Growing up in Green Country aka Northeast Oklahoma, we camped as a family throughout my entire childhood in the 1970s. There were several of my Dad’s hunting buddies’ families that were our regular posse – all complete with kids around our ages. I loved those times and have plenty of fond memories.
We started tent camping in the big ole’ green monster, sleeping mats on the ground, and the dreaded port-a-potty thing in the corner. Hot and humid is all I remember of those days. Then we graduated to the pop-up, one of my favorites to this date! Ma and Pa on one side, all three kids on the other. Freezing our buns off in Colorado after days filled with the Royal Gorge and Aspen trees. My mom was white-knuckled traveling through the winding mountain roads, literally crawling down into the floorboard of the car much to the delight of the giggling kids!
After the pop-up, we had a series of Class C and Class A motorhomes which served as limousine for my cheerleading squad and my brothers’ friends over the years. What I remember most are the quick weekend trips down the road to one of our beautiful Oklahoma lakes. The campsites were first-come, first-served. So, sometimes the moms would take off early and snag a spot earlier in the day. The Dads would join us after they got off work.
Skipping rocks, ghost stories, catching fireflies, fishing, learning to water ski, boating, roasting hot dogs and marshmallows on the campfire, mosquito bites, scraped knees, talking to each other on the CB radio, loads of laughter. That’s the good stuff.
My Dad can make this awesome noise that I imagined sounded like a sabre toothed tiger. He would sneak off after dark into the woods somewhere and wait patiently to launch the audible wild animal attack–all so that the other parents had 20 seconds of entertainment watching us kids scrambling and screaming in all directions. Every. Single. Time. He also took great delight in swimming underwater and undetected for long distances so that he could grab the ankles of oblivious kids splashing around in the lake. This is the same Dad who would tell my brothers to empty the trash and wait outside in the dark to jump out and scare them. Are you seeing a theme here? However, it’s also the same Dad that gave me the camping bug, taught me much of the things I needed to know about RVing on my own, which has now allowed me to launch my RV inspection career. Who would have ever thunk it?
I am one lucky girl. What are some of your favorite childhood camping memories? Hope you will share some in the comments below!