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Camping and RVing

1K views 23 replies 13 participants last post by  Lisa in WA 
#1 · (Edited)
My family started out with a pop-up camper, went to a travel trailer and then a small motor home. Some of my best memories are of camping as a kid and as an adult. Much better than fancy vacations staying in hotels.
My parents fulltimed in a motorhome for three years when my dad retired but his health eventually made them give it up.
DH was a sailor when I met him but sadly I got a bit seasick out of sight of land. I introduced him to RV’s on New Years Day in 1987 and we bought a 34 foot Pace Arrow motorhome and left the Boston area to full time. We fulltimed several years with our preschool and kindergarten aged daughter later as a means to get out west. Also did a lot of backpacking and tent camping when we were younger.

When we lived in the cabin we gave up RVing. Couldn’t leave the animals and we were already in the most beautiful forests and mountains we knew of, and on the banks of a river.
Now we “glamp” instead of camping but it’s still a great way to be where you want to be. Especially if it’s in the woods.

I’ve seen Alleyooper and Oneraddad post pics of camping. I’d love to see more. Old or new.
What are your camping experiences? Any great stories? Camping in cabins counts too.
 
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#2 ·
1960, a friend and I decided we'd save up some money, buy some camping stuff, and go camping. Army/Navy store, and a couple bucks later we were ready! Where we lived, in Pender county, NC, the road ran through a swamp, and wherever there were fancy houses, some dirt had been pushed up from the surrounding area, to be sure the house was dry. Poor houses were up on posts and pilings. So, we went down in the swamp, a couple hundred yards from the house and set up our tent, and found some scraps of wood for our campfire. That evening, when it was starting to get too dark to see, we headed on down to camp out.

There were mosquitoes the size of buzzards, and as plentiful as jarflies. It was a really, really, bad 10 minutes.
 
#3 ·
Mr. Pixie and I took the kids camping in the 'dacks, we had a popup camper. They still talk about how fun it was.
 
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#8 ·
We to go in cycles...
Not many pic's from the "old days" as film and developing were a lot of money....and I didn't really know how to use a 35MM.....We did things that other people take pic's of....

When I was a kid, camped in tents, back yard....then further out by bicycle....
And BSA and 4-H camp cabins..

After being married with kids, umbrella tents....

Then several pop-ups, with kids....but added dome tents for backpacking and canoe camping...with friends...
Also added re-enactment...lone pole tent, Tipi, wall tent,....still use that now.


Along the way purchased "The Place" land on a river.....and added a 16 ft Shasta Travel trailer.
Still were camping in the pop-up with a group of friends, still primitive reenactment camping....


Had to out in for vacation time as soon after Jan 1st as possible.....most years 40 weekends a year were on the schedule.

Built the cabin....gave away the Shasta and one pop-up to DD and SIL...


Camping with the group kinda fell apart when our factory closed down....

Was without a "camper" for a few years...but found a good deal on another down the street...2 years ago.....Used just once....

Should have just found a 16' or 18" ft trailer so set up is easier.

Looked at motorhomes and big travel trailers...no room to park them.
Thought about hitting the road for an extended time.....but now too much "stuff' and health concerns.

Pop-up in the yard, rendezvous tent and gear in trailer, cabin closed down for the winter.
 
#9 ·
I don't think Kare liked to camp with me much at first. Used to load the pop up tent on my Triumph go to Port Huron and cross the Blue water Bridge into Canada. The beaches on Lake Huron were sandy in Canada and stony in Michigan. Liked Iperwash pretty good when we went up the east coast, Grand Bend was a special week end when antique bikes like mine had a big rally there.

We also would go down the St Clair rive and camp along it.
Was late one night and I had got a new pop tent as the person I had loaned my pup tent to packed it wet and the window screens rotted away letting bug in.
any way I left thre Triumph idleing for the head lite whild I threaded the poles and set the tent up.

Next morning we get up and I am packing rhe tent and a lady comes and says she has a pot of coffee asking for people to drink it. so we joined her for the coffee and she had Orange juice for Kare too. We returned a couple weeks later and took a couple pounds of coffee so he could brew for others. then we would go about once a month just to visit.

We did a 10 day cycle trip to Maine and camped, All around rthe UP of michigan and finallyh on our own piece of property there.

Like Hunter film was expencive and you never how the pictures would turn out so few if any were ever taken. A camera was just another thing to pack and find room for too.


:D Al
 
#11 ·
I remember when I started driving up into Ont. Canada to fish we would drive on hiway 17 and see all these young people with back packs hiking along the road side. Come evening and they would find a flat place across the ditch or a drive way to a farm field and set up their tents and cook their meals. Seemed that we didn't see it so much after 1975. Always wondered it it was souls avoiding the draft makeing their way around the country looking for a place to put down roots.

On our motor cycle trip to Maine late 80's we saw a lot of bicycle campers doing about the same thing in Vermont and New Hampshire.


:D Al
 
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#13 ·
As a kid we'd camp in the swamp and hunt in the winter or we'd be down there in the late spring to round up stock. It was open range until I was in high school, so spring was when you'd boat your stock away from the high water, brand your cattle and notch your hog's ears. Camp was a lean-to built out of saplings and palmetto, and cooking was open fire.

When I was in high school, I camped a lot with friends. At first, we used tents, later we built a rough, dirt-floored camp down on one of the bayous. We were in high cotton, because we had an old wood stove and weren't sleeping on the ground, anymore!

After I grew up, I knocked around different hunting camps...******* castle trailers, old mobile homes, tin shacks, even some tent camping in the Hill Country and then up near the Arctic Circle. Best was when we built a camp on the Tensas next to the TNWR, where we bowhunted every season for almost 20 years. Just eventually got too old, and we sold out.

Nowadays, I'm just an old house dog. I do miss it, especially the big woods...
 
#14 ·
I have SO many great camping memories. I grew up camping, we did it all! I've camped out of tents, popups, back of the van, travel trailers, converted enclosed trailer, motorhomes, even a hogan. So many fun things happened. Few years back I started a blog on my adventures at the time and filled out a lot of stories about my camping memories and wrote about the ones I was making. So many great, great memories I had can never touch staying in a boring motel.

As of now, we are selling our big old converted van, but I'm keeping the minivan that can easily convert to a mini hard sided tent when the bug hits me, love those stow and go's. Once we get moved and have more space I intend to find either a little pull behind camper or a small motorhome. It's funny, when I have one of these I usually hang out in them, like my girl-cave. It used to be the running joke that if you can't find me in the house, you can find me in the camper. I'm either reading, planning, watching a movie, cooking, or working on some craft.
 
#16 ·
I have SO many great camping memories. I grew up camping, we did it all! I've camped out of tents, popups, back of the van, travel trailers, converted enclosed trailer, motorhomes, even a hogan. So many fun things happened. Few years back I started a blog on my adventures at the time and filled out a lot of stories about my camping memories and wrote about the ones I was making. So many great, great memories I had can never touch staying in a boring motel.

As of now, we are selling our big old converted van, but I'm keeping the minivan that can easily convert to a mini hard sided tent when the bug hits me, love those stow and go's. Once we get moved and have more space I intend to find either a little pull behind camper or a small motorhome. It's funny, when I have one of these I usually hang out in them, like my girl-cave. It used to be the running joke that if you can't find me in the house, you can find me in the camper. I'm either reading, planning, watching a movie, cooking, or working on some craft.
I’d love to see some pictures.
I agree and my camping memories as a child are wonderful. We would go with my fathers two sisters and their families. 6 kids, 5 kids and my family’s 4 kids and my grandmother who hauled out her one pair of blue jeans for camping trips, to out endless delight.
I learned to ride a bike, swim, paddle a canoe, build a fire, etc from my older cousins. We’d all have bikes and it seemed like endless freedom.
We had a separate kids campfire where we told ghost stories and made fart noises and roasted hot dogs,marshmallows and anything else we could find. So much better than hotel vacations.
 
#17 ·
I get nostalgic every time I smell oiled canvas. I've spent many nights sleeping in old WW2 canvas wall tents during the six years that I was in Boy Scouts, including two-week long summer camps every year, several weekend camp outs every year, as well as, a winter campout each year.

At 16, me and two friends hiked the north shore of Lake Superior from Thunder Bay, Ont. to Duluth with a side trip out to Isle Royale. This took several weeks. The three of us slept in a pup tent the whole time!

I've also spent many a night camping in the BWCA. I experienced two 10-day canoe trips as a young teen. Got to visit with Dorothy Molter twice back then. When I was 20, I was a BWCA canoe guide. Cannot count the number of nights spent in a tent that summer.

Then, at 21, me and a friend hiked Gunsight Pass in Glacier National Park. This trail essentially goes from Lake St. Mary on the east side to Lake McDonald on the west side. Spent a night at a campsite where hikers where killed by a grizzly bear a few years earlier.

My first honeymoon was spent camping in Glacier, Banff, and Jasper National Parks.

When the kids came, we graduated to a Starcraft tent trailer and eventually to a Mallard Class C motorhome.
 
#18 ·
We need pictures!
I’ve always wanted to go to the Boundary Waters. My husband went as a teenager and said it’s gorgeous. I was in MN last summer and loved it. Would like to take more time to explore and go farther north than Duluth, which is a wonderful city.
We go to Glacier every summer, since we are only about 4-5 hours away. Love it.
 
#20 · (Edited)
Don't have many photos from those days. I did leave a Brownie camera at a portage on a canoe trip and lost all those photos.

Here's a photo of my Scout troop at a two-week summer camp. Guess which one I am and which one is my Dad.
Photograph People Team Snapshot Crew


Here's one of me and my friend Bob hiking the North Shore of Lake Superior when we were 16.
Photograph Snapshot Tree Stock photography Photography


Photo taken before my second 10-day BWCA canoe trip
Photograph Canoe Water transportation Boat Vehicle

This is our Scout troop's campsite in 1966
Photograph Snapshot Tree Photography Stock photography


And, here is a photo taken about 8 years ago at the Dorothy Molter museum in Ely, MN. I am holding Dorothy's visitors book with my signature from my first or second BWCA canoe trip.
 
#24 ·
Don't have many photos from those days. I did leave a Brownie camera at a portage on a canoe trip and lost all those photos.

Here's a photo of my Scout troop at a two-week summer camp. Guess which one I am and which one is my Dad.
View attachment 64229

Here's one of me and my friend Bob hiking the North Shore of Lake Superior when we were 16.
View attachment 64230

Photo taken before my second 10-day BWCA canoe trip
View attachment 64231
This is our Scout troop's campsite in 1966
View attachment 64232

And, here is a photo taken about 8 years ago at the Dorothy Molter museum in Ely, MN. I am holding Dorothy's visitors book with my signature from my first or second BWCA canoe trip. View attachment 64233
You’re going to have to say which one is you. There isn’t a beard! :)
 
#21 ·
I have gone camping in northern MN all my life. The BWCA has amazing scenery and solitude but I'm too old now for humping it over the portages.

Next best is Voyagers National Park. It's the same scenery as the BWCA but accessible by motorboat. No portages. Fill your boat with camping equipment and motor in to a secluded campsite or rent a houseboat. Don't miss the Kettle Falls Hotel.

Superior National Forest has great campsites, some are dispersed, free, sites. My favorite is a 4 site campground north of Tofte. You get a picnic table, fire ring, and an outhouse. I made a rack over the knocked down popup camper for the 14 foot lightweight boat. I have a 3hp Evinrude with a folding lower unit that matched the boat beautifully. I can troll down really slow with that rig. The lake has lots of 15 inch walleyes.

Recently, I camp all summer in my popup on my 40 acre piece of land. I haven't built an outhouse yet because of county red tape. I dig a hole. I do have a hot shower set up. This spring I will be putting up a solar panel to keep the camper battery charged up. I'm building a barn now. The cabin happens later as money permits.
 
#23 ·
I have been looking at hammock camping articles, and you tube videos. I have bought a hammock or two, single and double. Trying to figure out a nice mosquito net option on the cheap. Some of these campers go out in the winter in their hammock, but that really does not appeal to me. Nice option, can act as a chair, and much nicer on the back! Some set ups can be expensive, at least to me, but if I were younger and actually still going camping I can see spending the money on some of the extras.
I have lots of nice trees to choose from to hang mine from in the yard. Hubby looks at me as if I am nuts, but I told him will I am going to sleep out there one night when it warms up.
 
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