Camping!

.

[I would like to dedicate this post to two friends who first took our little family out camping: Lise and Mark.  These two wonderful people changed our lives in lots of ways, and we have never been able to communicate adequately to them that this was so.]

There seem to be two kinds of people: those who camp, and those who do not!  Of those who camp, too, there are two types: those who use campers, or cabins, and those who tent.  Finally, all campers are split into two additional types: those who like to rough it out at state and federal park campsites, and those who like comfortable commercial campsites.

There really is no need to grab onto one particular style of camping; I think a mix of several types is likely to provide variety, which is good.  No matter what your choice, it's probably a good thing to keep an eye on how much pollution you're indulging in; after all, pollution impacts campers very directly; if the air, or the water, or the campsites were polluted with chemical fumes, or water-borne pollution, or just litter, camping is pretty disgusting.  No matter what their political affiliation and ideological positions, experienced campers are usually considerate people.  Camping in a camper, which means you don't use a tent, is actually a quite different undertaking, since you have to either drive your camper around, or haul it around, and it limits the places you can go.  Camping is fun without investing in a camper (several thousands of dollars).

So let's assume that you're going to be tenting.  The following could cost up to around $150 per person, but is equipment you would use for several years.

Equipment:

1. A tent big enough, or a couple of tents.  The tent packaging usually indicates its capacity, e.g. 4 adults (a biggish tent) or 2 children (a tiny tent).   Read the set-up instructions if you can, to make sure that you can handle them!  (A dry run in your back yard is worth every minute you spend on it, and also teaches you how to fold the tent up at the end.)
2. A camp stove.  There are tiny little stoves that you hook up to little propane gas cylinders (under $25), or more elaborate stoves with two or three burners (under $75) which burn white gas, which seems to be something like kerosene.  I'd make sure I knew what I was doing with the latter; the propane stoves are all you need, if you're not particular about your food all being piping hot. 
3. Sleeping bags for everyone (anything from $30 and up), and if you're very delicate, a sleeping pad on which to lay each sleeping bag.  These are around $15 each at present, but who knows.  If you don't plan to camp in ultra-cold locations --and I wouldn't, if I were you-- all you need is to select a reputable manufacturer, and get the cheapest bags they offer.  [Consider getting sleeping bags whether you camp or not.  It is a lot of fun for younger people to camp out on the living room floor (after it has been carefully vacuumed).  Most kids eagerly welcome any change of routine, but there are a few odd types who are already, at age seven, creatures of habit.  The characteristics of the kids you have usually reflect your own!]
4. A moderate-sized cooler in which to store your food supplies.
5. Cooking equipment: a fry-pan, a 2-quart pot, knives and cutting-board, a bowl, a little trash can, which you can improvise, really; sturdy cutlery for everyone (don't use disposable stuff; it adds to the burden of the campground, and these are marginal operations, really), potato peeler, maybe a wooden spoon and a spatula for cooking.  Cups and plates.  A scrunge and dish detergent for cleanup.

[Avoid paper towels if you can, but I know this is asking a lot in these days.]  In addition, you need to bring along such things as toothbrushes, etc, and if you absolutely must, a roll of your favorite toilet paper, just in case you're picky.  There usually is usable toilet paper available, your tax dollars at work.

When our friends first took us out camping, we started with the most rigorous kind of camping first, in our case in the Blue Ridge of Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley.  This is a state campground, which meant at one time that there were no hot showers.  One thing that I'm ashamed of is that I have to have a hot shower at least every other night, so camping under non-hot-shower conditions was not an option for three nights running!

Selecting a tent site

Get to your site early, so that you have plenty of daylight.

When you drive up to the office area of a campground --bear in mind that camping is a laid-back sort of business, and the staff are not highly driven, suspicious motel types, but usually casually energetic folk who get bored waiting at the check-in counter-- you tell them what nights you want to camp, that you will be using only a tent, and then select a camping site.  These sites are shown on a sort of map, or you get taken round to look at the sites, or you get sent off to scout out the campsites, and come back with the number of the campsite you like.  (There are usually numbers on little posts at each campsite, so they can identify the one you're interested in.)  They tell you how much it will cost per night, and what they're giving you: e.g. electricity, water, and so on.

The important thing is to select a campsite on a slight rise.  Ideally, you should pick a dry spot on a slight mound, so that if there happens to be a shower in the night, the water will flow away from your tent.  Either a sandy spot or a grassy spot would be fine; a gravelly or stony spot will be impossible.  If a slight rise isn't available, a dry flat area is ok.  (The fact that it's dry would suggest that water hasn't collected there, which is good.)  Or you can hope that it will not rain...

Once you've paid for at least one night, drive round to the camping spot, park your vehicle carefully so that it isn't in the way for other campers, and you have easy access to it.  Then you go to the selected tent spot, and carefully pick out any large stones or debris, and put it aside.  Then you put up your tent, following the instructions.  (Kids are usually very sharp at figuring out tents, but adult supervision will usually be required.  Watch out for fingers, if sharp edges are involved.)

Tents are usually structured to be held up by poles or rods that hold up the fabric, and guy-ropes or stays that keep the poles/rods in position.  Make absolutely sure that the guy-ropes and stays are firmly anchored.  Guy-ropes should be at roughly 45 degrees, for a good compromise between pulling down and pulling over.  Tent pegs should be pushed or pounded in as deep as they will go, given that of course you have to pull them out at the end of your stay.  Again, 45 degrees.

While you're doing other things, keep the food locked up in the trunk of your car, in the cooler; otherwise, little critters (e.g. raccoons) will come looking for it, and they chew through your tent fabric to get at the food.  Even as we speak, evolution is creating new raccoons who can chew through your car trunk! 

Food!!

This could easily be the fun part of camping.  Everybody should join in, because it is something to do, since you don't have TV!  Quite good food is possible to fix in camp; for instance, if you have a fry pan, you could fry a little bit of sliced onion in a tiny bit of oil, cube a potato, cube some beef, cut up some vegetables, e.g. beans, carrots, turnips, and make a stew.  Everyone should help, and after the stew is on the stove, you need to have something to do for about half an hour.  You should not put the stew on and leave the campsite; this is just asking for trouble.  Apart from fire disasters, there could be wild critter disasters.  (You could half-cook the stew at home, and finish cooking it at camp, as your first meal.)

Washing up!

You have to wash up after the meal, of course.  It's less work for when you're ready to eat again, and smells a lot better.  First, you scrape off as much of the food as possible, and put it in a trash bag.  [Often campsites ask you to sort your trash into Dry Trash (goes in the land fill, oh dear), Food and Organic (goes in a compost heap, hopefully), Recyclable (glass, aluminum, plastic); please cooperate as much as you possibly can.]  There is usually a faucet near the campsites to do some preliminary rinsing.  In our family, we usually took the pre-rinsed utensils to the bathrooms to wash out with the minimum of detergent.   Other campers occasionally frowned at this.

Amusement

State and Federal campgrounds have become adept at providing good entertainment for easily bored youngsters (who would otherwise get into trouble): there is often talks by rangers about the surroundings of the camp, e.g. the geology, the forestry, the wildlife, and the history.  There are often sing-songs and performances, usually with quiet guitars and folk instruments; occasionally a movie, and in the larger campgrounds, hikes and tours.  Yellowstone, for instance, has museums and other very elaborate features.

At commercial campgrounds, there are often many of the above: definitely music, and often a pool and sunbathing facilities.  But there's nothing to prevent you from alternating camp-style entertainment with books and Ipods.  Anything you want to do that doesn't annoy your fellow-campers is fine; so coloring with crayons: thumbs up; subsequently cutting up your drawing into a thousand pieces and scattering the pieces around: thumbs down!

Breakfast!

After a night's sleep --usually the adult in charge worries too much to relax, but everyone else sleep like logs-- a good breakfast simply puts the crown on a successful camp night.  Most campers are big breakfast people, and with a little practice, it is possible to make the usual delightfully cholesterol-filled bacon or sausage and eggs, and maybe pancakes, too.  Whoever is fixing breakfast has to start early, because you usually only have one burner.  You have to decide whether you prefer to have eggs cold, or pancakes cold... I used to know clever ways of heating them up at the end, but I have forgotten.  (I never learned a decent way of dealing with leftover bacon grease; there has to be one...)

The cold cereal people are usually easy to please; a small amount of milk could have been brought in the cooler; milk is usually available at campgrounds.  It used to be interesting to taste milk from campgrounds across the country; now it probably all comes from Big Milk, as it is called, and probably mixed so that it has no taste whatever.  Cold cereal, of course, is easy to transport.  All the dry goods should be stored in a box or container that is easy to haul from the car to the camp table and back.  Again, wash the containers and bowls before putting away, to make your daytime exploring pleasant.

Hot cereal and oatmeal is a natural at camp; there is no special trick to it.  Cooking oats at camp is a bad idea, just because you're often left with a layer of oatmeal lining the pot, which has to be thrown away.

Lunch

should ideally be cold cuts, or pasta salad, or something you buy on your exploring trips.  Campgrounds will usually sell you prepared lunch-type food, but it is usually easy to get cold cut supplies from a neighborhood deli, and make your own sandwiches.  Sandwiches, too, can be eaten in the car (if you don't mind doing that), so that you can eat while you're headed back to camp, or while you drive from one attraction to the next.  If the whole group doesn't share responsibility for serving the food and clearing up, some person usually doesn't get to enjoy the camping trip very much!  On a first trip, every effort should be make not to get so fancy that you find yourself in trouble, nor so basic that you don't enjoy yourself.

Coffee and Tea

Most adults like one or the other; in cold weather, young people like hot chocolate.  So a billy can in which a quart or so of water can be heated up is useful.  Most people know how to improvise hot chocolate from dry packets.  Tea is prepared exactly the way you do it at home: boil the water, pour into a cup in which the tea has been put (bag or loose), let it steep covered, wait until the leaves sink to the bottom (if it was loose tea) and drink.

Coffee is made like tea.  Bring a small amount of your best coffee.  Boil the sweetest water you can get --you might need to buy a bottle of water if you're a coffee connoisseur.  Now you need a coffee-pot (or a tea pot; just a heavy container with a spout) into which you pour a teaspoon of coffee per person.  Pour in the hot water, wait for 3 minutes (or longer, if you must, but not so long that the coffee loses heat), and pour out.  The weight of the coffee-pot should keep it warm.

Practice at home, if you're motivated enough.  I often put less water into the coffee than I think I need, because if it's too strong, you can always dilute it with the leftover hot water.  If it is too weak, you can't do nothing.

Take as little as possible with you

The charm of camping is to improvise entertainment for yourself.  Kids tend to think of entertainment as flowing from toys and other objects.  In camp, though, the best entertainment for kids flows from adults, and the best entertainment for adults flows from the kids.  Older kids often make friends in the camp, and could be left to themselves, after a quiet check that they're not hooking up with kids who look frighteningly suspicious, or young adults of the same description.  Some guidelines such as be back by eleven, or play where we can see you go a long way towards making everyone comfortable with the situation.  Constant vigilance is probably good advice; you need to gradually find out just how much you can rely on the kids to stay out of trouble.  (You don't want your kids to get the kids of other campers in any sort of danger, either.)  It is usually a lot of fun when junior drags in a friend from a site across the way!  He or she will talk about this friend for days.  And she's probably going to be called Courtney, and is probably going to be from Florida, and you're going to wonder why the heck they have to come so far north, while you would give anything to live in Florida.

Leave your campground better and cleaner than you found it.  You may hate everyone outside your own family with a passion, but when camping one usually sets aside one's prejudices and makes sure that one doesn't sabotage the camping experience for other campers.  Consider transporting dry trash back home, e.g. paper, aluminum, plastic, etc, since you know how to recycle it at home, and must find out at camp.

Take sunscreen, anti-histamines, pain-killers, band-aids with you.  A small bottle of generic shampoo taken with you would save you a little money; baby shampoo will do for everybody.  Most places you would go on vacation will have the usual things you have at home, even if in an unfamiliar form; for instance, in Canada, Sweet and Low has slightly different ingredients and tastes different, and is, of course, labeled in both English and French!  Gasoline, of course, is sold in Liters (more or less the same as quarts) and costs a little more.

A.