Camping Trips

This morning as I woke up, the quiet neighborhood, cloudy skies, and the low but still rising sun brought me back to my childhood, when we'd all get up early and pile into the family Winnebago. For most family vacations, we traveled in our RV across much of the East coast, from Massachusetts to Florida, and stayed at campgrounds overnight. During the day, we'd visit the local sights, usually museums or historical locations.

Around dawn, Mom would wake us up and with sleepy eyes, my brother and I would take our seats in the back of the camper's cab - me on the left, my brother on the right. It always seemed so early; the neighborhood was still asleep, the roads quiet. When Dad finished his preparations and loaded the last of the supplies and food, he'd start up the Winnebago and we'd be on our way. The familiar smell of diesel would fill my nose, a reminder of previous trips.                                                                                                                                                        

The Winnebago in Shenandoah National Park.

Camping allowed us to save some money and also have the conveniences of traveling with a full bathroom, kitchen, and beds. Prior to any trip, Dad would spend weeks making necessary repairs to the camper. I'm sure it took a lot of work to maintain the RV, but Dad liked to do his own work. Mom always brought so much stuff. We still joke about her giant suitcase full of every medicine-cabinet item imaginable. 

The Winnebago couldn’t go much faster than 60 mph. On our CB radio, we'd hear truckers making fun of us and radioing other truckers so they knew to pass us as we struggled to get up a hill. Once or twice we broke down and had to stay overnight at a hotel while the camper was being fixed.

One year, my parents gave me my first journal, a thin, glossy black notebook with a globe on the cover. I liked the journal so much that I really didn’t even want to write in it. Wherever we were camping, I sat at our campsite's picnic table and recorded the day's events: visiting the battleship USS Massachusetts in Boston, Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia or Kennedy Space Center in Orlando, Florida.

These camping trips were an important part of my childhood. I still love roadtrips and camping and over the years I've visited some of the great National Parks of the American west. Whenever the weather gets warm, and summer is near, I get the urge to travel.

Originally written on May 26, 2021.