Mohican

I think we've decided that we first went camping in Mohican in 1997, and we've been going ever since. Which is surprising since the first trip was not very fun, mostly because the campground sucked. First, we were supposed to have a river site but it was more like a ditch. Second, it rained. Third, there was supposed to be hot showers, which I guess meant freezing water that you had to pay to use. Fourth, if you read the "Along came the kids" blog you'll know about the warm bottle problem. The kids were all little so canoeing was more work than fun.

But, the next year we found a great campground in Mohican: Smith's Family Campground. This time we were on the river, we had free, hot showers, the kids were older (so no more bottles), and the owners were (and still are) the nicest people you'll ever meet. All of us fell in love with camping, canoeing, kayaking, & tubing! So for the last eleven years we've been going to Smith's. We started off with just going for a weekend, then a long weekend, and now we go for a whole week. It is our favorite place to go camping!

Do you like camping?

When I first met my husband I asked him if he liked camping; he said he did. Perfect, I thought. I soon found out that his version of camping and mine were two very different concepts. His family owned a cabin in PA dubbed "The Camp". This was camping to my husband. To me it was just a house in the woods. My idea of camping was sleeping in a tent and cooking over a fire. To compromise over the years we've made some adjustments. We go to "The Camp" and then we go camping. The kids enjoy both. We had to give up tent camping a few years ago due to my Asthma. We got a pop-up to replace the tent. This seemed to be a perfect combination of our two worlds. Recently, we sold our pop-up for a travel trailer. My husband loves it. It is a lot easier; no more putting it up and then having to put it down. It has a lot more space and the bigger fridge is nice. I think that part of me, the younger part, will always love to be in a tent. The older part of me will just have to get use to the camper. One thing is definite, my kids will always have a tent if they want one.

Along came the kids...

Our oldest daughter had her first camping trip in our backyard with her cousin. They both loved it and sixteen years later they are both still camping. Our second daughter, however, started out not liking camping so much. On the date of what would have been her first camping trip, she got sick just before we left and ended up staying home with her Grandma. When she finally got to go she would never stay in her sleeping bag. I would wake up to find this little ice-cube of a girl sleeping curled up next to the wall of the tent on the bare floor. From then on she had to sleep with me, in my sleeping bag, so I could keep her warm. Which meant I didn't get much sleep. She was also very particular about the temperature of her bottle. It couldn't be to hot or too cold. She needed it warm. Do you know how hard it is to get a bottle warm first thing in the morning while camping? Needless to say, a friend of mine had burnt baby formula on the dash of his car after one attempt! She eventually grew to love camping as much as her sister and I... But, it did take awhile! Our youngest, the only boy, started camping at a young age as well. I've learned a lot over the years so things have been easier for him and for us. We also moved up from a tent to a pop-up (more on that later) with a microwave!

How It All Began

My earliest memories of camping were in the back of my Dad's old Ford pick-up truck. He only had a truck cap on the back, but, My parents put a mattress in the bed of the truck for them to sleep on, then put a couple pieces of wood across the rails of the truck bed and a matress on that for my brother and I to sleep on. It wasn't much but I enjoyed it. We eventually moved up to an actual truck cap camper. It had a bunk over the truck cab and a table that folded down into a bed. Oh, and the wonderful port-a-potty! At some point, I got sick of sleeping with my brother; so, I slept in the front seat of the pick-up truck. I remember we had this net stuff to throw over the windows so the bugs wouldn't get in. After awhile my parents got an old Wineabago. Still not wanting to sleep with my brother, I slept in the front seats with a board over the engine. At this point, I begged my parents for a tent. They didn't see the need for one since they had bought this nice camper. Why would I want to sleep in a tent? So, I wrapped a tarp around a picnic table and slept under that. HA! I showed them! Around the time I turned eighteen, my parents had moved up to a nice new Wineabago that had beds for all of us. We took a trip to Myrtle Beach in it and I think that was my very last trip with my parents. Once I was eighteen I bought my own tent and have been a Happy Camper ever since!