A new family adventure (pre trip)

Ah, camping trips, they are always memorable aren’t they? My last and only camping trip was way back in 1979-80, I was in 7th or 8th grade then. A pack of city-slicker kids from Taipei traveled to Kaohsiung and set up camp near ChengChing Lake. It was early summer but the southern Taiwan was already a hot dome. If you thought the men’s locker room smells bad, the tent which we stays in was…well, use your imagination. We had to cook our own meals, wash our own laundry and fend off the bloodthirsty mosquitoes.

Fast forward to present, my wife and two sons have never been on any camping trip so this is going to be an interesting experience. When the trip plan was announced over a month ago my wife has been very apprehensive about it. She is a total city girl so just the thought of being in the "wilderness" makes her jumpy. The place we are going is a State Park in Ohio, about 40 minutes southeast Cincinnati. As far as I know, there are shower stalls, water faucets and even electricity! How much of the wilderness can that be?

The only camping we had done as a family was when my sister and her family visited us two years ago. I had just bought a tent and set it up upstairs for my boys to have a "sleep over" with their cousins. They had a lot of fun "camping" inside the house. They played silly games, traded spooky stories and had a great time.

Going through the camping checklist I found a few items short so I stopped by Wally World and picked up a few sleeping bags, extra long bath towels, bug spray, sun screen, etc. Now my wife jumps when she sees a tiny spider and a couple of ants will give her the goosebumps. She is already thinking about booking herself into an air conditioned cabin….I can’t help but shake my head. This is going to be a fun trip!



original post date: May 21, 2009