When my dad decided to take the trailer out to the lake for
the weekend, it was usually a Friday morning decision. Most of the time we
didn’t make a reservation or even call ahead – we just showed up and parked in
the best of the empty spots still available.
Nowadays, there are no empty spots. The camping business is
booming and people like me are lining up to pay.
A couple of summers ago, my wife and I invested in our very
own travel trailer. Amanda is admittedly an indoorsy sort and my old tent and
Coleman stove didn’t cut it for her. She was very clear that if she was to
become a camping mom, she needed a few lavish comforts, like a furnace, a bed
and indoor plumbing.
It was only after buying the trailer that we learned of the
expert organizational skills required to plan a summer of camping. One must
know exactly when the various camping websites begin making spots available
(usually about six to eight months in advance), which means you must also
attempt to plan your work and personal life accordingly.
It seems bizarre to
start booking campsites while you’re still doing your Christmas shopping, but
this is the world we now live in.
Failure to book well in advance means you’ll likely be
camping in those depressing, treeless overflow areas for most of your getaway
weekends. Oh, and be ready to pony up, as most campsites will run you upwards
of $35 per night.
All those booking headaches aside, camping remains one of my
very favourite family pastimes. As a kid, I remember running amuck at the lake
with our little friends and cousins while the adults sipped beverages around
the campfire.
It’s good for the soul to get away from the real world for a few
days and just enjoy going for walks, roasting marshmallows, or napping in a
zero-gravity chair with the smell of barbecues and campfire smoke wafting
through the trees. I even love the pesky squirrels and gophers that lurk under
the trailer, waiting to pounce on a scrap of hotdog bun or some unattended
sunflower seeds.
For the second consecutive summer, we will be joining some
friends in a camper convoy down to northern Idaho for a week-long stay – and if
you haven’t been, I highly recommend it. For this trip, we are very fortunate
to have friends who have camping organization down to a science. They
identified a couple beautiful adjacent sites and made the bookings months ago,
for which I am very grateful.
Considering the constant threat of bad weather or equipment
malfunction, camping is not always a picnic, but a great many of my most joyful
childhood memories are from summer camping trips to the lake, and it makes me
happy to know my own kids are going to have some of those same memories.
Leo Paré is a former
Advocate editor. Email him at newsdeadline@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at
twitter.com/LeoPare
No comments:
Post a Comment