tent camping

When I was a kid we used to go camping. We had an old 9 by 9 canvas tent, and we all slept in that rather small space.

When the kids were young it was pretty intense and we didn’t go camping too much, but we did on occasion.

Now that we are just the two of us, we do quite a lot of camping. It is our low cost way to “vacation.”

On one trip, I got an inspiration.

It would be fun, I thought as well as a good challenge, to put together a tent camping system that would fit into our little car, and yet provide comfortable camping. The gear would have to be carefully chosen, not just for size, but for cost, since our budget is always tight.

It also had to be comfortable if the weather turned cool or rainy.

It turned out that we spent more than one dry and cozy night sleeping through a mountain rain storm. And sometimes we sit in the light of our lantern, Miriam reading a book and me typing on my MacBook!

So we have a fairly large tent, a porta potty, comfortable sleeping and seating, enough cooking gear to eat well, and it all had to fit in that little car.

It has worked out very well. A few years ago I built a small teardrop trailer, which is over the top in comfort, but it is a bit more spendy to take on longer trips. So often we take the tent gear and luxuriate over the 30 miles per gallon.

Camping season is here, except that the weather is cool or even cold. Soon, it will be warm to hot and camping will be where we will go often.

our "creek"

This stream runs down the center of our place here in Idaho. Technically it is a drain ditch, catching the run off from the near by fields, but it runs year around, and is quite a nice addition to our landscape.

home again

We’ve been visiting daughters for the last week.

With fuel costs high, we go visit less often and stay longer when we do. That is fine.

Our daughters are good women and we are very proud of them, and their families, but none live in anything close to luxury (at least by American standards). When we visit two daughters we sleep on the hide a bed in the living room. In one house we take up most of the living room.

One daughter’s house is so small there just isn’t any place for us to sleep, so we bring our tiny trailer, or sleep in a neighbor’s spare room.

In the youngest daughters we sleep on the couch or in granddaughter’s bedroom, while she sleeps on the couch.

None of this is said as a complaint, it is just the way it is. Being with our daughters, sons-in-law and grand children far outweighs any inconvenience.

Still, when the time for visiting is over, it is good to go home, you know the place where you go when you can’t go anywhere else! The house was cold, but the gold fish was alive, and it was really good to be home again.

On the way home we drove through a snow storm, just for fun.

It will be a two week stay at home this time. Not very long.

In two weeks we drive 400 miles to spend the weekend “hanging” with granddaughter Emily, while her mom goes to visit her sister (another of our daughters) for her birthday weekend. In the middle of the week we will go camping with a very dear friend for a few days and then back to SE Washington/NE Oregon for the high school graduation of our 3rd grandson, Alan.

But that is then. Today it is cool, though warmer than the last few days, and the sun is shining. It should be a good day for a breakfast of hot cereal (maybe whole wheat pancakes instead -- hmm) and a good workout in the “back 40.”

Today is may day. We have largely forgotten what that was once all about. Hmm.

It was good to sit and talk with Bri and Amy, Matt and Jessica, Alan and Andrew and Ben. I hugged them all, they are good kids and we love them very much.