I love camping - I have ever since my mother married my step-father, Bud. I had done all the usual tent-in-the-backyard style stuff that kids do, but had never really been camping until he married into our family. We began taking short trips to state parks, learning to canoe, chop wood, build fires, make camp, the basics. I fell in love with it. I learned to enjoy the disasters as much as the easy times - and we had plenty of disasters! My two brothers and I probably had more fun weathering storms listening to Dr. Demento, or waking up floating on our bubble-pads than we did just hiking.
We had been working up to a really major family trip - To Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. We would spend a few days in the Campground, and then head into the Interior of the park. Bud had given us stern warnings about bears and being careful; As he phrased it, "If we're a week in and you break your leg, we're a week from a doctor." That was a pretty sobering thought! In any case, that trip established a deep and abiding love for the woods in all of us - and for Algonquin in particular.
I've since made two trips back to the park - both disasters (see the stories and photos below). I'll go back again though, despite living 3,000 miles away in Tucson, AZ. I prefer to do my camping by myself; Really getting away from everyone and everything in normal life and returning to where I feel the most at home.
First Trip: To Hell and Back Again: A Human's Holiday
Second Trip: Lions & Tigers & BEARS! Oh MY!