Posted on 06/16/2005 6:26:24 PM PDT by Gabz
Good evening ladies and gentlemen!!!!!
Camping seems to be a huge favorite pass time with many of the member of our little group and I would like to give the afficiandos of it a chance to expund upon its merrit (and drawbacks)
Have at it folks - please do your dangedest to convince those of us with no interest why we should give up things like hot/cold running water, indoor plumbing, and electricity for a weekend or a week or longer without any or all of them.
What kind of camping?
Ladies and gentlemen, again, my apoligies for the Thursday night Ping!
I may be missing some people because it seems I don't have the most updated lists - if anyone knows of anyone I'm missing - please FReepmail me and I will take care of it when I get back from Dover.
Any and all!
What's your threshold for pain and discomfort?
...and what's your camping experience to date?
I don't do camping.
The very first time my husband and I went on vacation together, several years before we got married, I was cool that there was no electric, all the lighting was hurricane lamps.....I was cool that we were going to live out of a cooler for food, but I could cook because the stove was propane and I could even live with having to heat water on the stove because the only water was going to be cold.
I was able to handle all these thing, and it was his family cabin, up in the mountains of New Hampshire and he hadn't been there since before his dad had died - I'm a good trroper, I really am. We were there 4 days and we got a motel room so I could get a shower - because the shower at the cabin was also outside and was supplied by that same mountain river water as was inside.
I drew the line at the outhouse being more than 50 feet from the door - at the end of October? To me running water means indoor plumbing.
I don't do camping.
Then, why should I convince you otherwise? Sounds like your mind's made up.
ROFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!
We did a Labor Day weekend party at friends' house last year - and did the requisite tent, air mattress, etc. Now that I've been working in the garden and have gotten a bunch of sun, the scars on my leg from the one night I spent in the tent are obvious - I got up needing to relieve myself of beer and tripped over the rope holding up the tent and landed in a pile of pine cones........
I don't do camping.........this Labor day weekend I will either sleep on their couch or drive the 30 miles home and sleep in my own bed and let daddy and daughter enjoy themselves camping out.
After a few beers, I ended up sleeping with my head outside of the tent. It rained all night, and I woke up with my head mashed into the turnip field we'd camped in.
I had to queue for two hours to use a communal shower block in the campsite, where the chemical toilets met you a 100 yards before you got to them.
It was at this precise point that I realised my rock 'n' roll days were over.
Oh! I've been to music festivals since - but I've always stayed in a B&B.
I loved being outside camping, swimming and fishing with friends. The laughter was endless. There would be about ten to twelve of us.
In August of 1999 it was about 100 degrees and the hottest trip ever! That night tornadoes ripped through an area north of us. The rain was some of the heaviest I've seen. It poured for hours. Everything was soaked and the humidity just kept growing (if felt like 120 degrees). We didn't let it bring us down though. We just stayed up late around a water filled fire pit and played "The movie lines game" until early morning.
Despite all the rain, that night was so much fun.
Enjoying camping is all about intent, preparation to meet it and having a positive mental attitude to overcome the factors that may have a negative effect on your experience. You need to know what you intend to get out of it, be prepared for contingencies and having a PMA to get past the inevitable things that go wrong. If you aren't willing to do that, then don't go or count on being miserable if you do.
LOL! That happened to me MORE than once. In daylight too.
Also, there was always that one pesky tree stump that protruded through the earth that I always seemed to trip on or stub my toe on.
It always seemed more funny when it happened to someone else though.
Those are great pictures. Thanks for sharing them :)
I camped from March to October one year in two tents ("kitchen" and "bedroom") with an 8 month old while my husband built a small two room home in British Columbia. We hauled water from the creek and cooked over a campfire until we had the luxury of a handpump in the kitchen of the home and a wood cookstove and Ashley heater. Can you say "pioneering"?
What were your best memories, what were your worst and how do they measure against each other?
I'm prone to getting mosquito bites. But I just don't get a bite - every bite I get seems to erupt into a boil, and becomes infected.
(I've just returned home to Ireland - where we don't have mozzies - from two weeks in Greece, with 50 mosquito bites which I had to have treated by twice daily showers with antiseptic wash; cream and a course of antibiotics).
Is there an injection a person can get to ward off mosquitoes, if a person decided to do a US camping adventure?
I REALLY like your idea of latter day camping! :-)
If you have a "cold camp" it can be tough, still with some
modern multi-fuel stoves it can be fairly comfortable with
hot chow and even hot water to wash. The addition of a sleeping pad and down bag can make it fairly comfy.
Moving up, you can then go one better with pack horses or jeep/truck and set up an outfitters wall tent, now you are talking style and comfort. These usually are heavy canvas, with a rain fly and have 4 or 5 foot sidewalls, usually with a small wood stove with vent pipe going out through a fireproof gasket in the roof.
We often camp in the dead of winter like this and it makes it all possible, one can awake in the morning, toss some pine lightered into the stove with some lamp oil, roll over in the sleeping bag, and in 15 minutes the tent is warm and toasty and you can then make bacon and eggs/coffee etc.
If you have a dutch oven you can dig a pit, build a fire in it, then place a pot roast,with potatos, carrots and onions in it, wrap it in tinfoil, take out half the coals,put the dutch oven in the pit cover with coals, then dirt, and leave the rest of the day to explore and have fun. When you get back, dig it up, take off the foil and have a feast fit for any table. Then maybe some Jamesons and a spot of cards and it time for taps, go out take a leak under the stars and it's off to dream land.
Can't be beat.
Comming up next...How to make Ash cakes!
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