Camping nowadays seems like it would be a whole lot easier than it was 30 some years ago. I mean there are the tents that have rooms and closets and they set up in a few minutes. There are the portable camp kitchens and I don’t want to forget to mention the wonderful sleeping gear from the right temperature sleeping bag to any kind of mat or mattress your heart desires. You can even take a portable potty or shower with you if you want.
Now I haven’t been camping for a long time. The sleep on the ground inside a tent kind of camping is what I’m talking about. At my age I like to sleep in a bed (preferably my own) and take a hot shower. But I always did enjoy the experiences we had when we’d pack up and spend time in a tent.
When our children were very small we bought a canvas tent. Canvas tents can still be purchased but they are a bit pricier and they are not as easily erected. Ours was 8′ x10′ with a window in the back and a zipper on the doorway. The first time we used our tent it had to be conditioned for rain. That meant setting it up in the yard before we ever actually went camping and running water on it from the hose. Set up was not too complicated as long as you could read. It was not as easy as we had thought but we were so excited about our future as campers.
Every year the company my husband worked for would shut down for a week during the July 4th holiday. We didn’t have a lot of money so we decided we could go on inexpensive vacations with our new tent. We would attend the annual family picnic on the 4th of July and then pack up for the week.
Our children were both under the age of three. So we packed all kinds of things besides the necessities for staying a week at a state park. We also had a large German Shepard that was part of the excursion. The place we camped was called Twin Lakes. The lake was fed by natural springs and so the water temperature was never much above 55 degrees. It was a very lovely spot to spend a week.
Our days were spent with early breakfast at the picnic table followed by camp clean-up and then a trip to the lake for some fun in the sand if not the water. Next came lunch and a nap followed by swimming, playing, with maybe a walk around the lake. It was a wonderful adventure for our children and despite the work of camping it was relaxing.
The evenings meant showers that were provided by the campground. Now just as the lake was fed by cold springs, the water for the showers was too. The showers and bathrooms were a good distance from our campsite so my husband would take our son, I would take our daughter and we would get them showered.
The bathroom/shower building was partitioned by a wall that did not go all the way to the ceiling. That meant that there was no privacy as far as sound was concerned. So when the water at 55 degrees hit our children’s little bodies what followed were simultaneous, ear shattering screams- on both sides of the building. It was embarrassing and funny at the same time. Every evening about 7:00 we would walk to the showers and about 5 minutes later the screaming would begin. (I guess if it were to happen now we would be investigated for child abuse.) When we were finished we would quietly walk back to our campsite hoping no one had noticed the caterwauling. It happened every evening for 6 days.
What is interesting was the fact that the kids never complained about the showers. They never fought going even though they knew it would be cold. I guess one explanation is they loved every other aspect of camping enough to endure some cold water on them for a few minutes.
We continued to do the lake camping trip until our 3rd child came along and other things took precedence. When we moved away from our home town we did camp again numerous times. We actually camped while we traveled across the country for 5 weeks. Today both of our sons enjoy camping. I guess the experiences as kid campers worked out okay.