CAMPING, WHAT IS THAT ALL ABOUT?

When your child is bored and bounces baseballs off the pictures in a motel room, you know you have to find a different alternative to staying in motels or at least go back to tenting.

And so it was that the Anderson family had a yard sale and made enough money to order a tent from Montgomery Wards. The tent was 7 x 7. That was to sleep four of us, and later five of us.

We practiced setting the tent up in the east yard; learning that by marking the fiberglass rods which gave it the Quonset like shape, the children could be in charge of actually setting up the tent. The first night we placed the tent so the opening was toward the house. This is when we learned that if you lay on an incline with your head on the decline you are going to have a major head ache in the morning. And so it came to place that before the tent was pitched, an adult would lay on the ground to know which way up was. Anyone with an IQ of greater than 85 could figure that out.

Bud was just about three the first year we went. It would be one night stands from Kansas to Minnesota. Have you been to Itasca State Park known for the origin of the Mississippi River? We camped there. It was the summer of 1973. We were driving an 1965 Chrysler with a dent in the door. It sort of puffed and grunted as it moved along.

Bud and Rachel would walk across the source of the Mississippi, they would have their pictures taken by Paul Bunyan in Bemidji, and they would think petting the deer in Deer Town was lots of fun.A man at the camp ground was in a stall of a toilet wearing canvas sneakers like women wore then, Bud stated he "Didn't want that lady sitting next to him." Bud would tell his dad to slow down driving through the virgin pine of the park because it made him nervous. He would call his cousin, "Baby Anything".

It would be the summer that Grandma Ella, (with the dolls) would get her magic bag out and entertain the children. We would stop in Minneapolis and buy fabric at the Musing wear outlet for pennies on the pound to sew shirts for Bud and clothes for Rachel.

Life seemed simple: The list of what to do and what to bring that were not obvious, yet sometimes were, was not complicated:

Stop the paper.
This was done by actually calling the newspaper, now it is done on line

Stop the mail.
Catch the carrier and get a 4 x 6 card to fill out. Now? Internet

Unplug.
We unplugged everything but I don't know why.

Four sleeping bags
Five pillows. WHY?
Tent mallet
Pliers
Trouble light
Flash light
Socket set
Ice Chest
Two gallon water jug
Camp stove
Cooking pots
Silverware
Can Opener
Dish soap

It must have gone well because the next year, we were off to camp again with the wheezy Chrysler, this time with three bicycles strapped to the trunk of the car. About this time we had learned the North Shore of Minnesota had the cleanest air in the mid section of the United States. Bud would stop zonking as soon as we were passed Duluth.

We would drive to Thunder Bay in Canada and go to Fort William. Bud tired on the long walk on a asphalt path through the woods on the way to the fort. He sat down to rest, then exclaimed, "I can press my go button!" Away he flew while the rest of us walked at a nice pace. When we caught up with him, all he could say was, "What took you so long."

At the fort we would watch people dressed in period costumes work as they may have when it was a fur trading fort in 1815. Certainly one feels jettisoned back in time when the only thing they offered to eat was apple cake and apple juice. It is now offering wraps, soda, and other "new world" food. Almost a shame, don't you think?

Bud was a little small to have his own bike on this trip. Their father had bought a fender less bike at a yard sale for a few dollars and painted it blue. Although the idea was that Bud would ride in the bike seat which was attached to my bike. Rachel, of course was more than capable to ride her own. Bud rode side saddle on the power bike most of the time.

Ah, but the next year, we had a different unit for camping. Tune in for the summer of the SWAT truck.

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