Camping Out

When I married Sam, I came into a family with a long experience in camping out. We have pictures of his parents' road trip to Colorado in the 20's. They traveled in a "touring car" with shades that pulled down over the windows. At night, they slept in cots by a fire. My parents never did such things. The closest my dad got to nature was fishing.

Shortly after our marriage Sam and I accompanied his sister and brother-in-law (Dorothy and Sam Morse) on a camping trip to Big Bend. It was not only my introduction to camping, but also to many family dynamics. We slept outside in sleeping bags on cots (with mine as close to my Sam as I could get). Sam M. said that he woke in the night to see skunks playing under my cot.

I found that the best thing about camping was the food--the men always cooked. At first, I resisted eating anything cooked on "cow chips" (dried cow manure). When they introduced me to the tasty world of "fried toast", resistance fell. (Slather both sides of bread with softened butter and then fry in a frying pan with more melted butter.) Sam M. was a scoutmaster and a top-notch camp cook. Top off the fried toast with homemade strawberry jelly, bacon and scrambled eggs,
and camp coffee (coffee cooked in an old perculator on the fire), and it was a feast for the gods. There were also the baked potatoes,wrapped in foil and put in coals before we went exploring. Coming home to them was heaven.

Dorothy and Sam M. are gone now, but I treasure those pleasure-filled days when a city girl learned the joys of nature's bounty.