I don't know about the rest of you, but I am addicted to this site. However, my satisfaction is sometimes less because I can't find a subject that relates to me. So, how about this? Story time! We camp because it provides us with out of the ordinary experiences. What are yours? It might require lengthy posts, but for those who do not wish to partake they can just ignore us more wordy people. PLEASE say I am not the only wordy person here! I'll start.... With a goose, which I normally equate with rats. But, he was an unfortunate fellow that was obviously left behind for no apparent reason. It became obvious later. During this day he and my 6 year old daughter played a game...one would follow the other from 20 or so paces. She'd follow, he'd lead, then vice versa. Sort of like a tag that never happened. I thought he was odd then and that maybe he couldn't fly. I was wrong! Sort of. After the kids had gone to bed and we had a nice fire going " HONK! HONK! INCOMING!! He was making a mad dash/flight straight for our fire. He stopped on the rocks which made the fire ring. HOT FEET! I tried to cool his feet fown with some water from the nearby pump, but he waddled off. Poor ( stupid) guy! About 15 minutes later he did it again! But this time he stuck around. Feeling sorry for him, I tried to feed him various things...bread, chips, crackers, water. He wanted no part of it but didn't go away. So, I started to pet him. He liked it! I ended up with him on a towel in my lap, fingers deep in his downy feathers. He fell asleep! Head back, beak to the sky, eyes closed. Very odd. Well, it was time for bed. I sat him on the ground, on his little towel and went into the camper. Next thing you know it is 12 mn and he was going nuts outside our camper. Making a WHOLE lot of noise! We ignored him and finally, after about 15 minutes or so, he quieted down and we slept. Phew... enough of him! Oh no...we got up in the morning to large piles of goose poopey on our steps and carpet. Everywhere!!!! He showed us for locking him out! Interstingly enough, when other kids tried to approach him the next day he bit them. I heard one Dad say he was going to kill him for nipping his child. Huh...wonder why he liked us so much and just what was the matter with him? Good thing geese don't get rabies or I would have it! Please share a story!
Cute story. My story I guess falls under the category of my most memorable camping experience. It took place when I was just a child. My family and I decided to go camping at a local state park in our Apache tent trailer. It was raining when we left, but that never really curtailed us from camping before...in fact, we actually loved sitting in the camper listening to the rain...however, this time we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. We got the trailer set up, but it was too wet too cook outside and our trailer had no stove, etc..after about 6 hours of continuous rain, my dad said it was time to head into town and get some ready-made food seeing that we would not be able to cook outside. So, we all got in the car and headed into town about 15 minutes away. We went to a Kentucky Fried Chicken and got a tub of chicken and fixins' and went back to the trailer. And, with water starting to creep and settle on our site, we sat inside eating our dinner...which was actually the first time we had ever had KFC and till this day, their chicken never tasted better than it did that day sitting in the trailer eating it while it was pouring down rain outside. The next day, the rain still kept falling so we decided to go home and make some food there and bring it out to the trailer...so we went home and my mom made a huge pot of chili and we then went back to the trailer and ate it. By the third day, the rain had eased off and everything started to dry out and the next four days were beautiful. It wasn't until we got home that we found out that we had camped through Hurricane Agnes...and our friends and family said we were crazy for doing so. I still think it funny that we went home and made food to bring back to the trailer to eat when he just as easily could have stayed at home...but then if that were the case, I don't think the experience would have been as memorable.
This topic brought to mind a funny incident that happened when I was a kid. My parents owned a old canary yellow chevrolet pickup with an even older cabover camper. We had gone to Grand Lake in Oklahoma to camp for the weekend with my dad's family. My grandparents had a popup trailer and the rest of the family had tents and hammocks. My dad and his brother were outside lounging in the hammocks, and my sister and I were in the camper bugging my mom while she was trying to get food ready for supper. My sister, who was around 4 at the time, had been opening and shutting the door-playing peek a boo with the people outside. All of a sudden she says "Pretty kitty, I go to pet kitty!!" My mom grabbed her and looked out the door. The "kitty" was a young skunk, who was under my dad's hammock looking for his supper!!! Needless to say, my dad stayed in that hammock-and stayed very still!! Gave everyone a good laugh after the little skunk had mosied off, not realizing the havoc he'd caused!!
I was hoping more people would reply to this post. I know there are a lot of funny stories out there!! I hadn't checked on this topic in a while, and out of curiosity I thought I would see if there had been more stories posted. If you have a story, please share it! This was an excellent idea, by the way!
Camping memory: When I was around 15, we went tent camping at Ute Lake, Logan, NM, with two other families. Normally, our camping vacations were fine weather. This time was a little different. The day we arrived was fine. That night, it began to rain. We kids knew nothing, sleeping like rocks in our sleeping bags on the ground inside the tent. I woke up the next morning inside a sodden, yet oddly warm, sleeping bag. When I finally crawled out, my jeans (I'd kept them on) were soggy, and the weather was quite a lot cooler than we'd expected. Later in the morning, the rain stopped, but it was still cool. We kids decided it was warmer in the lake than in the air, so we went in, wearing our soggy clothes. I honestly don't know what the grownups were doing, but we were having a fine time in the warm water. As the day finally began to warm up, four of us kids took out a pedal boat. We were not traveling real fast, and one of the dads got impatient (don't remember why). He came out in his power boat, had us tie a ski rope to the pedal boat, and started to tow us to the marina. Unfortunately, he went too fast, pulling the front of the pedal boat into the water. Before it went under, all of us bailed off -- then the ski rope broke and the pedal boat popped upright. It was mildly annoying to me, my jeans having almost dried, but one girl panicked. Turned out she couldn't swim well. I held her up until her dad came back to put her in his boat, then two of us climbed back on the pedal boat and took it to the marina. That was the occasion that I learned how naturally buoyant I am -- even fully dressed, I barely had to kick my legs to hold both me and the little girl afloat. Don't think I ever told my folks about that incident -- they were back at the campground and I don't think they saw it. But someone must have said something, because we never went camping with Impatient Dad again...
