Past vacations for the blog…. I am writing a blog about looking back and now I am writing on about looking back on vacations I have taken.
We have taken some nice vacations when the kids were small and growing with just the four of us.
One of our first Big time vacations was taken when Kelly was almost 2 years old and Jennifer almost 5 years old. We borrowed a pop up camper and id a tour of Tennessee and Kentucky. I did learn some things on that first trip… try not to cram too much into a trip. The plan was to go farther than we did but I soon realized that we needed so stay longer in a place instead of packing up and moving so much. It just wears everyone out and no one enjoys the trip as much. When there is a young child along… things can happen.. KDB fell off a table and cut his head which bled quite a bit but he was ok.. But I also learned going with young children can be a lot of fun… all the adults like to give little kids a lot of attention and seeing a place through their eyes is great.
When they were a little older, we did a major camping trip to the Smokey Mountains. We took two tents and a shelter. (we slept in one tent on cots and dressed in another tent.) This was a big trip because we camped there and back and stayed in tents while in the Smokey Mts. I liked tent camping, but it was tiring putting up the tent and taking it down so much. This area is really pretty and we did enjoy seeing it. We did some hiking and other such exploring. I do remember one night it really rained and rained!!! Everything was wet and no one was in a great mood when we got up in the morning. Don decided it was a good morning to go out for breakfast instead of cooking.. Breakfast was the best and got everyone back in a good mood. I think this was the last big tent camping vacation we did because we found that it made for a really tiring time. We did some other camping trips… but we would as least stay in a motel on the way there and back. Also not long after this, we bought a used pop up camper which we used many times until Kelly was in JR high and it seemed we quit going as much… we soon sold it as we didn’t want it sitting around.
I have done a lot of camping in my lifetime. The first experiences were when I was in high school and college. My family had a pretty large canvas tent that we would take to Beaver lake which is just outside Rogers. We would go and spend a week at a time, mostly just hanging out. We would go in the summers, and when I was in college working summer jobs in Rogers, I would camp out there and then go to work from the camp. I am sure at the time we did this type of vacation because it was not expensive. We did have a lot of fun hanging around the camp and swimming at the lake beach.
After Don and I got married, we got a pick up truck and put a camper shell on it. We were living in Lake Charles at the time. We went camping out of the back of the truck…(one time we even went down to the gulf of Mexico and camped on the beach.) We had us a foam pad that we would sleep on. We cooked on a coleman stove and felt we had it pretty nice. (we were up off the ground and had a shelter above us) We used the truck camper a lot for camping until we had the kids and there just wasn’t enough room for 2 adults and 2 children.
We then used tents for our camping trips with the kids. We camped at Devil’s den, in the National Forest, Petti Jean… mostly places around Arkansas. The kids enjoyed getting out and the fun of camping.. fun for them – work for me.. but I still enjoyed the getting out with the fam and enjoying nature… hiking and exploring.
We bought a used pop up camper (which I referred to earlier.) We used this camper a lot… going to Colorado and Yellowstone in this camper. We also did a lot of in state camping in this pop up. One of my favorite places was Erby campground on the Buffalo River. We would camp there with family and explore the area. We would wake up with Elk close to the camp. It was from this camp that I heard my first Elk Buggle… and interesting sound….there are many hiking trails around there and old homestead homes that are historical sites. Plus, you can not beat the buffalo river for its beauty. The last time we went to Erby, Kelly was in Jr high and Jen was about to turn 16… anyway she got to drive the road to erby from the highway. We had a good time --- I told a ghost story about someone stopping on the road and scaring the campers. In the middle of the night a car did stop on the road… I have to admit it did make me a little nervous. Kelly also got sick in the night… so it did not end so well for him.
About this time, I got to where I liked to “camp” in cabins. I could still enjoy the outdoors, hiking and canoeing, then go back to a house… many times with a hot tub! My kind of camping.
The most adventurous camping trips were on the Middle Fork of the Salmon river floats. We have done three --- one in 2002, one in 2006 and the last one in 2010. The MFS is in Idaho.. It takes two – three days to drive out there. Once there we drive to the “put in” were the primitive camping starts…. Boundry Creek…. Once we have the rafts loaded, we are on a week long trip down the river… what you carry in you carry out. Plus class 2, 3 and 4 rapids along the way. It is a fun trip… and most exciting… the area is very beautiful… and people we go with are a lot of fun…. However, that being said…. It is also the most physical trip I have ever been on. We go down the river for some miles, make camp, cook etc….. go to sleep in tents, break up camp…. And do it all over again the next day, and the next day, and the next day etc….. by the end everyone is very worn out…. But proud to have made it down “the river of no return”. One of the things we had to do on these trips was kitchen duty… that is above and beyond putting up and taking down your personal tent etc…. The food was always good… of course everyone is so tired and hungry that most anything would taste good. The first trip we slept on matts, the second time we had and army type cots… the last time we had a roll cot that was the most comfortable. The first time we went on the river it was about 3f (which at the time I thought it was a bit scary) the second time was 4 ft… an a little more scary plus we had some raft issues on this trip, the third trip was 5 ft and really scary… and it was cold.. snowy… But on all three me made it… (but I have told myself I will never go on that river trip again)
No comments:
Post a Comment