…….. or how a 36-year old learned the joys of camping. It was the fault of the kids, but you guessed that, didn’t you?
So, it started with this big-city boy finding his way to the Northwest with his wife and raising children in a street full of them. That led to making friends with neighbors for whom getting their shoes muddy was a lifelong habit. They were going camping with their three boys in a Washington State Park.
“Why don’t you come too. The kids can play together, it will be fun” they said.
I hesitated too long.
“Yes, please can we go?” the little traitors chimed in unison.
“Well,” I started to say, but stopped. I was screwed and I knew it.
Our camping equipment comprised a book of matches at this point, so we turned to the Coleman Company for a tent, stove, lantern, sleeping bags and a supply of gas bottles. Still not confident that sleeping on the ground would be fun, as promised, we added air mattresses.
We did at least own a VW bus at the time, which could swallow the gear, children and our sense of foreboding. On the appointed Friday morning, we set off in convoy behind the neighbor’s van en route to Salmon La Sac on the eastern foothills of the Cascades above Cle Elum. There we were joined by a million mosquitos, give or take. They would not make their presence fully known until dusk, when I had finally figured out the multi-part poles and the proper sequence for assembling our tent. Because, of course, instructions were for sissies. The prospect of starting over ruled out retreat as an option, although divorce was still on the table, I was informed.
Of course, the kids did have fun, as we allowed them freedom to explore and get dirty while we de-stressed to the sound of the rushing river and the smell of fresh air. But, by Sunday lunchtime, we were ready for a hot shower, broke camp and returned to civilization.
So started a regular summer schedule of mountains, lakes, beaches, high desert and old-growth forests. The Washington State Parks never let us down although the weather often did. Along the way, we abandoned the adult’s air mattresses in favor of cots, assembled a plumbing masterpiece to feed the gas stove and a gas hibachi from a five-gallon propane tank and added fishing poles, an inflatable boat and plastic containers of sundry stuff. Plus, tarps. Lots of tarps.
Thirty years on, we still share the stories of those trips with our camping partners. The mistake of camping at Deception Pass on a Memorial Day weekend and suffering through gale force winds and horizontal rain. We never camped earlier than the middle of June after that. Nearly stepping on a rattlesnake was a lesson to stay on the trails at Alta Lake. We learned that leaving harvested clams in a bucket of water overnight, to flush the sand out of their siphons, would amuse the ladies to no end in the morning.
Nature was never far away. The crows that would create such a racket at 5am or the pairs of eyes reflecting back when a flashlight was pointed at the trees near the tent. But we never encountered a large animal or any danger. While camping at Lake Wenatchee and in pitch darkness on the trail to the outhouse, we had occasion to look up at the starriest sky we had ever seen. It was breathtaking. It took a trip to the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii many years later to beat it.
We visited many parks, but we had our favorites; Kopachuk on Henderson Bay and Bowman Bay across from Deception Pass. We even had our favorite campsites at these two and would leave early enough to be sure of securing them. With experience came the knowledge of where to find the facilities with hot showers and the best places to create a blue-tarp city for the inevitable wet weekends. We discovered that if you played Trivial Pursuit in the dim light of a gas lantern, it presented an opportunity for our wives to substitute the junior level card set for the questions posed to them. We would find ourselves laughing hard and often.
It was an escape from busy lives, when the demands of a new business made extended vacations difficult. The children loved the relaxed parental rules and got along really well with each other. We were grateful to our Washington native friends for their wide knowledge of the State Parks and the opportunity to get to know our surroundings better. We knew that we would never now leave the area willingly.
The children have lasting memories too. None apparently more vivid to our daughter than when she was suckered into believing that she would be arrested by the Park Ranger if she and her brother didn’t settle down in the tent and go to sleep. Some grievances go deep it seems. We can look at an iconic photograph of the five of them in a circle on a beach digging a hole, one of them happily ignoring the advice to not get sand into the plaster cast on a broken leg. But now we see the doctor, engineer, state trooper, college administrator and forester. Married, with their own children and the inspiration to take them camping.
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