost on the bandana over my mouth and nose as I slumber beneath a Swift Camp Creek rock shelter in mid January when the mercury dipped to 14 degrees.
I loved to be out there, on the ground! I can only recall one time, where I sought refuge from the comfort of my tent. I was at 10, 000 feet in the Bridger Wilderness of the Wyoming Rockies peacefully asleep in base camp on Gypsum Creek. I was camping with my relatives that were hunting elk and anything “what mashes the earth”. I awoke, remembering that I was sleeping about 15’ from the ‘meat pole’ which was adorned with elk and antelope dripping blood onto the dusty ground. One thought shot through my mind…Grizzly!!!
It was then that I gathered up my belongings and crept into the confines of an old Airstream and locked the door.
Sharla and I did the ‘pop-up’ thing years ago, and enjoyed many nights away from home. We often spent nights in empty campgrounds as we traveled off the beaten path and it felt good to get away and enjoy the silence.
My gear still hangs in the utility room. Twenty plus years of hibernation, but it is all readily accessible and able to be called to active duty at a moments notice.
Hopefully it is ready to be called up soon as I have a camping companion now in Carson.
I got to relive that old passion last Friday night as he held me to an earlier promise to ‘camp’ with him. We got out the sleeping bags and mats, stretched a blanket across the back of the wingback chair and secured the other end to an antique travel trunk and stretched out beneath the ‘tent’. We camped in the living room floor with our heads beneath the picture window. We peered at stars through the naked branches of the big poplar just across the driveway and watched the room glow bright as the headlights of the few passing cars snaked around the curve across the creek.
He drifted off to sleep and awoke about 5am with a “Daddy?’ Thank you for taking me camping.
I know…5am. Then he went back to sleep.
He told everyone last weekend that he went camping and slept till the sun came up!
I thoroughly enjoyed that night as much as any night ever spent outside, even if my 45 year old bones creaked and my neck was stiff for 2 days.
I’m looking forward to our first trip this year as a family, curled up in our sleeping bags in the big tent. It can’t come soon enough.
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