On the Road With a Family

When our children were small we started camping for vacations. We also had my teenage niece living with us at the time. Sometimes we went to the White Mountains of New Hampshire, sometimes the Green Mountains of Vermont and sometimes the Adirondacks in our home state of New York. When our oldest daughter, Micki, was about eight or nine years old, she had started collecting baseball cards. One of the first ones she got was Minnesota Twins' slugger Harmon Killebrew. He became an instant favorite of hers, and she decided to write to tell him how much she liked him.

I figured at best she'd get a mechanically autographed picture from him, and that would be the extent of it. To our surprise, she received a handwritten letter from him, and he told her if she ever got to Minnesota to let him know and he'd arrange to meet her before a ballgame if he could. She wrote back to him unbeknownst to us and told him her family might go there on a camping trip the next summer. He wrote again and told her to be sure to call him and he would meet her at the ball park.

We had planned to take a three week vacation that spring and perhaps travel some of the Al-Can highway in Canada, so we started getting into serious planning mode. We decided we would go north to Quebec, across to Wisconsin and Minnesota and then down to Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and back home. We figured out the mileage, divided by the number of days we had for travel, and arrived at an average mileage per day. We then decided that the average day could be expanded and allow for a few days in two or three places. 

We decide Minneapolis was a good place to to take an extended break since Micki wanted to meet Mr. Killebrew. Then we figured a few days in Ohio or Pennsylvania someplace with a few days allowed to visit my aunt and uncle. We had also allowed a few spare days along the way in case of an unexpected layover because of bad weather or car problems. That way, We could still figure on getting home at the expected time. We made reservations at private campground in Minnesota, and one in Canada, but all the rest were municipal, state or other government owned.

We had purchased a second-hand tent a couple of years before, and a new Coleman lantern, heater, cooler, and stove. Because of the length of this trip, we also purchase a cartop rack for the extra gear, clothing, etc., that we would need for an extended trip like this. When we finally had our "game plan" mapped out we found we could spend several days in Minnesota, which was about the halfway point of the trip and several more in Pennsylvania. We made reservations for the campground in Minnesota, and set up a meeting time with Mr. Killebrew. The trip was setup for the last three weeks of May and first few days of June.

The first day we drove north to Quebec to a provincial campground. When we arrived, there was nobody on duty at the entrance booth, but a sign advised us to go ahead and pick out a site and setup camp, that someone would be by later to collect the fee. There were already several sites occupied, but still many to pick from. After driving around a couple of times, we chose a site that was near both water and the outhouses. Mite and I erected the tent while Tom and the kids looked for firewood for a campfire. Although we planned on using the stove for most cooking, there are some things that just taste better over an open fire, like hotdogs and marshmallows and of course, a campfire is great to sit by and tell stories.

Two large sites across from us had several tents, campers, and trailers there, and several picnic tables were grouped together, so we assumed it was a family reunion of some sort. Later, when they group returned, we discovered it was a large band of gypsies. Yup, real gypsies, who sang, danced and partied all night. Oh, boy! This trip was getting off to a real bang, and I should have realized that this was just an omen of things to come. 

Soon after Mite and I got the tent setup, a group of about twenty to thirty girls moved into the site behind ours. These were all youngsters, ranging in age from about thirteen to eighteen years old, so we guessed they were girl scouts, or something like that. Wrong again! They were all young lovers, we soon found out as they started pairing off and necking openly. This was a little hard to explain to children as young as ours were at this time. This was to be a long night with little sleep and many learning experiences. My naivete was cracked wide open that night, but was going to be opened further before this trip ended.

It started raining shortly after we had supper that night and continued throughout the night with short breaks now and then. This meant packing up a wet tent in the morning, but we had to get moving early, as we had reservations for that night three hundred miles west of there. The sun came out shortly after we finished loading the car, so we had a nice day to travel. In late afternoon we arrived at our destination. This was a little private campground with rather small sites, but it was nice. Mite and I put up the tent while Tom took the kids to the play area to work off some of the pent up energy. The tent dried out in about a half hour, but shortly after dinner time the rain started again.

The next morning we packed up a wet tent again and headed west toward Wisconsin. Our destination for the day was Twelve Foot Falls Campground in Wisconsin, a community owned campsite several miles back into the woods off the main highway. Little arrows pointed the way through a maze of crossroads and wilderness. We arrived to find a very small campground with about a dozen sites, an outhouse and one water source. A sign said to find a site, setup and that someone would be by to collect the fee later. There was a small camping trailer on one site, and the rest were empty, so we picked out the nicest of the lot and setup camp. Tom and the kids did the usual little chores of hunting up firewood and filling the water jugs.

We all took a walk to visit the the falls, which as the name suggests, is not very big, but rather pretty. After dinner we had a short rain shower, but at least it didn't pour all night. We had a campfire and toasted marshmallows just before dark. Mite and I sat out by the fire talking till after eleven o'clock.

Some time during the night, I was awakened by something bumping my head which was against the tent wall. I sat up, and thinking it was a large raccoon, bellowed, "Get out of here.!" I laid back down and could hear things going bump in the night. I yelled out again. This startled Mite awake and she asked what was the matter. I told it was just an old raccoon out there wandering around looking for food. Then we heard the trash cans being tipped over one by one as we laid there talking quietly.

When it was finally quiet, Mite said she really needed to go up to the outhouse; but she was afraid to go alone, so I grabbed my flashlight and walked with her the hundred yards or so up the road. In the morning, we discovered that our car and the campsite were covered with footprints, but not those of a raccoon. To our surprise, our nocturnal visitor had been a huge bear. Boy, am I glad that I didn't look out during the night, or I wouldn't have slept at all the rest of the night.

Getting out of there was a bit tricky. No arrows pointed the way out and most of the arrows pointing into the campground seemed to have vanished during the night. We had nothing to guide us, and we went by the same telephone pole at least a dozen times, either that or they numbered a lot of them the same in there to be funny. Mite began to cry and panic. She kept saying, "I'm never going to see my sisters again, and I'm never going to grow up and get married and have kids. We're lost in the woods of Wisconsin." Well, truthfully I wanted to join in that chorus, at least the part about being lost in the woods of Wisconsin, going round in circles. Needless to say, we got lucky and eventually found our way out of this maze of dirt roads and got back to the main highway, because I'm writing this dumb story.

Next stop Minnesota! We had reservations at a private campground just outside the twin cites area. It appeared that this used to be a farm, as the land was very level and the trees were few and far between. At least the place had showers and indoor toilets. I was tired of heating water to bathe the kids out of a basin. They also had a nice recreation room for all ages and a play area for the kids, and a small camp store as well.

The second night here was to be Micki's big meeting with Harmon Killebrew. Tom and Micki headed out for the ball game early, and Micki took along a poster she had made for him. When they returned after the game, Micki was still wired. Mr. Killebrew had met them at the gate, showed them around and introduced them to the other players in the dugout. He posed for pictures with her on the field, gave her an autographed baseball and invited them to the club dining room. Tom and Micki had eaten before leaving the camp, but did have room for a soda pop. They also had tickets for seats right behind the dugout, and Micki rooted loudly for Mr. Killebrew every time he came up to bat.

Micki with Harmon Killebrew out on the field
 

Micki's pride and joy, her autographed ball from Harmon Killebrew!

The first day here, we met a lady from Kentucky and her kids. They were spending the whole summer there in a trailer. Her husband worked for a construction company, and so she and the kids went along to be together. We visited back and forth every day, mostly in the rain. On the third evening Tom and I were at her trailer for coffee when Tom kicked me under the table. At first I didn't understand why, and then I suddenly realized that I was "talking Kentucky". I guess it's part of being dyslexic, but I have always had an ear for accents. If I am around anyone with any kind of an accent, I start talking like them in no time at all. The more I tried to stop it, the worse it got. I finally decided to tell her what was happening, so she wouldn't think that I was making fun of her or something. She laughed and said, "I don't have an accent, but you do!" After five days of being around her I really had the accent ingrained pretty deeply. As we departed for Indiana, I took part of Kentucky with me. The accents are easy to acquire, but hard to shake off.

Our next scheduled stop was outside Indianapolis, and as expected, the rain followed us into camp. This campground was basically just a big field and we were told to put up our tent wherever there was room. There were no real sites, just grassy areas with tents erected on them. Tents, trailers and pop-up tents were parked about 20 feet apart in no particular arrangement. We finally found an area where there was about 125 feet by 50 feet with nothing on it. Before bedtime there were three or four more tents squeezed into that space. All night long I kept getting woke up by either talking, laughing or snoring. Oh, yes, in the morning we had to roll up a wet tent again.

Onward to Illinois, where we planned to spend the night at a state campground about 20 miles from Chicago. Wow! This was another adventure. In some places the tents were almost touching each other. We parked our car about thirty feet from where we planned to erect the tent to try to avoid this pileup. As we watched things unfold that night, we were glad we did. One guy about fifty feet away climbed up a tree and sawed a huge branch off the tree. It fell onto his tent and bent his tent poles, but that didn't discourage him. He came down and hacked it into small pieces and tried to start a fire with it about five or six feet from his tent.. Of course, green wood does not burn, so he poured a can of Coleman fuel on it and lit it. This caused flames to leap about ten feet into the air, just long enough to catch the attention of a park ranger who came flying over there with a pumper truck. 

After extinguishing the flames, the rangers handed the man a ticket for destroying park property, one for not using a fire place or fire ring and another for endangering other visitors to the park. He was then given ten minutes to vacate the premises. This was to be another night of little or no sleep for anyone. The revelers kept up the racket way past the ten o'clock quiet time posted. Sometime around midnight the folks two tents behind ours were still laughing, talking and clanking beer bottles, when my patience finally ran out. I sat up and yelled, "Shut up for God's sake. Some people have to get up in the morning!" To my surprise, the only sounds heard after that were tent zippers, cooler lids, car door and finally whispers and snores. Gee, why didn't I do that sooner?

In the morning, we drove off, headed for Ohio where we planned to stay one night at a small state campground. Lo and behold, the rain followed us eastward and arrived right after the tent was erected. Dinner was cooked and served in the tent again. Other than having a slightly larger site and a less rowdy bunch of campers, this stop was rather uneventful.

Onward to Pennsylvania, where the plan was to spend several day at Raccoon Creek State Park outside of Pittsburgh, and then northward to Colmar to visit my aunt and uncle for a few days. The state campground was way up on the side of a mountain. It was a rather large facility with good sized sites. There was a large bathroom about a hundred feet from our site. The ladies' side had four or five stalls in the toilet area, and about a dozen dressing rooms in a large room off to the side.

On the second night there, Tom had tickets to a Pirate ballgame. At this time he was still an avid Pittsburgh fan. Since Micki had had her special game with Harmon Killebrew, Bill had been given the privilege of going to this game. Mite and I had no interest in going to a game, and Kathy was too little to enjoy or even be interested in such and event. We gals were content to be left behind for the evening.

After dinner, Tom and Bill left for the game and the rest of us settled in to have a marshmallow roast. Later we walked around the campground. At dusk, I put the little ones to bed but they were not eager to go to sleep. After all, Bill was getting to stay up later for the ballgame. Just about the time that I got them settled in, there arose a terrible growling from the bushes behind our site. I picked up the flashlight and shined it in the direction of the clamor. There were several raccoons fighting over something. I caught a glimpse of pieces of hotdogs on the ground. Apparently, the people who had been in that site behind us had thrown their excess food in the bushes instead of the trash can.

I turned around to find Mite standing on top of the picnic table screaming. Kathy and Micki were looking out the tent window yelling too. I tried to calm the girls but they were afraid. I lit the Coleman lantern and put it on the table. Then I told the girls to come on out to the table and we'd play a game of Kismet, a dice game. Kathy was only about three and a half but she knew how to play the game really well, and I figured this would distract them from the now low rumblings and hisses in the bushes.

As we continued to play Kismet, the noise in the bushes gradually ceased. Suddenly Mite jumped up screaming and climbed on the table again. She started yelling, "They're under the table". Kathy and Micki followed suit. I shined the flashlight under the table, and a half dozen pairs of eyes gleamed back at me. Caught off guard, I also climbed atop the table. Suddenly I started laughing to think how silly we must look. I calmed down and started talking calmly to the critters below. One by one they came out in the open.

I was now sitting on the table top, with my feet on the bench. A little furry hand reached up and touched my foot. I almost screamed out, but managed to stifle it and talk quietly to the owner of the paw. He climbed up on the bench and sat down next to my foot staring up at me with little golden saucers. As I talked to him, he reached out again and felt my sock, then my calf. Apparently convinced now that I was of little danger to him, he was content to sit there watching me as I talked to him. Then there was a shriek from the bushes and he jumped down and ran off in the direction of the noise.

We had several more encounters with the raccoons over the next few days, but none quite as "touching" as that night. On the fourth day, we went out for a ride to explore the area. It was memorial day weekend, and the campground was full. We spent most of the day out driving around, and returned around dinner time. I noticed that the rangers were not at the entrance booth when we came back through and that all the sites around ours were empty. I thought this was a bit strange, but had no idea why.

I started dinner, and the kids took a walk around the campground. I told them they could make on trip around the loop and come back, that supper should be ready by then. Dinner was almost done cooking when it began to get very dark and windy. I yelled for the kids to come back to the site. It began to rain lightly, so I shut off the stove and moved all the gear inside the tent, where I finished cooking the meal. By the time we ate, it was pouring; thunder roared, lightening flashed and the wind howled fiercely. The kids were kind of bored and tired acting so I suggested we all take a little nap. It wasn't six o'clock yet, and normally we would have had two to three more hours of daylight at that time of year, but the storm brought total dark with it, so the kids were willing to rest.

Around ten thirty or so I rolled over in my sleep and my arm splashed in a puddle. Half awake, I was wondering who wet the bed, when I suddenly realized the puddle was cold and deep. I grabbed my flashlight from under my clothes bag that I was using for a pillow and shined it around the tent. To my surprise, the kids were floating in about five inches of water. Their rubber coated mattress pads were like little rafts. I woke up everyone and got them into the car.

Tom, Mite and I ran back and forth getting sleeping bags, mats and gear from the tent. Now what? I told Tom that the ladies' dressing room was large and had concrete floors so it should be dry in there. There was only one site between us and there, but in that storm I figured it was better to drive right up next to the door. I told Tom and Mite to get the kids into the dressing room, and then Tom and I brought in all the gear. We strung ropes between stalls and hung the sleeping bags and pads on them. We used the lantern, the stove and the tent heater to dry them. It was about midnight by the time we got the kids' bags dried and got them back to sleep on the floor in one of the large stalls. It was another hour or so before the other sleeping bags were dry.

Finally, I was able to call it a night, but I left the lantern and the heater on, the latter for warmth, the former because I didn't want to be in the dark in there. I must have woke up at least a dozen times during the next few hours. Every little creaking noise had me on full alert. My mind raced with questions. "What will happen if the rangers catch us sleeping here?" "Will we get arrested for setting up camp in here?" Try to sleep when you're afraid you'll wind up in jail. 

About seven thirty someone came into the ladies' room off the dressing room. I sat up on full alert. I got up and went into the bathroom. There was a woman about forty five or so. She asked if that was our car out by the door. I told her about our tent getting flooded out. She said that she and her husband had a small trailer and that it had been rocking in the wind during the night. She also told me there was only one other group in the campground in one of those popup tent trailers. I asked where everyone went, and she said a ranger had come around about three o'clock and advised everyone to get out as there was a tornado warning issued. Then she told us we were going to have fun getting our car out of the mud. That was an understatement.

During the night, our car had sunk into the grassy lawn area almost to the axles. She was right. We had "fun" alright. We muddied up our sleeping bags and mats getting it out. Then we went to our campsite to find that a huge limb from the tree behind our tent had come down across it. Man, were we lucky that we had vacated when we did! We were paid up for two more nights at the campground, but there was no way we were going to get this gear cleaned up and dried before evening, so we headed for my aunt and uncle's house in Colmar.

When we pulled up in front of the house, Aunt Caroline came rushing out to greet us. "Where have you been?", she asked, "I expected you yesterday." I told her we were actually two days early, but the last storm was too much for our tent. Uncle George let us erect the tent out back to dry it out. I asked where the nearest laundromat was, as I wanted to get the sleeping bags, the pads and the kids clothes washed. Aunt Caroline insisted that we would use her machines. I tried to tell her the stuff was too muddy and too big to do in her machines, but she would not hear of us going to the laundromat. It took Mite and I the rest of that day to get all of it done. When we were finished doing laundry, Mite and I cleaned up the mess, washed down the whole room and mopped the floor. We had really filthied up the whole room dragging in all that muddy stuff.

Aunt Caroline, in the meantime, had fed us all a big lunch and called all the relatives to arrange get-togethers over the next couple of days. I had not seen some of my cousins and second cousins in many years, so I was eager to see all of them. Uncle George was always my favorite uncle and of course, Aunt Caroline was my favorite aunt. I think that our visit with my cousin Doris and her husband Emil was the most memorable, especially for the kids.

We followed Uncle George over to Doris's house in the morning and spent the day visiting with Doris and her daughter Barbara. When Emil and Clark, their son, came in from work in the late afternoon, we were invited to stay for a cookout. That was a lot of fun. Kathy sat next to Emil and acted shy, but before long she was sitting in his lap being fed and babied. Mite and I helped Doris with some of the food preparation.

At one point, I had left the kitchen to use the bathroom and Tom entered the kitchen for a drink of water. I later found out that Doris had asked Tom where I got the southern accent. Tom told her it wasn't a southern accent but Kentucky. She then asked where I got a Kentucky accent and he replied, "Minnesota" and left the kitchen. That's Tom for you. To my knowledge, poor Doris never did find out where I came by that accent.

All, in all, this was one of the most exciting and memorable trips we ever took. In spite of the fact that we probably saw more rain in that twenty three days than Noah did, it did not drown our passion for camping. Later that summer, we purchased a new cabin tent on sale and continued camping for many years. Later, Tom bought a large backpacking tent and we took many trips into the Adirondacks of New York, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the Green Mountains of Vermont and also on the Appalachian Trail in Maine. Those are other stories, for other times. Until then, keep your bottoms dry!
 

On The Road With a Family Copyright E.E.Lee, 
Glens Falls, New York, 1999-2001

Background made by Betty Lee, using the graphic on top, 
which was drawn using Aldus PhotoStyler.