Happy Thursday, everybody! Reader here, and I’m curious… what kind of camper are you?
Are you someone who likes to keep it simple? Are you all about setting up a tent, rolling out the sleeping bags, bringing a cooler full of food and drink, and doing everything from brewing coffee and frying up bacon and eggs, to grilling up burgers and hot dogs over a nice, warm campfire?
Or, are you a someone who prefers the comforts of a camper or big ol’ R.V., with bathrooms, fridges, TV, and comfy beds?
Maybe you’re a “glamper,” and prefer “camping” facilities that offer up all the comforts of a hotel, rather than truly “roughing it!”
We all have our preference, and I’m not judging.
Growing up, we kind of combined numbers 1 and 2. We’d set up our tent at the campsite, but we also had our camper in the back of the truck, so it was the best of both worlds. And we had some memorable experiences on those camping trips.
We used to camp at Palliser Regional Park, near Riverhurst, as well as Pike Lake and Candle Lake Provincial Parks.
One year at Palliser, my brother Ward stepped on a cactus, while another year, there were a bunch of big bugs around the campsite, that freaked out my Aunt Marie’s ex-hubby, while Ward would crush ’em those bugs with the bucket of his toy front end loader!
The one year we went to Candle Lake, we ended up cutting out vacation short for a couple of days, as Dad managed to catch a nasty case of “swimmer’s itch,” that no amount of calamine lotion would soothe.
One year, we camped at a campground in Edmonton for a couple of nights, and the second day, we went touring around, and we left the tent door unzipped… and it POURED, flooding the tent, so the six of us piled into the camper for a very cozy night!
At Pike Lake, we went min-golfing and my youngest brother Barrett, who couldn’t have been more 3 or 4 years old at the time, wasn’t an experienced golfer, and he held the putter like a hockey stick… and wound up slap-shotting a golf ball into the back of an unsuspecting lady’s leg! Oops!
And back in 2003, me and my three brothers – Barrett, Ward and Curtis, went camping for a night out at the Sooke Potholes, out on Vancouver Island.
It was a very slapdash camping trip. We hit the supermarket on the way out of Victoria, grabbing a flat of water, hot dogs, buns and condiments, and cookies. Because you gotta have cookies!
Anyhoo, we set up our tent, went exploring, and when we got back to the campsite, we realized we were missing an important component of the campfire experience – matches and lighters, so it was tough to start said fire. Luckily, a neighbouring camper helped us out, and all was well.
When it was time to turn in, we spread out across the floor of our big tent and started harmonizing for some random, fun reason, before crashing out. (If you know the four of us, you wouldn’t be surprised at all!)
When we woke up, we found that there must’ve been a slight incline upon which we set up the tent, as I was pressed right up against the wall of the tent, with my three brothers all crushed up against me, so instead of being nicely spaced out, half the tent floor was completely empty, as we’d all rolled to one end. Me and the guys still laugh about that one!
As you can probably guess, I prefer tent camping, and hope to do a bit of it again this summer! How about you?
Comments