Camping used to be a huge thing in my family. When I was a kid. Before my mom passed away.

Every July my mom would pick a new state, a new place, that we’d drive to for a week, and camp. In a tent. Yeah, we were those people. You know the ones. The ones who wanted to camp but couldn’t afford an RV or the like, but we could afford a tent that held six grown adults. So that’s what we did.

I say it was yearly. Honestly, we didn’t camp every year. Some years we traveled and just stayed in a motel or at a family’s house. && it wasn’t every single year of my life. We started traveling in Summers after I turned 12. So for four years we done a vacation in July, always the week of my mom’s birthday. It was basically a gift to herself that we all enjoyed.

The first trip was to Michigan, Beaverton, to be exact, where we stayed with my cousins. My mom grew up with their mom – that’s the set of family members that introduced my parents to each other – so that was a no brainer for the first vacation.

The second trip was to Colorado. Grand Lake && we camped at Winding River Resort. Our tent sat right on the side of the Colorado River. I can remember stepping into the water && being from Southern Oklahoma, where our water is hot in the summer, sticking my foot in that River shocked me. It was cold! That’s not something I’m used to in the middle of July.

I can remember the drive up the mountains – snow actually fell. && as a kid from Southern Oklahoma that was a treat to see in July. I also remember how steep the mountain was. One side of the cart, the drivers side (I sat behind my mom who drove) was a solid wall of mountain. The other side, complete drop off. Nothing.

We went up to Estes Park which was fantastic. That’s the time I realized I wanted to know more about the Stanley Hotel. My dad’s dream was to go into it being a huge Stephen King fan. But we never did. I put that on my bucket list. To go back to Estes Park && actually go inside of that hotel. More for my dad than myself, but I’m going to do that.

The next year we went back to Michigan, but this time we went further than the hand. We drove all the way up to Copper Harbor up in the Upper Peninsula. That was a drive in itself. This was probably, by far, my favorite vacation spot we ever went to. We drove a different way than we normally would going to Michigan but my mom (&& secretly myself) wanted to go to The Mall of America in Minnesota. I was never one to say that I was a huge mall fan, but when I heard about this one && everyone around me in school wanted to talk about how great the Grapevine Mills Mall is, I just wanted something bigger. Better. As a teenager that was bullied for many years, it was nice to be able to say that I went to a mall, a bigger mall, than everyone in my class.

Once we arrived in the Upper Peninsula I was in love. I’m still in love with that town today. As I’ve stated, I have lived in Southern Oklahoma / Texas all of my life. Born in Texas, moved to Oklahoma very young – so there are somethings I have never seen. For example, houses on stilts. (A trip to Louisiana down my the Gulf.) Or, as I saw in Copper Harbor, houses with doors on the second floor. No ladders to crawl down, just a random door, on the second floor. It intrigued me – a lot. I had to inquire about it. Now, this isn’t something from a local, but I liked the reasoning for it so I’ve kept that all these years. My mom and dad said it’s because they get so much snow fall that they need a way out of the house. So they have second floor doors so they can walk on top of the snow. Is this completely true? I don’t know. But I like it.

We stayed at a camping spot called Lake Fanny Hooe (not kidding, that’s its name). This is where I saw my first bald eagle, my first black bear. It’s also where I saw The Northern Lights in person && I stepped in one of the Great Lakes, Lake Superior. && might I add, Lake Superior, just like the Colorado Lake, is freezing cold in the middle of July. It’s also where I got to paddle boat for the first time through Lake Superior.

My mom’s want that year was to go as far North as she could before she got into Canada. But, at the same time, she wanted to go into Canada so she picked a spot to go toward once we headed home. From Copper Harbor we drove across the U.P. to Sault Ste Marie && across that bridge. (Have I ever mentioned I have a bridge phobia? No? I do, have for years. && this trip took me across way too many for my comfort, but what can you do?) The only thing I really remember about the Sault Ste Marie / International Bridge is two things: One. Once you across a certain point you stop using Miles Per Hour && begin using Kilometers Per Hour. && I can say, mind you, I didn’t drive then, but our cars in the United States has Miles Per Hour in plain view, you can’t miss it. However, the kilometers is secondary and smaller. That was a treat for my mom. Two. That bridge stunk. From the moment we began to cross it there was a smell wafting into the car. I don’t know what it was, or why it was, but it was.

We cross into Canada there – but sadly, that’s as far as we were able to get. Issues arose and we were turned away. So, we spent approximately 20 minutes, and one big U-Turn in Canada before we left. (That has been put on my bucket list, to go back to Canada && actually be able to enter. But I think I want to go a different direction next time, but we’ll see.) Since that was ended so early, we went ahead and started our travels back to Oklahoma. Going South from there we traveled down the Mackinac Bridge (which, thanks to my father, when I go to spell that bridges name, I say “mack-uh-nack” in my head.)

Side Note: I will say one thing about bridges. I may not like them but there are some amazingly beautiful bridges out there. The Mackinac Bridge being one.

The last vacation we took wasn’t camping. The last trip was for my mother’s 40th && last birthday she’d spend alive. So I’m extremely glad we were able to go there. My mom had always wanted to go to Disney World in Kissimmee, Florida && so we did. She received a deal through a time share company that gave her really lower prices. First, we had to go down to Ft. Lauderdale and stay in a time share hotel && go through all of the hubbub that went along with applying for time share. (She didn’t buy it.) Then we drove up to Kissimmee, some would rather say Orlando, but whatever, and we stayed in a nice hotel there and we spend some time in Walt Disney World.

That trip included Ft. Lauderdale, which just seems dirty, like the whole town needs a good scrub with bleach (when you google the town, it looks beautiful, and maybe it is. We didn’t spend a lot of time there and maybe we were on the wrong side?), a glass elevator that sunk into the indoor pool, long lines at rides at Disney World, and a bird pooping in my hair when I sat down on a bench after realizing that Florida heat in July is different than Oklahoma July heat. It also included one of the longest bridges I have ever crossed in my life, thanks mom: The Atchafalaya Basin Bridge.

Sadly, though, there are a lot of memories I don’t remember && it’s not because I don’t want to. I truly wish I could remember every single thing about each of those trips. But my memories don’t work the way they should. As I’ve mentioned, some things I remember didn’t happen the way I remember them && so now, I wonder how many of my memories are true.

I do remember that in Colorado there were so many more things my brother && I wanted to do – but we didn’t have the money to do it.
Copper Harbor when we arrived my dad went to the front building to check in && it took him nearly thirty minutes because the people in the office just wanted to listen to him talk. We met a bear because, you know we don’t have those worries down here, we left out trash from dinner at our campsite.
Our drive to Florida, through small towns in the Southern states, also loved our accent even though we were amazed by theirs. You’d never think how different each accent is in the South until you travel through each state.
I also know, that one day, I’d like to go && revisit each place we traveled when I was a kid. Maybe then my memories would come back? Plus, Boyfriend had never been out of the state of Oklahoma before me. Now he’s been to Texas. I need to take him more places.

Side Note #2: I have also been to Louisiana, down to the coast, Grand Isle. So I have stood in the Gulf of Mexico and went crabbing with a friends family so a crab would “bite” me on the toe. That was the year that Hurricane Katrina basically wiped Grand Isle off the map. I was still in Louisiana for that, but luckily, we weren’t still on the Island. I spent my one and only hurricane in a trailer house in Denham Springs. The hurricane itself never reached that high off shore so we just got a few storms that came from it, but I did decide then that I would rather deal with tornadoes. Oh && yes, that was another trip where I was put inside of a car to go over two big bridges. The first one I remember was on I-10, however, I can’t remember which one it was. I googled a little, and the one that is closest to my memory was the bridge over Lake Charles. I remember when you first come up to the bridge it’s a straight shot up, and it was lit up because it was evening time. I remember that I had been driving, but, you know, phobia, I started panicking which woke up my friend who told me to pull over. So I took an exit that was right before it and pulled over on the side of the road. She took over driving, pulling back onto the highway on another exit just north of the exit I took off, and finished driving to our destination. But I would like to say that since I began googling bridges, this bridge has had many articles written about how unsafe it is, so that’s that. The second bridge was going to Grand Isle, you know, it’s an Island off of Louisiana so there’s bridges.

So to answer this question, yes, I’ve been camping.