Camping

[GaretJax]

Hey, Flora. They are 11 and 5. I know they'll do fine. And you're right, I don't understand these folks that want to go camping and "rough it", and then bring all of the luxuries of home....including generators!!!! Being ex-military, I'm used to a poncho liner and my rucksack. "Travel light freeze at night". But I spent many a long, cold wet night in swamps and jungles and many other places while in the Army swearing to myself that I would never be cold, wet and hungry again.. .......so I pamper myself with a fire and a sleeping bag now....and real food.

[flora]

My husband came home from a business trip this week and informed me that he had bought me something. My first reaction of course was "What did you do?" He checks out the sport stores where ever he is and had found a sleeping bag marked way down in price. Not surprising in that it was made for 0 degree weather and I think we were hitting 97 that day. My next thought was we have an ongoing competition in November about who will cave in the first on admitting they are too cold. Now I wonder just where we will be camping in November?

Then today my husband said he was going to buy a elk call. He was remembering a special individual that we came across hiking one day. We heard him way off blowing the thing and since we were in a national park we knew he wasn't hunting. Oh those special people you meet out on the trail! He was alerting the bears that he was in the area. We thus named him the "Elk Man" and have a laugh each time we think of him.

But to get back to the elk call, I told my husband that we could save money by just taking a balloon with us. You blow the balloon up and then make the same sound by slowly releasing the air. Yes, it does sound like an elk. You can't tell me God doesn't have a sense of humor creating this huge animal then give it a "Mickey Mouse" bugle. My husband (aka Balloon Man) didn't appreciate my sense of humor.

Do you think that he might go elk hunting with MY sleeping bag and WITHOUT me?

Flora

[Patch]

Unless you hate camping, if your husband goes Elk hunting, I would recommend you go too. Even if you do not hunt, the experience of a "high country" elk hunt (preferably guided) is one never to be forgotten.

Slàinte,    

Patch    

[Harlot]

I camped in Wellston Michigan and we had a bear come in our site one night. The brave man I was with wouldn't even get out of his sleeping bag to even look. Next day we told the lady at the camp store about it and she wanted to know if it had a collar on(like I was looking for that).She tolds us that the DNR trap them but a collar on them then turn them out and keep track of them that way. And one more thing, there were 4 of us in the whole camp ground it could of attacked us and they would of never of known til someone for us. That was the only thing I thought of at the time.

[Patch]

That is what I call communing with nature. Bears are opportunists and will visit camp grounds and garbage dumps in search of morsels. Black bears are relatively safe and will come no closer to us than they are confortable with. The two brown species of the North West and North are a different book entirely as are polar bears. We are part of their food chain and they will not hesitate if hungry enough.

Any bear encounter can get your blood pressure up though.

Slàinte,   

 Patch    

[flora]

I have had the chance to romp in the Smokey Mountains for a couple of days. There has been an explosion in the bear count. We didn't go a single day without running into at least one. It was so funny to be going along then up pops a bear out of thick brush to get its bearing (no pun intended). Twice we had to be cautious as the bear was on the other side of our favorite swimming spot. They are such amazing climbers for their size and shape. The population explosion is due to a previous abundance of acorns and berries allowing females to reach a healthy size to reproduce. I am worried that we will have an early fall and winter thus cutting into the food source. Then the bears tend to get into trouble.

Flora

[Nilsemann]

We usually go camping for our summervacation, last year we had two weeks of camping, 3 days of sun, the rest rained away. I was outside digging, trying to lead the water away from the tent, rather futile attempt
Luckily eventually we got a call from work asking us if we could... YESS, we went home and dried up.
This year we rented a cabin

[Shadows]

I sure miss my camping!
I have not been out for several years now due to a disability, but I sure do miss it!!