Writers' Workshop.....Camping

I love to camp. My dad loved to camp. All my six older brothers and my one younger brother love to camp. Even my sister loves to camp. We are a camping family. As soon as I turned ten and a half years old and qualified for boy scouts, I was enrolled. I spent the better part of every summer after that in the Fort Davis mountains either as a camping scout or a teaching camp counselor. I trekked the back trails of every square mile on that ranch and even blazed a few new trails in my older years. Camping is in my blood. As I look back on those years and memories gone by, I reflect on what my kids are missing out on being away from me.

So I try to go out of my way to share those times with them. We have canoed rivers and fished lakes. We have tubed rapids and jumped off of dams and cliffs. We have slept under the stars and in tents. We have been rained upon and pelted with hail. We have cooked on a ninety degree night and frozen on a forty degree morning.

We have seen deer drinking on the lake shore in the early morn from our canoe. We have pulled fish out of the lake in a tire. We have watched eagles swoop from the sky to snatch unseen fish from the water and watched osprey dive head first from unimaginable heights straight down into the water in order to catch a meal. We have seen snakes eat fish and fish eat snakes. We have fished for raccoons. We once shot a cow with a bazooka (okay, we aren't real proud of that one; BUT WE DID IT, DAMN IT!!.....***).

We have told ghost stories by firelight in the wee hours of the morning and gone snipe hunting until dawn. We have sat in deer blinds and watched bucks fight over rutting rights. We tracked wild hogs for miles trying to get a shot at them. We have killed and cleaned more dove than I can count. We are campers and outdoors men and women.

Some of the things that I enjoy doing while camping include:


I like watching the sunrises and sunsets....preferably in my birthday suit...smeared with mud....and leaves and sticks in my hair.....and howling.

I like to coil up dead snakes near my friends tent flaps, usually with fishing line strung through the zipper so as they open it to climb out it comes at them....HIL.AR.I.OUS!!


I like to cook...especially road kill and any dead carcasses that I find (not really, but I tell all the kids that.....after they finish their meal).

I like to nap.....especially during the heat of the day.


And I like to take pictures. My camera is never far away from me and I like catching all the others when they don't even know that I am watching...like while they are in the latrine or bathing or getting their camping funky on!!

LOL....JK.....I do have a good time camping, but privacy is still privacy and I would never pick on anyone in a manner that I would not find funny done to me.


Cheers and 75% of scouting is outing!