Camping Memories

Camping Memories

written by Amy     I am so grateful Mom and Dad taught me the passion of camping and the beauty of nature. They didn't stay home watching TV much. They met on a canoe trip and stayed active while my brother Bobby and I were growing up. Among other things, we belonged to a canoeing organization called Sylvan Canoe Club on the Allegheny River. Dad taught whitewater canoeing and kayaking and he served as president of the club. We canoed and ate dinner at the club most Wednesdays during the summer. Just a side note, back in the 70s, Dad and one of his friends even traveled to Georgia where they taught whitewater canoeing to the cast of the movie "Deliverance." Dad was part of making that movie possible.

Me, center, camping with Jan & Judy Smith and FRANNIE

Back to the story, every Fourth of July, a group of friends from Sylvan Canoe Club camped at Pymatuning Lake in beautiful Penn’s Woods (Pennsylvania). I learned how to pitch the tent and build a little pyramid out of twigs to start a fire, adding sticks and logs. I loved singing around the campfire and roasting marshmallows. We hiked, swam in the lake, canoed and sailed. We dumped the canoe and had a blast “canoe swamping.” We cooked pancakes and bacon on the fire for breakfast. We had cheeseburgers and we wrapped potatoes and corn on the cob in foil and threw them in the fire for dinner. Great smokey smells. Exhausted after a long day and tucked in our sleeping bags, we heard crickets chirping outside our tent. We heard the pitter pat, pitter pat of a light rain striking the tent while we remained cozy and dry. 

What wonderful memories!

Now it was my turn to take my family camping.

My husband Mark and I set out enthusiastically with our seven-year-old daughter Keriann and her little BFF Alyssa, who was five. It was the Fourth of July weekend and we planned to camp in the magnificent, peaceful National Forest near Mammoth Cave in KY. Problem number one, peaceful camping and the Fourth of July apparently cannot coexist anymore. Problem number two, the National Forest was full. Not to worry, there was another campground nearby called Jellystone. This campground seemed just a little different from the camping I remembered. The owners of this camp didn’t seem to believe in nature. They stripped everything green away. Who needs trees? Who needs grass? This campground offered a bulldozed wide open area with no shade and tiny campsites, designed so no one could wander more than 20 feet from any neighbors. And where were the trees?

Instead of a lake, the girls were thrilled to learn the campground had a pool, so we got dressed in our bathing suits right away. We knew the way. 

All we had to do was 
head toward the screaming!! 

  Yes, the children were having a grand old time and the two I brought joined right in. It’s just that the pool, like our campsite, was tiny. Needless to say, it was a tad bit on the crowded side.

It was impossible to swim horizontally without bumping into a kid or two. I’d have to try vertical swimming. Yep, the best exercise I could get was bobbing up and down. Every couple of minutes I got kicked or bumped by a child. Only occasionally would the offender apologize. I bobbed up and down for about 15 minutes until I felt black and blue enough for the day. At least the girls were having fun.

After the swimming venture, we walked back to the campsite to try to relax after the chaos at the pool. But there were constant interruptions.

NO CAMPGROUND WOULD BE COMPLETE WITHOUT A

 LOUD SPEAKER SYSTEM!

And this campground had an earsplitting one. We couldn’t understand a single word because, like Charlie Brown’s teacher, it was muffled and had extremely loud background noise. The employees were incessantly blasting instructions to each other or paging people. Of course we couldn’t make out what they said, but this shrieking, God-awful noise pierced through our ears.

Although clearly there were employees manning the loud speakers, no one bothered to clean the kind of well-used bathrooms, shall I say. Garbage cans overflowed and there were plenty of other signs of neglect. The girls didn’t care. They were in their glory playing. They pretended they were neighbors, but their choice of venue? They didn’t want to play by a campfire or in the tent. No, they chose to play in the car. Keriann pretended she lived in the front seat and Alyssa pretended she lived in the back seat. They were happy as could be.

    

Soon we gathered sticks to get a fire going. We were all hungry and I had aspirations of cooking a delicious dinner. It was getting dark quickly so I sat there with newspaper, matches, and the firewood we bought for $5.00 at the camp store. I’d built many campfires before, so I couldn’t understand why the firewood just wouldn’t stay lit. For at least 45 minutes, I tried to build a fire to no avail. I never heard of non-flammable wood. Frustrated, I drove to the camp store to buy some lighter fluid. That should do the trick, right?

WRONG. Over and over again I tried to slowly build this fire right. And over and over again, the wood wouldn’t stay lit. Fires blazed all around us, but not ours. Frustrated beyond words, I tried once again, lighting yet another match.

HOLY HELL!!! 
MY THUMB CAUGHT ON FIRE! 
I had unknowingly spilled lighter fluid on my hands and I screamed a swear word at the top of my lungs that echoed through the family camp. It was even louder and definitely much clearer than the stupid sound speaker system. It was not muffled. It was very clear what I yelled in front of Keriann and her adorable little friend. I felt guilty shouting this bad word. But let’s review this. I was sitting there with  
non-flammable wood
and a 
flammable thumb
  

That was the end of the stinkin’ fire and little Alyssa had learned a brand new word. 

A teacher at heart, I just love educating children!

Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches would suffice and I stuck my thumb in the ice cooler all night long.

Hurting badly and frustrated, I felt defeated. But I stopped and forced myself to focus on something positive. Soon the fireworks would start. We didn’t know where, but suddenly we heard the bangs and pops. We looked all around and something caught my eye. Way off in the distance. Way far away. Something was blocking our view.

Trees! Yes, there were a few clumps of trees after all. 

It was like the only trees in the whole campground 

blocked our view of the fireworks.  

We tried to scurry over to a place where we could see them, you know, as fast as a person lugging a cooler with an injured thumb could scurry. But by the time we moved closer, the show was over. Oh well. At least I was reassured there were several trees left in the world.

We managed to stay for three nights. Looking back, I probably should have gone to the nearest emergency room. It hurt like crazy for days. It throbbed when I tried to distance myself from the cooler. The girls happily played in the car for four days straight, emerging only for a food or pool break. They kept saying 

it was the best camping trip ever!

I guess my great camping memories are slightly different 
from their great camping memories.  
Childhood camping memories are the best. Right?

Alyssa Kisor Moses    I loved your writing! HA! I remember that trip really well! It never dawned on me as a kid that the campsite was so commercial, but I can definitely see it now. The way you described it is hilarious. I remember playing in the car with Kerry and that being the best part of the trip! Ha! I also remember reciting to my mom what you said when you burned your thumb, and not knowing it was swearing until I saw the look on her face and heard you laughing! Thanks for taking me camping and so many hikes over the years

P.S. If any reader of this article happens to catch their thumb on fire, even though I am a nonmedical, nonprofessional person who probably doesn't have any business recommending anything, I still suggest you schlep the cooler and your thumb to a burn unit of a medical treatment facility. Cooler therapy is just my idea.

I live in the Pittsburgh area and am now the mother of two amazing daughters, the mimi of three awesome grandbabies. I work for Wesley Family Services and I just got a job at Advanced Living Options.. I love adventures, hiking every day, traveling, camping at Deer Valley YMCA Camp, writing The Nuthouse News and writing, especially humor stories. I enjoy blogging, riding trains and helmet babies. (My 7-month old grandson Mason just got a helmet.) I was engaged to David Cassidy.  I mean, he didn't really know that we were engaged, but I would have married him in a minute, but I never got to talk to him in person. I am heartbroken that he passed away. Seriously HEARTBROKEN.
My grandbabies are absolutely AMAZING. Schoepkes, Mariah Bella (August 12, 2013), Mason Anthony (March 5, 2017) and Maverick Austin (May 31, 2019). 

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Amy L. Kriss
Phone: 412-721-1078