Some camping/hiking pictures

Rigel had asked me about pictures of camping trips that we've taken. We don't camp anymore (largely because I've bad disk problems in my back and because of the cats), but we used to camp regularly. We love amusement parks and love the large roller coasters. We preferred camping instead of staying in hotels.

These pictures are from the very early 1980s....hence the sepia tone to the pictures. They were taken at a campground close to Six Flags in New Jersey. Now keep in mind that back in the 80s, all the guys had beards and longer hair. Now? Both my wonderful DH and my wonderful brother are pretty much hairless!

This is my brother, Randy, (dark hair) and my husband, Rick (the blond). They were clowning around one morning while making breakfast. Bacon and eggs, toast, orange juice and coffee. Who needs a restaurant....that was a great breakfast! And you can tell that those two were having a good time cooking.



Six Flags has an animal kingdom and you just drive your car through the different areas. We were going through the large bird habitat and the ostrich was at the car in front of us. The ostrich walked back to our car; my brother had his window down (a big no-no in those areas). Well, the ostrich walked back to us and stuck his head right through the car window and tried to peck at my brother! Randy was beside himself, trying to get the window up without getting pecked.



We drove through the baboon section of the park and that was hysterical. A mama baboon climbed up my car, perched herself right in front of the front window (on the driver's side yet!) and started playing with the windshield wiper. How do you drive when you can't see where you're going? You don't. I stopped and eventually, she got tired of us and scampered to the car in front of us. She climbed up the rear of the car and sat on the roof. How do I know it was a mama? Because there were three little ones crying and trying to get on the roof of the car, too.

We used to camp at Raystown, a lovely recreational area in Pennsylvania. I remember being in the tent during a really bad thunderstorm, but we were fine. The next morning, I cooked our breakfast over the campfire and then headed over the restrooms for a nice, hot shower. As I was drying my hair with my electric dryer, a lady walked into the restroom. She stopped and told me that she and her husband had thought about us all night throughout the storm and wondered how we made out in our tent. Then they saw us cooking breakfast and they knew we were OK. But she told me that she really admired us for "roughing it"! As I'm drying my hair with my electric hair dryer!

There are a lot of other pictures, but they're really old and they all have that sepia tone. We've camped in a lot of places and rode many, many large coasters throughout the eastern US. We still love our coasters, but now we tend to stay in motels instead of camp.

The following pictures are from a hiking trip that DH and I took one summer to a state park in PA. Our church does a chicken BBQ dinner in the summer; we stopped at the church, picked up our dinners and had a lovely picnic by one of the falls on our hike. I forget how many waterfalls we saw, but each one was beautiful in its own way. Here are some of them:







Thank you for looking! And Rigel? Thank you for asking!

Thanks, guys! We used to love to go camping and we've had some wonderful experiences.

My parents started camping when we were kids. We had a big old station wagon....my dad built these beds using a wooden frame and canvas. Mom and Dad slept in the back of the station wagon and my sister and brother slept in the beds right above my parents. I was older and taller, so I slept in the front seat of the car.

We went from the station wagon to an old army-type tent. Then to a pop-up that we towed. Then finally to a camper trailer that slept eight people.

After I got married, DH and I bought a tent and camped for several years. I learned how to cook over the fire and some of our best meals were made over the camp fire; DH still talks about a delicious stew that I put together, including freshly baked biscuits. We would make dinner with the camp fire, then, after the fire died down to red-hot coals, we would make mountain pies and roast marshmallows.

I will say that, as a rule, campers are great neighbors. Always willing to help people out and always willing to share. We met some wonderful people while we were camping and we're still friends with several of the couples to this day. Sometimes we would get invited to share our camping neighbors' fire; other times, we'd invite our neighbors to come over to us. The mountain pies and the s'mores we made! We'd start out with pizza mountain pies and then move to the fruit pies. And they were just delicious.

We have a lot of great memories of camping experiences.

One of the things we'd like to be in our back yard is a permanent fire pit. It's so relaxing to sit by a fire. Sometimes we'll talk, but more often we'll find outselves settling down to watch the logs burn. It's almost hypotizing to watch the flames from a fire. If we do put the pit in, we'll be able to sit around at night with a nice fire. And we'll be able to cook over the pit, too.

Zohdee, I don't even know if Six Flags still has their animal habitats....it's been so long since we were there the last time. There were all kinds of areas...my favorite was the big cat habitat; that was another area where the car windows had to stay up at all times. I have a beautiful picture of a male lion in mid-roar, but I can't find it.

I'd love to see your Blackwater pictures. When you get time, could you post them, please? I bet they're beautiful.

Thanks for looking, everybody!