Camping Reflections by Jonathan Quist

Jonathan Quist lives in the Chicago suburbs with his wife of twenty-three years in an increasingly empty nest.  While the 1.7 kids have moved out, he still has the dogs and the minivan, and would consider a picket fence in partial trade for a slightly-used pop-up camper.

He is currently returning from an employer-imposed hiatus, and expects to use his new-found household silence to resume several writing projects in progress.

Camping Reflections 

by Jonathan Quist

A couple weekends back, my wife and I took a short camping trip. Just a little getaway in our pop-up camper. But a big deal, all the same.  This was the first family vacation in twenty years that did not include the kids, who are both off at college.

That’s a major milestone, and led me to reflect on family vacations past.

As a kid, camping was just what we did, for two weeks every summer.

My earliest camping memories are of Chippewa Park, just outside Fort William (now Thunder Bay), Ontario in the early 1960’s. My dad and two brothers slept in a tent, and I slept in the car with Mom. My grandfather originally purchased the tent as war surplus around 1930.  Yeah, surplus of The World War.

The car was a 1958 Rambler. Those who attended high school in the sixties may remember the Rambler for one of its unique features, a fully-reclining bench seat, which folded flat to the level of the back seat. That’s right, the make-out seat. To me it was just my bedroom away from home and I assumed all cars worked that way. Mom had devised a sophisticated system to pin up mosquito netting inside the windows, which were left open a few inches for fresh air. And we’d lay there telling each other stories until we fell asleep to the accompaniment of Dad’s muffled snores in the tent outside.

But I longed to sleep in that tent with the big boys. And by my 5th birthday, I was promised that 1965 was the year. I got this instead:

We were no longer sleeping on the ground – we were sleeping in beds!  In a spacious room with a nice breeze! Because it had window screens for walls! Except for those summer rainstorms, canvas zipped, when we were sleeping in a hot, damp room that smelled of wet campers. Still, it was a retractable step up from the previous arrangement, and we did have some great vacations. So great, in fact, that it was not until I had graduated from college that I learned the truth: we camped because we had to.

And the couple of times that we drove straight through the 650 miles from Fort William to Lisle, Illinois, or the times we came home a day or two early, we weren’t dodging marginal weather, or giving ourselves an extra day to get the house in order before returning to the daily routine. The truth of the matter was, we were outrunning an empty pocketbook.

When my parents told me that, I didn’t believe them. Still don’t.

Those trips were beyond the ability of mere dollars to add or subtract.

When my wife and I decided some years back that we’d had our fill of touristy vacations, we did the only logical thing. We camped. The first year, we did the tent thing, but got one large enough to hold us, the kids and the dog all in one. The very first night out, we got the storm of the decade, including tornadoes, in a state park half a mile from a heavily-freighted railroad. (That became a pattern with us, over the course of the next eight years – we always manage to camp within earshot of an active freight line.) All night long, we listened to the wind, the rain, and the freight trains. The latter, according to my Midwestern upbringing and the National Weather service, is also what a tornado sounds like. As each train approached Karin and I held our breath until the horn blew for the grade crossing. Then we’d relax, and wait for the next one. In the morning, after two hours sleep, we dumped about fifty gallons of water out of the tent and packed up for the next leg.

A few weeks later, we bought the trailer. I suspect most first-time low to mid-range camping trailers are purchased under similar circumstances.

Did my kids like those family vacations? Funny you should ask that. On returning from our trailer’s final voyage, I found an email from my twenty-year-old daughter. She wanted to know did we still have a tent.  She’s planning a camping trip with friends next summer.
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I think it’s only fair to share some of the knowledge and skills I have gained over 50 years of camping.

Camping tips:

1) Organization is everything. If at all possible, keep your camping gear pre-packed, so no essential items are left at home.
 

2) When you find something that will be handy, buy it immediately.  You'll forget it later. Until the middle of the next trip, when the nearest store is 50 miles away, and your chemical toilet is leaking.

3) This tip is for the men. It’s kind of personal, so ladies, you may wish to skip to the next one. Guys: Get over yourself. Our wives know how to pack the car better than we do. If you can’t accept this for your own benefit, do so for the common good.
 

4) Equipment and methodology. Face it, “This is how Dad and Grandpa always did it” just doesn’t wash.  When your dad was camping, tents were made of canvas and nylon was found only in women’s stockings.  When your grandpa was camping, women’s stockings were made of canvas, and tents were reserved for commanding officers. In other words, if you’ve just invested in the latest camp technology, take a minute to read the manual.
 

5) The single most useful item you can have along camping is something a fellow camper taught me a couple years ago. Unfortunately, I didn't have the money to buy it, so I forget what it is.
 

6) This one I learned from my Dad, 40 years ago. Never use more than a single match to light your camp fire.
 

7) If you plan on having a camp fire, don’t forget your propane torch.  You’ll need it if you really think it only takes one match. Another of Dad’s lessons.

Fishing:

1) The only thing necessary to catch a fish is a bare hook and an enthusiastic child.
 

2) If the only thing you catch is a two pound walleye, you're having Dinty Moore for dinner.
 

3) If your kid catches a six ounce bluegill, you're having fresh fish.
 

4) The six ounce bluegill will taste better than the two pound walleye.
 

5) All the advanced fishing techniques you learned as a teen won't catch a single northern pike in the time it takes your kids and a can of night crawlers to catch a bucket of rock bass.
 

6) A half pound rock bass takes as much time and effort to clean as a six pound northern. Dinner’s at 9:00.

Trailering:

1) If you purchase a tow vehicle or add a hitch to an existing vehicle, next year you will upgrade the trailer to something that requires the next stronger hitch or vehicle. May as well scrape together the down payment on a Suburban.

 
2) If you replace your under-powered, 8-seat minivan with a 4-seat, V-8 powered extended cab pickup, your non-driving kids will invite two friends to go on the next trip.

3) If you decide to skip hooking up and adjusting your trailer anti-sway device to save time, and get on the road before the coming storm hits, the first fifty miles you drive will be on grooved pavement in a construction zone with barricades where the right lane used to be.

4) Most important of all, Safety First! If you are new to towing a trailer, seek advice from an expert. Desi Arnaz, for example: