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OT - Throwback Thursday

Aniki-Moderator's picture

Hey, STalkers! It's been a long while since I posted a Throwback Thursday, so away we go.

I was talking with SD28 last night and she mentioned that she and BD want to get a summer vacation with their boys before school starts. And I'm thinking, "School?? Already?!" But July is two-thirds of the way over and school starts in a few weeks. Time is flying. (Someone forgot to tell me I'm having too much fun...) We got to talking about trips when we were kids (oy, I'm feeling OLD!) and SD asked me what my favorite trip was. Hard to narrow it down to one.

I grew up in a big family: 5 kids, most of the time. 7 for the years we had two foster sisters. That's a lot of bodies! We did a lot of traveling and weekend trips every summer (big family reunions on Mom's side every year). When you have 7-9 bodies, staying in a hotel/motel can get a little pricey. So we camped. We stayed at KOA so many times, we should've gotten Frequent Camper Miles.

I LOVED camping! Picking out the site (when we could), pitching the tents (that musty smell never goes away), setting up the equipment, getting water from the pump, building the fire, eating at a picnic table that Mom covered with red-checked cloth, playing as hard as we could before we crashed for the night, going to sleep smelling of OFF and usually on top of the sleeping bags because it was too warm to crawl inside... Those were the days!

My oldest brother has always been a bit of an arrogant arse. One year, our campground was near a river. I'm 110% a water baby, so that was AWESOME. The river had some sandbars and we were having a blast playing on them. Most of them were like little beaches in the middle of the water, which we thought was really cool. Well, Ol' Arse was being his usual arrogant arse self and was striding along a particularly wide sandbar. When he reached the edge, he assumed it was like the others: gradually sloping into the river. NOPE. Ol' Arse took a step off of the sandbar and into the water.... and dropped like a rock into water that was over his head! The rest of us laughed so hard, we were lying/on our knees crying with laughter. Not Ol' Arse! He came shooting out of that water, sputtering, saw us laughing and said, "It's not funny!" and proceeded to stomp back to the campground. I can still see the water streaming down his red face. *lol*

 

What's one of your favorite Summer memories?

Comments

WarMachine13's picture

Camping rules!! Add fishing to that and I'm living the dream. My dad took me on a "man's" vacation with some of his buddies. I was the only kid (13) and kinda skinny. One guy owned a deli and brought a big cooler full of meats and cheeses. I started making a sandwich and used 2 slices of meat. Meier said "boy you need to eat like a MAN so you grow". He musta slapped half a pound of meat on there. Best sandwich I ever ate!!

ProbablyAlreadyInsane's picture

When I was a kid we didn't travel much, and I admit my memory honestly isn't great these days. BUT we did do yearly camping trips with some family friends :)  LOVED those.  Went  to one that had all kinds of slippery smooth rocks, you'd rock climb up the back and slide down the front Smile

Aniki-Moderator's picture

That sounds like fu! Were they lava rocks, PA? I may be wrong, but I thought some lava rocks worn down by water were smooh and slippery.

classyNJ's picture

My Oma had a VW camper with the popup with bed.  We camped all over the US and Canada.  Some of the best times.

Every Sunday when I was early teens, my mom, aunt, uncle and cousins were waken up at 5 am to canoe.  Not your normal trip, but an 8 hour trip.  We would drop off a vehicle upstream - yes I said upstream - and drove to where we would start downstream.  My aunt liked to paddle!  So a normal 3 hour trip downstream took 8 hours.  I lived my early teen Sundays of hearing people on the river yelling (hey you guys are going the wrong way).  She and my uncle have since passed, but at family gatherings my mom pulls out the pictures from those trips and we always remember them fondly Smile

 

IDontCare3117's picture

My older sister went to band camp.  She's got me by 9 years.  I was 6 ot 7 y/o and drew a picture of me crying because she was gone, and I missed her.   The tears covered 3 pages.  I hung it over her bed so she saw when she came home.

Aniki-Moderator's picture

Three pages?! You must've missed her something fierce, IDC. 

My Mom kept a picture I drew when I was 5 or 6. I'd gotten in trouble for something and drew a pic (stick figure) of me crying and put it under Dad's tea cup. 

WalkOnBy's picture

Ani, you will appreciate this more than most...when I was a kid, we used to spend one week every summer in these little teeny cabins on the shores of Lake Michigan near Manistique.   They looked like Lincoln Log cabins and there was a slide out in the lake off the dock.  I learned to swim one summer when my dad took me out to the dock and threw me in - lol.

The week was almost as fun as the drive up and down (from Detroit!) sitting in the back of the station wagon in the rear facing seat (why on EARTH those were ever a thing is beyond me) trying to get every truck on I-75 to blow their horns :-) 

Aniki-Moderator's picture

WOB, I need the <3 emoji! 

We had one of those station wagons with a rear-facing seat when I was very young. It was vans after that. In fact, my Dad still owns a van!

Felicity0224's picture

My grandparents lived on this really beautiful property that backed up to a national forest. As the oldest grandchild I would often go and stay with them for several weeks in the summer while my siblings and cousins would all rotate through for a few days at a time until they eventually were old enough to stay for longer stretched too. It was paradise. My grandmother cooked three full meals a day, and in between meals I was just outside all the time. Wandering around the forest, riding horses, sitting on the porch with my grandfather, playing in the creek that I was definitely not supposed to, riding my bike around the backroads. My dad's youngest brother was only 14 years older than me and made great money when he went into the oil field straight out of high school, but didn't marry until much later in life. So when he was around he would go nuts buying fireworks and toys for us kids and build bonfires every night. We'd pick watermelons out of the garden and drop them on the ground to crack them open and just eat them right out of the rind with a spoon sitting around the fire. 

Of course at the time, I didn't know that was anything special. Now when I think about it, I'd give just about anything to have one more day there and it's bittersweet that my kiddo is such a city kid and never got to experience anything like that. 

Aniki-Moderator's picture

Felicity, that sounds wonderful! There's much to be said about being outside all of the time. While this certainly cannot compare to your paradise, I remember one year, Mom and I flew to DC to stay with her sister, who was recovering from surgery. My uncle worked full-time and Mom was caring for my aunt, so there was nothing to do...except swim all day long. While I prefer lakes over pools, it was somewhat of a water-lover's dream. I hit that pool as soon as it opened, got to eat lunch, went back, got out for dinner, and went back until it closed. For 17 soggy days. It probably took my swimsuit 2 days to dry out. LOL

FTR, they were my fave aunt and uncle so spending even a short amount of time with them was great.

24 years as a SM's picture

I have a morbid sense of what was fun from my childhood. My parents took all 9 of us kids and 3 cousins on a two week camping trip up to the Mountain Shasta area of Northern California. How my parents kept from killing all of kids, I don't know. My Great-Uncle had a cabin that sat on a gold mining claim and we had a blast, panning for gold, fishing, and swimming in the creek next to the cabin. One day we went to Whiskeytown Lake and spent the whole day fishing and swimming. On the way back to camp we noticed a lot of smoke, we didn't know that a forest fire had started about a mile from the cabin. When we reached the cabin my great-uncle told us to grab shovels and put the water pump into the creek, because the fire was coming our way, we didn't even think about evacuating.

Most of the property was clear of any under brush, we spent about an hour fighting small fires in the pine needles and leafs on the ground from flying hot embers. We could hear the sirens and fire planes flying over, but couldn't see anything because of all the smoke. Out of no where, a plane flew in really low and dropped borate retardant on the cabin and us, We looked like we had been in a bloody massacre, completely cover in wet red paste of the borate. Great Uncle was laughing like a crazy man and yelling at everyone to get in the creek and wash the borate off before it starting irritating our skin. I still have a color photo that was taken, before we got into the creek, all of us, red from head to toe, with the biggest grins on all our faces.

Two of my sisters are blonde and the borate, even though it was rinsed out quick, turn their hair pink, it slowly faded out over the summer.

DPW's picture

I love that you brought up camping. I grew up camping, all kinds, and continue to do it often, all levels, now. Nature grounds me. In two weekends I'm heading out by myself to camp on some government land near some chutes and waterfalls. I can't wait.

When the border opens, you should come and camp on this side of Lake Superior!

TheAccidentalSM's picture

Dad's job moved fairly frequently so my parents told us to think the change of venue like a holiday visit.  Plus they were always beyond broke and wouldn't camp.  LOLZ

So when we were off school we spent the summer in museums, art gallaries, etc (free aircon).  Even when we had a ski trip planned, Dad baulked at the last minute (after we had arrived at the ski resort) and we drove on to Florence instead.

I'm still a city break type person as a result.  Last trip was to a town on the Med.

Aniki-Moderator's picture

TASM, I'm not much of a city gal, but I think that's cool! There were a couple of times we were in big cities and hit the musuems. When I was 10yo, we visited my fave aunt and uncle (Mom's side) in DC and visited the Smithosonian, Lincoln Memorial, and the White House. I've been to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago three times (once as a kid, twice as an adult). 

Recently, DH and I were talking about making a "city trip" to see the art museum. Smile