Camping

[TwoShadows]

 Spent some time, this past week, with my youngest son and it involved camping and fishing. It was very rewarding to spend some time with NO electricity, radio, TV or telephone. We were camped on Clifty Creek, which runs through the property of one of my relatives, hidden away from the world on a levee under some trees. It was a thrill to see the little guy see and hear things which were new to him and know they would stick with him the rest of his life.
 I found lying in a tent listening to the cry of the Great Horned Owl once again a great blessing as the music of the water rushing by us played a chorus all night long. We were visited by a Screech Owl, racoons and deer during our two nights in the wilderness (so to speak). Surrounded by lightening bugs (fireflies) and the stars above I found the simpler way of life which I grew up with much more rewarding than this age of modern toys and technology. The little guy sought out constellations in the sky and marveled at all the things he had been missing at night. We caught Red Ear, Small Mouth Bass and Blue Gill on the creek but nothing could match the hybrid Blue Gill at grandpa's pond. Don't see many Blue Gill at 10 inches long and well over a pound. We managed to catch 20 in two hours and only tossed two back. What a camp meal that made for three fathers and their young sons. (6, 7 and 8 years old) I can only hope these few days of fishing and camping remain embedded in these young men so the real beauty of the world can be passed on to the next generation in our families.

[Goose]

Ah, camping....I remember it well. We were a camping family with a 10' x 18' tent, NOT like some "campers" that pull into a space with their 30' long motorhome, hook up with electicity, then turn on their T V and air conditioning, then exclaim, "Yep, this is the life, out in the wild, away from everything, etc."

We tent camped for close to 20 yrs, lining up the 8 kids like R R ties in the tent and then trying to find a little area for the wife & I to sleep. We sort of cheated though....we did use a Coleman stove and lantern on our trips.

While camping, we had the usual campfire, cuts, bee stings, car breaking down numerous times, and as one daughter once said, "I don't remember a camping trip that we didn't end up on the end of a tow truck."......a slight exageration I think. And once, we brought our 1 month newly born along camping...she survived. Anyhow, I'm glad your group had a great time....keep it up.

[CoinCrusader42]

Both posts caught my attention, due to our situations.

As I write this, our younest son Mitch (MitBurke) and his nine year old son Christiaan are in Rocky Mountain National Park on a two-day hiking and camping trip.  Just a week prior to that, Mitch concluded an outdoors class with a hike which covered 2,000 feet elevation at the end.  Tough, but a beautiful view.

Our Delta grandkids will be leaving for Florida soon to visit their father, and during that six month period Pat and I plan to "rough it" in our 30-foot travel trailer -- probably at Ridgeway and Ouray.  At the foot of the San Juans, which are beautiful mountains.

We camped a lot more when the kids were young.  I have many fond memories, such as good trout fishing, and dangling our year-old daughter's toes in a stream on Kebler Pass.

Many of my friends camp.  Probably the most adventurous is Earle, a former fellow teacher, as well as my principal.  Earle takes his horse and mule and disappears for two weeks at a time far up in the mountsins.  Often alone, but with a friend at times.  A touch dangerours to be sure.  Far from help if he has an accident.  But he says swimming in a lake with no swim suit, and listening to the sounds of the night, including a mountain lion scream, are quite an adventure.

The best things in life are free -- or almost free anyway.

I might also mention that Delta High School has a tradition (Outward Bound) of taking the top seniors at the end of the school year and giving them the experience of Climbing Mt. Uncompaghre.  The mountain is over 14,000 feel elevation.  When they returned home with stories of rock slides and lightning strikes all around them it caused a little concern.  However it was a great experience for them.

 

[TwoShadows]

It is a good thing I don't live in the Rockies as they would all be talking about the old man and the mountain! Give me shelter, a good fishing stream and a plot to grow a few veggies and a little hunting and I would have no reason to ever come down.
I will agree with your statement, "Should anything happen" as help could be FOREVER coming especially if you are doing it alone! None the less I do love the REAL things in this world!

[CoinCrusader42]

Our neighbor just returned from fishing on Island Lake atop The Grand Mesa.  He and his friends caught 25 rainbow trout, the largest being 5, 7 and 8 pounds.

Reminds me of when I was in grade school back in the 1950's.  My Dad and his brother were gone for several days on a fishing trip.  When they came back they showed the fish (rainbow and brown trout) they caught in a tub filled with ice.  Sixty fish, smallest was two pounds.

How about me.  I'm too lazy to do anything but troll from the back of a boat.  Biggest catch ever was a half-pound kokanee salmon.  I'm a much better coin collector than fisherman.

 

[AdamL]

I have an uncle who I've only met twice because he lives way up in the mountains in an isolated cabin year round. Sometimes I envy the solitude. But I wouldn't want to be that far away from civilization permanently.

[Templar]

  MY WIFE AND I TOOK OUR KIDS CAMPING FROM THE TIME THEY WERE 16MOS.---THE FRESH AIR---SUNSHINE--OCCASIONAL RAIN--ALL LEFT LASTING IMPRESSIONS ON THEM--MICHIGAN IS A BEAUTIFUL PLACE TO BE OUTDOORS YEAR ROUND--BUT THERE IS A SAYING THAT  ONCE YOU GO INTO THE UPPER PART OF MICHIGAN--YOU BECOME PART OF THE FOOD CHAIN! AND IN JULY AND AUGUST THE BLACK FLIES AND MOSQUITOES HAVE NO EQUALS--NOT EVEN ANT BITES OR BEE STINGS
                 STILL SCRATCHING--YOUR SERVANT--THE TEMPLAR

[TwoShadows]

They tell me the black flies and mosquitos are so big in northern Michigan and Canada that they actually knock before they come in!

[Nighthawk]

What? You guys didn't know the mosquitoe is the state bird in Michigan? 

[Muckeye]

Twoshadows and CC42 are stirring my blood!
I think it's time to sell the old family home and move out into the bush.
Me, Gizmo and a tent. Sounds good, anyone interested???
regards.

[CoinCrusader42]

If my country keeps spending, many of us will be living in a tent.  Problem with that is possibility of no computer hook-up.  I'd really miss my forum friends.

 

[AdamL]

If my country keeps spending, many of us will be living in a tent.  Problem with that is possibility of no computer hook-up.  I'd really miss my forum friends.

 

I agree!

[TwoShadows]

I think some of us good ole boys could do quite well without radio, TV or telephones. I find it OVERWHELMING every time I hear Verizon brag about having 80 million customers. Take that number times a hundred bucks and month and.....well who's making a profit and at what point do they finally charge what they REALLY should be charging as everything they built, installed, purchased or created has to be PAID for! I watch car after car go by the house or at a stop light and most drivers have a cell phone clued to their ear? Who in the world could you possible be talking to at all hours of the day and about what? And now the teenagers are driving and texting under the same conditions? What could be so important that it is worth risking your life or your passengers life? And, not to mention, all these folks no longer see the world around them as they star into those little screens. There truly is a dumbing of the world going on!

Well Muckeye, Gary and I will have to get our claim staked out should the time arise!! Got to start somewhere don't we?

[Triggersmob]

If my country keeps spending, many of us will be living in a tent.

Gary, it might be too late, it's already happening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD1W6Mo4gd0

Very sad times. 

[AdamL]

I think some of us good ole boys could do quite well without radio, TV or telephones. I find it OVERWHELMING every time I hear Verizon brag about having 80 million customers. Take that number times a hundred bucks and month and.....well who's making a profit and at what point do they finally charge what they REALLY should be charging as everything they built, installed, purchased or created has to be PAID for! I watch car after car go by the house or at a stop light and most drivers have a cell phone clued to their ear? Who in the world could you possible be talking to at all hours of the day and about what? And now the teenagers are driving and texting under the same conditions? What could be so important that it is worth risking your life or your passengers life? And, not to mention, all these folks no longer see the world around them as they star into those little screens. There truly is a dumbing of the world going on!

Well Muckeye, Gary and I will have to get our claim staked out should the time arise!! Got to start somewhere don't we?

LOL. I just got my first cell phone. At the age of 26! All of my freinds had them in high school. I actually never even wanted one though. I always loved being able to take a drive out into the middle of no where and not be disturbed.

[CoinCrusader42]

Just recently drove through Las Vegas, but missed the homeless section.  Very sad situation.

My cell phone is kept in my truck, and out of sight.  If someone calls then I pull over to talk.  I don't use it unless it's important, and I have stopped somewhere.

More signs of the times.

I grew up in the 1940's and 50's, and just today was thinking about those times.  Many pleasant memories.  Makes you wonder what life will be like 50 years from now.

 

[Nighthawk]

Scary isn't it? 

[Templar]

   WHAT A LEGACY WE ARE LEAVING OUR GRAND CHILDREN---IT IS A PRIVILEDGE TO BE ABLE TO GET UP NOTH TO MY CABIN AND THE ONLY NOISE IS THE BIRDS--MY CABIN IS ON A DIRT ROAD--SO IT ISN'T HEAVILY TRAVELED--AND WHERE IT IS LOCATED--A LOT OF AMISH LIVE--SO WE GET TO SEE THE MORE GENTILE WAY LIVING---KEEP THE FAITH!
                                              THE TEMPLAR!

[TwoShadows]

I have tons of faith! But, not in anything organized! Organization means LEADERS which brings on the thought of power which demands money and we all know those two breed corruption. And in the end NO ONE knows where all the money went nor how much was donated in the first place. And, through most of my life NO ONE really seems to care about anything other than that pleasant feeling of knowing they gave. Unquestioning is part of our problems world wide of which we now see the results. I prefer to find that which cannot be found on my own. No one can show you the way, no one can sell you the way. It must be done alone. Only then will your heart know it is real!

[Templar]

THERE IS ONE THING TO BELIEVE IN AND TOO GET STRENGTH FROM--GOOD LUCK
          THE TEMPLAR

[Humpybong]

Well I am still travelling around in my little motorhome.

Have been away almost 6 weeks and travelled about 9000 Kms.  Happy with my trip as I met another Knight (Sir Triggersmob) for the first time.

Will be back home middle of next week, but already planning next trip.

Hard life....but then someone has to do it!

[TwoShadows]

  Its a shame your motor home can't float! If it did you could cross the big moats we call the Atlantic and Pacific! Then you could meet a few more Knights!!!

[CoinCrusader42]

Travel is a wonderful thing.

Not to travel is to read only one chapter in a very big book.

 

[Templar]

         To
         Reach
         A
         Vast
         Enchanted
         Land
                     TRAVEL--MAY PEACE GO WITH YOU!    THE TEMPLAR!

[nuggethill]

All my holiday time over the last 57 years I have been camping,at first with my Dad and Mum then the cubs and scouts,youth groups and the army,then my fossicking and fishing with my kids also living out of caravans and campervans from Hobart to Rocky,
In the last 10 years I have progressed to on-site vans this way I don't have to pull a caravan and the money I save not pulling a caravan goes into the on-site van but then two years ago I stayed home for the first time in my life I stayed home on my holidays and not because I wanted to I had to,I had a hip replaced with a steel hip (still cant find the grease nipple) so for the first time in my very active life I vegged out,I worked on my coin collections then I worked on my stamp collections and then I vegged out.
Again last holidays I vegged out for the second year running I watched the grass grow in the back yard,did a few repairs here and there and then watch the grass grow in the front yard,how much more can a knight take so next holidays I'll bust out grab my swag and detector then I'll be ready to hit the golden triangle though I may need someone to give me a leg over the castle wall and yes I'll cross that drawbridge when I get to it. 

[Nighthawk]

THERE IS ONE THING TO BELIEVE IN AND TOO GET STRENGTH FROM--GOOD LUCK
          THE TEMPLAR

Amen Joe!!! 

[Muckeye]

Sir Nuggethill, may I recommend that the Castle wall is low and the moat is quite shallow up around Nanango in Queensland.
I'm sure Sir Humpy would recommend it as a good place to go fossicking.
You would be most welcome.
regards,

[nuggethill]

Many thank sir Muckeye it would be a pleasure to step over the threashhold of your keep though it be five full moons away before I ride out on that journey.
my humble thanks
Harry