"Campering"

In the previous post, Brian referred to the term "campering." I picked up this term from my uncle who lives in Colorado and has spent decades campering in the Rocky Mountains. CAMPING is something done with a sleeping bag in a tent (or lean-to or under the stars). Camper-ing refers to the use of RVs, travel trailers, or in my uncle's case, truck campers. It hardly seems to count as camping if you have a queen-sized bed, running water, flush toilets, heat, and electricity.

I grew up tent camping with my family. We camped at Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks, we camped in my uncle's backyard in Maine, we camped during what I refer to as our "family bonding excursion" out west. It was two weeks of camping in different campgrounds every night from the Badlands to Yellowstone to the Grand Tetons. There was very little showering going on. I even learned to walk on a camping trip to the Smoky Mountains, as family lore would have it.

I led camping trips in college as an officer of an outing club. I've camped just a few feet from the beach on a Navy base in Key West. I LOVE tent camping. But for many reasons, including two small, far from adaptable dogs, tent camping is no longer the most practical option for us. With a camper, the dogs can travel with us, eliminating the need to foist them off on my parents. Or at least that was the plan...

Our adventures in campering have been a learning experience thus far, but the best part remains the same... time spent outdoors. And this can be achieved with a camper or a tent. And we don't have to sleep in the rain!