27Feb2025
Toothless Campers and Domesticated Bunnies
Some national park campsites have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong. -George Carlin Getting Close to Nature May Get You Closer to the Unnatural I'm telling you, the county national park campsite we reserved for this weekend outside Portland, Oregon was the absolute worst campsite we've ever seen. We got site 1
Continue Reading27Feb2025
The Tornado Warning
The sky is pitch-black. It is 11:34 AM. I am huddled in a campground bathroom stall with my three sisters, two brothers, and the family dog. My sister is eleven, and she is sobbing because she thinks we are about to die, and she wants our parents to arrive so that she can tell my mom she’s sorry for misbehaving. Camping in the North Woods of Wisconsin, USA A Scary Scenario I am honestly not a
Continue Reading26Feb2025
Haste Makes Mistakes: Prepare for Your Camping Trip
I remember the time I was on a camping trip with my daughter and son-in-law. We had planned on camping in Acadia national park in Maine, USA. We got to the campsite in the early evening and it was just starting to get dark and beginning to rain lightly. This was in mid-September and, although it was fairly warm during the day, it had gotten pretty cool in the evening. A Nice Wet Sleep We wan
Continue Reading23Feb2025
Cigarettes for Jellyfish Stings
Crystal Beach, Texas is one of the hidden outdoor camping gems of the South. With Galveston only a ferry ride away, there is plenty of space on the beach to set up a tent and campfire without having to worry about being smothered by other campers. Most of the people who come to relax in a chair and splash in the water stick to the more aesthetically pleasing sand of Galveston; those who want to fi
Continue Reading22Feb2025
5 Things to Remember When Camping
With no money to visit NYC, LA or Disneyland as a limited-means International Student, I jumped upon a college-funded service learning opportunity: camping in the heart of America . The only trouble was I had never heard of South Dakota nor the Lakota tribe amidst who I was supposed to camp for the next six weeks. 5 Things I Learned to Remember When Camping: Do pick an unconventional settin
Continue Reading20Feb2025
Making the Camp Toilet
My dad taught me to camp before I was potty trained. My family went to pristine forest camps in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the forties. We walked to springs for our water and cooked fresh trout and hash browns with onions on a cast iron griddle over the campfire. My dad’s two rules of camping were to "respect Mother Nature" and "always leave the campsite cleaner than we found it". He w
Continue Reading18Feb2025
Prepare When Hiking for the Unexpected
Several years ago, some friends and I went hiking for the day in the local mountains. There was 5 of us, and our plan was to park one car at the bottom of the mountain, and the other at the top, that way we could start our hike at the top, and have an all downhill hike to the other car, down the canyon about 3 thousand feet in elevation change. This was supposed to be a day hike, as we had plann
Continue Reading16Feb2025
Camper/RV Inspections
I have always loved camping and when I retired, I bought a new pull type camper and a large truck. My wife and I started out on our camping voyage and were happy as a lark. We were going out west because we live in Tennessee and were looking forward to another beautiful place. We put everything in the camper that we thought we would need for the trip. We were planning on staying about 3 weeks on
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