Camping

What were we thinking?

Camping with a 6- and a 4-year-old? Did we lose our minds?

Not at all!

I grew up camping. My family camped everywhere, across the country to visit family and close to home. I loved it. There's nothing like the smell of a campfire, coffee brewing in the morning, warm cozy sleeping bags, hiking, and enjoying being outdoors.

My husband? Not so much! His experiences camping were with his ROTC group in college and evidently they did not generate the same warm, fuzzy feelings I had! LOL So when we first married and I suggested we go camping, he was a bit skeptical to say the least. But I prevailed.

We bought a tent, lanterns, Coleman stove, sleeping bags, and headed out. We lived in east Tennessee at the time and the Smokies were our backyard. We enjoyed weekend trips to Cades Cove, Gatlinburg, and probably stayed in every campground throughout the Smokies.

We also took trips across the country. We camped in the Rockies and on beaches. Oh, the joys of being young and free to hike, climb, swim, sleep on the ground!


And then our daughter was born. We couldn't wait to share our love for the outdoors with her. So we took her camping before she could walk. Went to a campground close to home, just in case, and yes, we took her home in the middle of the night before we were asked to leave for disturbing the peace. She was definitely not a "happy camper!" We did have a few successful experiences as she got older but between bugs and creepy crawly things, she just never had the fun times we anticipated.

But, I digress . . . 

Flash forward to now! Maybe the love for being outdoors just skipped a generation. Let's take our grands camping! We can show them how to love the outdoors like we did.

But we're old, they are not, and we have none of the equipment. Maybe we should buy a camper. But we don't have a vehicle to tow one with. And we don't know what we would like. So I did what any grandparent does, Google it! And that's how I discovered RV Share and Outdoorsey Both are websites where you can find campers, RVs, trailers, and anything you need for your camping fun. And . . . most will deliver the camper to the campground, set it up, and come back and take it down.

So we were introduced to the wonderful world of GLAMPING! You can find trailers of any size, any price, of course, and rent them for the weekend or week or month. If you have a vehicle that will tow, most of them allow that also.

We started doing this over in the fall of 2017 and love it! This part of my blog is about how to have fun with the grands on camping trips, activities, reviews of campgrounds, what to take, and much more.