Summer Camping Trips
Yosemite Park.
First summer without hospitals. Cancer was something we desired to keep in the past.
Michael and I were drawn to each other because of our common appreciation and love for nature and the outdoors. When the opportunity arose to take our children on adventures, we jumped at every opportune moment.
Also, we were so poor for the first 20 years of marriage, I remember looking at our Utah Retirement Service statements from 1997 and could only wonder, “How the heck did we survive?”
But, somehow we did.
And camping helped!
“Camping is not a date; it’s an endurance test. If you can survive camping with someone, you should marry them on the way home.”
Camping was the key! Michael worked as a mountain shop manager when I met him in California, so we had all the gear and equipment. The kids were easy and we had become pros with childrens clothing swaps.
We belonged to cooperative-oriented schools for the 10 years of their lives. If I wrote an email requesting a specific camping clothing item or camping gear in the morning, I had that item on my front porch that afternoon.
It was a glorious way of living.
“Camping is the only time when it’s acceptable to be dirty and smelly.”
My husband and I are heading back to the Sierra Nevadas this Summer with our friends, Mark and Laurie. We have had many wonderful adventures with these friends pre, during and post children. (We didn’t let the kids stop us from much needed looooong conversations)
One particular adventure with Mark and Laurie took place at a camping ground near Donner Lake.
I was still fairly fresh post chemo and pre-radiation and found myself really, really wanting to get away from it all.
So we did.
What cracks me up is that we chose the Donner Party trail and stayed at a campsite where it was said to be the very same fire scarred rock used by the Donner party family themselves! These were the fires that kept them warm during their winter months while they were stranded trying to make it over the pass.
How ironic.
The two scenarios were all too reminiscent of struggling through a particularly challenging period of time.
To top it off, we got word from our friends that their car’s engine blew a gasket while hauling their teardrop trailer up the mountain and were stuck on the side of the road. As we were coming from a different direction and had already arrived at the campsite, Michael decided to rescue them. So, he set up our tent and made us all lunch, and then set off down the mountain to find our friends.
Twin two-year-olds in tow, Mark and Laurie left their car on the side of the road. Michael hitched up the trailer, two car seat seats and whatever gear they had in the truck and returned to our campsite.
We didn’t know it at the time, but this was going to be a fabulous trip.
“You either like camping, or you’re wrong.”
We survived the trip - Donner style except we had plenty of food. In the end, AAA saved the day. Our friends ended up having the type of membership that covers campers and tows over 100 miles. We were able to get a truck, tow the camper and get another vehicle appropriate to place twins in car seats in the back seat. They even gave us a daily stipend and put us up in a hotel at the end of the trip while we negotiated all the details, and to shower, of course!
When I returned home, I immediately purchased the same AAA membership and have renewed it every year ever since.
In the end, it was the adventure that saved the day. Having faith that it would all work out - just the way it was designed to - was the master plan.
“Which is more important,” asked Big Panda, “the journey or the destination?”
“The company,” said Tiny Dragon.
Enjoy all your summer adventures. See where they take you.
