Camping Memories

When I wrote my post yesterday about Grandma and Grandpa's RV, Merikay talked about trips with her Dad. It made me think about trips with my parents when I was little. While they traveled all over the world during the summers, they also took all of us kids on camping trips. My sister didn't care much for them, my brother was to little to care much either way, and I was the curious one.

I have a bunch of jumbled memories of camping. Having mom make pancakes on the Coleman stove while freezing in the cold morning before the sun finally warmed things up. Getting dressed in the sleeping bag because it was too darn cold to get out. Whacking my head on the top of the RV because I forgot my sister and I were sleeping in the bed over the cab. Cooking marshmallows in the campfire to make smores. Hiking trails to find animal prints. Wearing a sweatshirt with the face of Buffy from the TV show "Family Affair", remember the show anyone? Smashing my finger while making a fire ring and ending up in the ER to fix it. (Remember, I am the one who always exceeded the medical deductions for the year for my parents) Hearing my mom grumble because every mosquito within a hundred miles would zoom in to find her. They loved her and gobbled her up.

Sometimes my parents would sign my sister and I up for summer camps. My sister and I were in heaven because we fought like cats and dogs and in the camps we were separated in different groups and hardly saw each other. The only time I was jealous was when I saw that the older group got to ride horses on the beach and I didn't. The camps were fun though even at that age I thought the songs they sang every night were corny. All in all it was fun for a few years until we both got to the age that we decided we were too old to do silly stuff. By then we moved to San Clemente and had the beach down the street from our rental house. Walking a couple blocks to the beach and thrifty's drug store for 15 cent ice cream everyday beat any camp. Every morning we would scour the house, laundry, and couch for loose change so we could get ice cream. When we got our allowance we would head to the 5 and Dime Store. Yep, those were the good old days before things really changed.