camping

I grew up camping. My folks started with a little trailer, and as we (meaning my brothers and I) outgrew it (read: had to sit and sleep too close together to be able to leave each other alone), my folks bought a bigger one. We took many trips into the Lincoln Forest, and others in the Gallinus (don't think I got that spelled right) near Las Vegas, NM where my dad had relatives. We even took the trailer with us several times on our summer vacations to the coast of TX and stayed in campgrounds instead of hotels. Most of the time, though, it seems like we travelled up to Lake Roberts, in the Gila. I have many wonderful memories of camping trips with family friends, and cousins from one side of the family or the other.

When I grew up, I either had to work, or if I wasn't working, I had no funds to camp with, or gather equipment with, it seemed. At least until I found the Society for Creative Anachronism. This is a group that holds its events and conventions on open fields. Most often, and SCA event is a camping event. While I was active, I got to go 3 or 4 times a year at times. It was a large group of people who all looked after each other, and I felt perfectly safe, even as a single female to camp. It was one of the big attractions to me for belinging to the SCA. The friends I made were the best, and camping with them was Oh, so much fun.

Then the move to Colorado, and back, and being borke once again, and climbing out of the pit of debt. Doesn't allow for much traveling, although we got out for picnics now and again to some of those places. Needless to say, I've been jonesing for a campout for a long time now. One of my goals for this summer was to get a camping trip in. Somehow, someway. I drooled over RV's and trailers, knowing in my heart that they are not in my budget at the moment. Still, I didn't want to sleep on the hard ground either. Looking around the house, and storage rooms, we still have about enough stuff to go camping with.

Now, we even have friends who want to meet us there. So we are headed to Lake Roberts for this next weekend. We'll have to get a new tent, and we already picked up an air mattress. I've planned a menu, and done some shopping for it. I've started gathering the necessities. I'm so excited that I can hardly contain myself, and I feel like a kid because of that. Not only do we get to spend time with some really good friends, we get to do it while camping.