Drat! Not enough camping.........?

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I used to just roll up a sleeping bag and a large poncho, just in case it rained and I would strike out for the woods.....I spent total time of 26 years in the Boy Scouts, as a Scout, and a Scout leader....Stories I can tell you, camping trips that were great to total wipe outs, but every camping trip was filled with memories that I still can fondly remember....Sleeping on the ground with pine needles for a cushion, to an cheap air mattress, to cots, then to the high dollar air up beds, I have progressed....It all has to do with my aging process, what I once could camp out with I can't now....

I remember one camping trip that will forever haunt me.... Our Scout Master had bought several old US Army tents, the big ones not pup tents and we camped out on some private property not more than three miles from our homes, but you had to cross this rail road trestle bridge to get there, once there it was like being a hundred miles from home in the dense forests of East Texas....Only you and the critters, a couple of old biscuit eating mules and some curious cows.......We went out to take our tenderfoot Scouts on their first Scout weekend camp out...It was in the middle of November and there was a chill in the air....We got there Friday afternoon after school, set up our tents and cooked our supper....Played some games like capture the flag etc...About 9PM everyone was tired out so we went to bed....Sometime during the night I rolled out from under the tent, out into a heavy frost, looked like it snowed over night.....By Saturday afternoon I was not feeling good, by Saturday night I was congested up so bad that I was having problems breathing....Our scout master and one of the assistants carried me home.....Sunday morning I was admitted into the Hospital for double pneumonia...I spend several days there, as a results of that my lungs were scared some and I can still get the Flu in a heart beat...But it just made me more cautious of camping out in nasty weather... I now pack for the best weather but come prepared for the worse....

But yeah I miss those days sleeping on the ground, running through the woods like a mad man and telling ghost stories around a camp fire with my buddies, and my family....So you are not alone CJ....We just adapt to our bodies needs and with fond memories of camping trips of the past, we now either camp out at Motel 6 or sleep in our little motorcycle pop-up campers like mine.....

Claude....

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Hey, Redbaron.... good on ya for being a Scout and Scoutmaster. I'll never forget mine: his name was "Buttons" and he was rail-thin and had a Packer Nelson backpack, which was state of the art in 1957! He would take us anywhere, including a trip one memorable year down the Oregon and California coast, which to us 14 year-old-innocents was as exotic as a trip to the moon! I'll never forget waking up one misty morning, havingslept alongside a coastal highway, and of staring straight up into the branches of a 200' tall Redwood Tree! At that time, it was the tallest thing I had ever seen! Never forget that!

Ol' Buttons also gave us our first winter camping experiences. He would drive us up into the Blue Mountains of Eastern Washington and Oregon, and he would find a snowfield and dig a big, 3' deep pit in it, or at least we would dig it. Buttons would spread out an army tarp on the bottom of this pit, and then we would all spread out our cheap BSA Kapok (!) sleeping bags on the canvas, and then he would spread another tarp over the whole thing...... foam pads orair matresses weren't even on the map back then! We'd build a big fire, stand around it for awhile, and then all of us would crawl into our bags and pull the top tarp over our heads...... sleep away till morning, don't remember ever being cold! Sometimes, there would be a foot of new snow on the top tarp in the morning!

Poor old Buttons..... he was probably gayer than a church mouse, and he eventually committed suicide...... tough to be gay in the fifites in Western America!

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S Clark wrote:

You guys just need a better sleeping pad. Those 1 1/2" self inflatable ThermoRest pads from 15 years ago just don't cut it as you get a bit older. I have a 3" pad but just found a 4 inch pad here! http://www.moosineer.com/MooseMain.asp?Option=Detail&ID=Hollow+Lite+Self+Inflating+pads
The only downside is that regardless of how much pressure you put on them, they still roll up a bit on the big side-- but they sure are worth the extra space when you lay down on them at night.

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I've still got those Thermorests! And I have a couple of Big Agnes inflatable air mattresses! We also have a Coleman airbed, which is the best, but I can't figure out a good way of carrying the Coleman on the ST..........

This year, we took both the Thermorests and the Big Angeses, and they proved to be outstandingly comfortable..... almost as good as the Coleman. We'd throw the Thermorests out to self-inflate while we pitched the tent, and then we'd blow up the Agneses and throw them on the Thermorests! Kind of like a mattress and box springs! The only problem was, of course, keeping them together, but next time out I'm gonna sew up a couple of big fleece pillow cases to keep them together......

As far as packing up, the Aggies roll up small enough to go into the stuff sack with our sleeping bags, and we scrunch up the Thermorests and get them in somewhere!

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I first went camping when I was just shy of 14 years old on the West Coast of Ireland. I went with a troop of 64 boys and about four adults. Our tent was an old canvas one with cotton or canvas ties. It didn't have a ground sheet combined as with modern tents. It was separate canvas sheet and we had to lean our gear against it to keep the wind and cold out. Two of my best friends were with me in our tent.

We had a big sideless tent for cooking in, basically a tarp with poles and guy ropes. We each had to walk about a mile to carry water back from a well so we could boil up water for coffee or tea. Bacon rashers and sausages and eggs we got locally. I remember watching a guy stirring the tea with a plastic spoon and as he removed the spoon it stretched out in a thin white line, so I didn't drink any of that one. It was all great but one night in a storm our tent got picked up by the wind and impaled on a blackthorn tree. We had to move next door so there were ten of us in that tent. It had originally been a tie up one and converted with a large zip which was broken. Which I managed to fix. Just as well as the six guys in there were giving us hell complaining about the cramped space. Fixing the zip helped keep the warmth in. Ten scruffy smelly kids heated that small space up real quick!

Anyway apart from the great memories from that trip I got frog spawn or something in my ear from swimming in a freshwater river and on my 14th birthday my left eardrum burst. I still have great memories of that holiday, my first of many under canvas. I have camped in England, Ireland, France and Canada. My wife liked it initially but got spoiled when we bought our first camper and wouldn't sleep on the turf anymore after that.

Motorcycling and camping helped me see more of the world without breaking the bank, I met great people everywhere I went, whether it was a beach party in the south of France, the Dragon Rally in England in the worst piss miserable weather in any given year, a sidecar rally in Wales or a trailer park in Canada. I really loved it all.

I keep telling my kids and any others that will listen to go out and enjoy our world. It will make memories to talk about when they are too old or too sore to do it any more.