Enjoying family in the wild
For this column my front porch is a picnic table. I sit surrounded by woods: Redwood, cedar, Douglas fir and madrona tower over moss covered stones and lush bushes laced with poison oak. The only sounds are the Smith River rushing over the rocks and my noisy boys biking toward the promise of cliff jumping before dinner.
On this summer’s two-week camping road trip they’ve decided the adrenaline rush achieved by plummeting from rocky outcroppings into refreshing water is the most important metric for measuring the quality of a campsite. So far, the winner is the Standish-Hickey State Recreation Area in Northern California. Its swimming hole was so enticing it warranted two nights on this trip.
Over the past five years we’ve taken the kids to a lot of campgrounds across the Western states and Canada, rarely staying more than two nights in any spot.
As we drive the highways looking for the next perfect site I’m always surprised by how many RVs I see packed into private campgrounds just off the highway. Their rigs, parked on slabs separated by narrow strips of grass, are squeezed into tight rows. It reminds me of school children waiting for recess in an overcrowded classroom. That’s not my kind of camping.
I’d rather forgo the electrical hookups and water spigots at every site along with the high prices so we can stay in a national forest, state or county park for a fraction of the cost and an abundance of beauty. Rather than watching satellite television or swimming in a tiny chlorinated pool, we hunt for frogs, lizards and slugs along the trails that meander toward secluded swimming holes on a river.
Still, part of me is glad those campers don’t realize the pristine splendor they’re missing just a little bit further up and off the road. Although it makes me sad to see so many public campgrounds unfilled each night, I also enjoy the solitude. While my boys rate cliff jumping opportunities, I rate campgrounds by how distant they feel from city life.
For me, the best sites are where trees and bushes grow thick enough to block the view of your neighbors and the only lights in the dark night are the orange flames and embers of the fire pit and stars. Here you hear crickets, birds and conversation punctuated by the crackle of campfire instead of the swoosh and screech of car tires.
It sounds sappy, but this kind of setting makes my soul sigh.
This year, with two teens and a 10-year-old, I’m especially aware of how few family camping trips we have left. Busy schedules, sports, friends and the prospect of summer employment mean this may be our last long road trip with all three kids.
My 14-year-old would roll his eyes and sigh with relief at this news. “Camping and hiking is your thing. Not mine,” he says.
Still, I hope he remembers the swimming holes, the silly songs, the inside jokes and the stories we told around the campfire. I hope he remembers the times we couldn’t breathe from laughing so hard. Of all the things we’ve done as a family, I don’t think anything has bonded us better than campfire conversation.
The talk ranges from religious to political to philosophical to funny, meandering like the river running just a few feet away. Without electronics, tasks, activities or even other people to interrupt, the conversation flows freely, curving into new topics before returning to the familiar.
We retell favorite family stories and rehash conversations from other campfires, remembered from year to year and somehow this sparks new ideas and I learn a little bit more about my kids and the way they view the world.
Even when we’re on the move, traveling to the next best campsite or a new place to cliff jump, camping slows us down so we can listen to each other. If it weren’t for a dire need to do laundry, I might not want to come home.