Sentimental Sunday - Camping

To carry on a little with my post of last Wednesday "We Did That Too! Plus Cookies and Mosquitoes", I will be telling about the camping I did as a child with my family.

Along with some shorter trips, my parents took us on two quite lengthy camping trips when I was young.  The first was in the summer of 1969 when we travelled from our home in Rhode Island to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada.  Why Saskatoon you might ask?  My father had some meetings there for his job.  So in early July, we packed up our tent trailer, plus grammie McKiel, my father's mom, and headed out.  Grammie was going with us as far as Niagara Falls where her brother Gordon lived.  Here we are, ready to go, with Grammie already safely in the back seat. 

I don't believe that grammie had ever camped before but she was always game and with a great sense of humor and lots of stories, she kept amused for much of the trip.  Here she is, enjoying a meal at our campsite.

Two summers later, we were off to California for 6 weeks.  More meetings for my father and lots of scenery for us all.  I remember more about this trip including stops at Universal Studios, driving through the California Redwoods Forest, a stop at the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas and much more.

In front of the Grand Canyon

As with the 1969 trip, we stayed every night in our camper.  We probably ate no more than two or three meals that were not prepared by my mom, unless we were visiting friends or relatives.  In fact, one thing I remember very well is stopping at rest stops for lunch and my parents pulling out the cooler and my mom making sandwiches.

We saw many of the beautiful sights of the US.  We had lots of family time.  We had lots of laughs.  We were hot, we were cold.  We argued and played.  We got rained on, we saw snow (in July).  I think as kids it was mostly a great time.  We didn't have to worry about driving or cooking.  We were very lucky to see all that we did.  Thanks Mom and Dad.