My Early Years Camping

I am 48 years old now, with a husband and five children. Three of the children are still at home. We have spent many of our weekends and all of our vacations camping with our children. We travel in comfort in our 32 foot 5th wheel trailer.

My camping adventures started many years earlier, as a very young child. My memories of the early years are fragmented, although I have seen the photographs that my parents took on our trips across the great Midwest, from our home in Iowa, out to the wilds of Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Utah.

In the early years, my parents loaded my older brother and sister, and me, into the backseat of their Rambler station wagon. For three days, the three of us would fight as we drive across Iowa, Nebraska, through Colorado, and into Utah, in a station wagon with no air-conditioning. Having a seat next to one of the 2 doors in the backseat was considered premium real estate, worth fighting for. And fight, we did. For days on end, we fought, until my father would turn around and look at us over the seat, and shout "Do you want me to stop this car and come back there and give you all something to cry about?" I am much wiser, now that I have passed my fortieth birthday, but I still wonder what answer he was actually looking for. What would have happened if one of had actually responded with a courageous "Yes" to his question.

In these early trips out west, my parents fed us pork and beans, right out of the can, everyday for lunch, and often for dinner. "This is Rocky Mountain Steak," they would tell us. Even then I was certain that those beans had nothing to do with steak. When we complained about the beans, we were given a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, usually on old smashed bread. It was survival.