How did you start camping? (old subject for newbies and for board elders)

[mowalker]

Glad to see this thread is moving. This is a work in progress a new way to say hello to everyone and a chance to talk about yourselves. I'm enjoying it and from a few folks they are too!
 
BP. We all love your story, your and Holly's story could fit in a lot of threads.
 
Camping boaters: Raystown Lake!!! that is so close to where I grew up and did all those things, Does Altoona ring a bell? Keep in touch. Bellwood girl here but there is a long story there.
 
Popupmomma: welcome aboard! the new people here like you add life to this board!
 
Kelly:  I always love your stories, glad to know you will have your own PU soon.  
 
Sorry no time to mention everyone, I have to deal with some bad weather here.
 
Please keep the posts coming, they mean a lot!
 
Thanks
 
Brenda

[Camping Coxes]

I first camped with the Girl Scouts.  It was always a highlight of our year.  I camp with my daughter's troop now and am one of three moms who plan our camping trips together.  My oldest sister and her husband used to "borrow" me and my just-older-than-me sister to take camping.  They were a bit older than us and couldn't have children, so we filled in.  They'd take us desert camping and mountain camping.  It was a lot of fun, but as I got older I didn't want to go.  I missed camping, but there were circumstances that made me decide to stay home.

Flash forward a few years.  When I was dating my now DH, he liked to backpack, so I bought him a tent.  Later, when I was in college, I talked my dad into letting us go to Sequoia NP together.  That was our start in that little tent I bought him.  We had a blast and have been camping ever since.  We tent camped alone, then got a bigger tent as we had kids.  Eventually we decided to look into a pop-up because DH has a back problem and tent camping was painful for him.  He found a 1972 Viking for $200 and brought it home as a surprise.  It was nothing more than a tent on wheels.  Well, let me revise that.  A duct tape covered tent on wheels.  The stove and sink didn't work.  But it was big and roomy and we were off the ground.  It was a great trailer to try out this pop-up thing.  The next season we found a better trailer, though much smaller, and upgraded, donating our Viking to a family we knew.  As the kids got bigger -- have I mentioned my 14YO son is 6 foot already? -- we outgrew the little trailer and I started looking for our new pop-up.  I found what we have now, a 1998 Coleman Sun Ridge, and we're happy with that.  
 
I think we've instilled the camping bug in our kids, and we hope in years to come when they have their own families they'll want to camp together with us.  When we camp with the Girl Scouts, my DD is always complaining that she has to sleep with the girls and not in her pop-up.

[dee106]

I started out with the girl scout too,(age 10) plus my brothers were in the boy scouts, then it was tenting with the family, as money was tight. Did that til I was 16, then the campground started renting popups on site, so we moved up, then we stopped camping when money got better, then we started our own lives as teens, and I went back to cheap weekends and vacations,with my tent! met a lot of people! and got more and more of my friends camping, so it was great, we rented trailers in the late fall. I stopped for a short period of time, when i got sick (cancer) and when i beat it, my friends and I went out a couple of times together. but bills kept me working more and more. Then while sufing the web, i found a chat room on yahoo on outdoor stuff, and a penpal room, so i posted about camping, hiking fishing etc. thats were I met Ken! 7 years ago. we chatted a for six months spoke on the phone, then we finaily met, our first vacation together was tenting, then we did that for a year, and decided we need to get out of the mud, and bought a 71 starcraft for 400.00 and fixed it up and did that for a year. Then Ken found rv's shows, SO then came the 2000 Starcraft PU with the slide for more room and toys!  A year and half later the  Starcraft hybrid 21sso came into our lives, which we still have and love, We camp so much,and ken loves going every weekend from April to November that he was getting tired of pulling it, open and closing it , We got a seasonal site in NJ, so it was easier, no more opening it up at nine o'clock at night, and backing into unknown sites. this spring we got  another trailer, this is a full hardside, so we just turn the key! throw a log on the fire , and a steak on the grill, and start star watching in peace and quiet from the city sounds. So you can say I've been camping for a few years, and camping is what bought Ken and I together, and help keep us sane!

[wiininkwe]

Camping wasn't high on the list of things to do when I was a kid, and the same was true for DH.   But, when our kids were young, we had some friends with a small TT that they had decided to sell.  After listening to their tales of fun and adventure with their family we decided to buy it.  We used it for a few years, and then we sold it.  Realising that we missed the camping, we got a few medium sized tents, one for adults and one for the kids.  Eventually added another tent, for friends that the kids always brought along.   At times DH and I would leave the kids with Gram and Pa, and take off on our own, sometimes camping in the back of the pickup truck,(with a cap) sometimes using the back of our Ford Escort and a small tent for gear.   Finally sprung for another TT, but also bought a small piece of property to set it on, and spent all of our weekends and holidays camping there.   Then the family all grew up, so we borrowed a popup to try it out, and loved it.  Finally found the one we have now and use it all the time, sometimes alone, sometimes with family and friends.   We use it for deer hunting, travel south in the winter with it and set it in the driveway for extra room when we have company or for sleepovers with the DGKs.
T

[garym053]

My first camping experience was with the Boy Scouts, we had severe thunderstorms and our tent ate semi raw pancakes the next morning in order to beat everyone else in the pancake contest!
My father said he camped enough in WW II and was never camping again, (never blamed him on that one!) In fairness to him, he did provide us with a cabin on a lake that you could only get to by boat, when we were kids!
My first REAL camping experience was in 1998 at the age of 45 with my wife, BIL & SIL. First night in the tent, my air mattress went flat! BUT we had a blast cooking in the rain, etc! We soon bought a pop-up and I thought that our tent camping days were over! WRONG! We've camped as many days in a tent this year as we have the pop-up!
NOW I'm trying to make up for lost time and dragging my kids into camping by way of getting the GRANDKIDS involved!

[Cheryl]

Great Thread!
I'm an Air Force Brat and as Dad was posted all over the USA the only way we could afford to vacation was tenting. Best trip as a kid was up on Big Bear Mountain in California in June. We woke up with 2 inches of snow on the tent and all our water and milk frozen solid. After I met and wed DH (who had never camped!) we got into tent camping. After spending a VERY wet night in a new tent(that we forgot to pre-treat) with my 3 month old DD in a bassinet in the only dry spot in the tent we decided tent camping was not for us. Bought a '76 Coleman Valley Forge in '90 and used it for 6 years. Sold it for what we paid for it and bought a new '95 Coleman Cape Cod hardside pop-up. Used it with our growing family and sold it this past June and bought our new '05 Rockwood Roo super slide. Kids are now in High School and College and can't camp with us as much as we like but it's also fun for us to rediscover the joys of camping with just the two of us. Retirement plans involve some type of full-time RVing! Just 12 or so years to go!.
We can't wait!
Cheryl