My crazy camping parents

Last winter I had to ask myself whether this trip was a good idea. Should my parents, at their age, be out camping in a tent and sleeping on the ground? Dad will be 83 this week and Mom turns 77 in October. Mom spent time in the hospital last year, and Dad’s been known to fall off his bicycle and break ribs. Answering nature’s call in the middle of the night? Using those primitive outhouses in the Black Hills? Anyone in their right mind would stay home and take it easy.

It comes down to one thing with Dad. If he’s got an adventure in mind, he’s going to do it. Mom is the proverbial good sport who offers a voice of reason. But sometimes a third party needs to make sure that Dad hears Mom’s sensibility. It’s too late to start telling my parents what to do, so really the best thing is to enjoy the adventure with them.

Was it a good idea? Yes! We pitched our tents in one intimately familiar place (Sheridan Lake campground in the Black Hills of South Dakota), one well-known place from visits long ago (Yellowstone Park in Wyoming), and one completely new place (Mt. Hood National Forest in Oregon). Dad indulged in his favorite activity: cooking breakfast at the campsite. Mom managed to keep warm at night. I loved moving at Mom and Dad’s pace and moseying through each day. When I had the urge to do some extra hiking at Lake Sheridan, I just followed the trail that weaves around the lake down to the dam and up to the old mountain lookout, while Mom and Dad napped beneath the pines.

Dad had fun with his new two-burner camp stove. He used twigs to get it perfectly level (it's that innate carpenter's sense of bubble perfection). He was a little disappointed that not all of us love bacon like granddaughter Emily does, but it’s hard to beat his eggs and pancakes. I was treated to coffee each morning the way I like it – stronger than the stuff my folks drink. Dad perfected a method using the cone filter and Kodiak blend I’d brought along, and he served up my cup before cooking the traditional camp coffee in the bent-up aluminum coffee pot.

Spending days together on the road was an experience too. We fell into new roles: I did the driving, Dad sat beside me with maps and comments, and Mom relaxed and napped in the back seat. Between Dad’s road habit of drinking Dr. Peppers and my habit of munching on carrots and tamari almonds, Mom continually handed out treats (including copious amounts of black licorice). Once or twice we ate lunch while driving, and then it became Dad’s job to make sandwiches from all the goods that Mom dug out of the cooler and handed to him. He buttered bread spread out on his lap, put cheese on mine and ham on Mom’s, and handed out carrots and chips while Mom got out juice and milk. “I’m busier than a cranberry merchant,” Dad said. “A cranberry merchant?” I was perplexed. “On the day before Thanksgiving,” Mom finished from the back seat.

My driving tested Dad’s patience. His preferred speed is faster than mine. “This is a road trip, not a race,” I told him every time he suggested I pass the car in front of me. But a week into the trip I noticed he was adapting to my pace and even enjoying the opportunity to watch the country as we drove lesser highways that flowed along rivers and crossed over one summit after another.

Using brother Dave’s GPS was helpful, except for those times when we got annoyed with all of her recalculations. “She says to turn right in four miles,” Dad would tell me. “No, she said in POINT four miles,” I would tell Dad. “Recalculating,” Mrs. GPS would say.

I’m back in Alaska now. I spent a final few days savoring sunshine and quiet in northern Washington, driving gently on the advice Charles ElDorado gave us back in Wausa to “set your speed at fifty and stay there.” A car does indeed use way less fuel at 50 than it does at 70, which gave me time to contemplate making personal changes that would count even more, like using my feet and my bicycle...a subject I'll explore somewhere besides this blog. I touched down in Anchorage long enough to see Mamma Mia! with Lisa, then climbed aboard a packed ERA plane for Kodiak. Next time I'll be trading the plane for the ferry.

Amtrak took Mom and Dad back to Omaha. During their last few days in Oregon, they enjoyed a boat ride on the Rogue River with Aunt Elaine and others. Now they’re in Wausa, unpacking and doing laundry. The simple tasks and luxuries of home.

One thing they won't be unpacking is their old double sleeping bag. I couldn't believe it when they left it with Heather and Hanna. (Do Grammie and Grampie mean to retire that essential piece of camping equipment? Do my daughters understand its historic significance?) That heavy, bulky bag – olive green cotton on the outside, red flannel on the inside, with the sides sewn together to replace a zipper that broke sometime last century – is not exactly high tech but it's a survivor. One cold Yellowstone morning long ago, Colleen and David and Diane and I crawled shivering out of our own little bags and dashed from the big yellow tent into the frosty sunrise. While we ran around the campground looking for bears, Mom and Dad stayed snug in their well-worn double bag. And now they casually left it on Hanna's porch in Portland as my whole camping life flashed before my eyes.

Tonight I’ve been watching Olympic swimmers and finishing this chronicle. I love watching athletes in their prime but even more I love keeping up with those parents of mine. For them, every age is prime. They’ve boated and skied and prayed and camped and hiked their way through life. They’ve practiced their faith all over the world. They’ve built Habitat for Humanity houses from Waco to Harlem to Budapest. They brought joy to Marie and Christian’s wedding in Uganda and they bless all of us who are family.

Truth is, my parents are the sanest and healthiest people I know.

Before I sign off, here are some moments that stay with me:

~ Seeing Mom relax while Dad does the cooking

~ Dad’s rendition of the lutefisk joke

~ Seeing Mom and Dad silhouetted on their tent walls and hearing them softly read to each other by flashlight

~ Watching Hanna and Heather put their inheritance to work

~ Our bonfires, both pre-sunset and post-sunset

~ 2,847 * miles of meandering conversation

~ Traveling mercies, every day

* From Dad’s log book

Family everywhere

We Homo sapiens all share the human genome, so we’re among relatives whether we roam in Africa or North America or anywhere else. But I also get a sense of wholeness by reconnecting with the cousins and aunts and uncles who peppered my childhood.

My mom, the youngest of four girls, was the sole sister to remain in Nebraska after the older three and then their mom resettled on the west coast. As my siblings and I grew up, Mom took us on summer trips by train from Nebraska to Oregon, where we stayed with aunts and uncles in Eugene, Medford, and Central Point, and we camped and swam and played with our beloved Oregon cousins. Then, alas, we grew up and the cousin roundups ended. The last time I saw the entire Oregon family was in January of 1990, when 8-year-old Marie and I flew from Anchorage to Medford for Grandma Marie’s 90th birthday celebration.

Traveling with Mom and Dad brings me partly up to date again. En route to Portland, we crossed the Columbia River into Washington and swung up to Yakima where Aunt Ardythe and Uncle Milt moved many years ago. Mom and Ard are the youngest pair of sisters, and Ard always felt like another mom to me. Milt had a stroke six years ago and uses a wheelchair now. He can no longer do his extraordinary gardening, but his interior self is just as I remember. When I asked him for gardening advice, he told me – slowly, carefully, and clearly - that it was all there in my head and my heart, and that I shouldn’t be afraid to try things. My cousin Judy walked me through the terraced garden that she is tending now. Judy – who is not a little kid anymore!

Dad served his apple pancakes the evening we spent in Ard and Milt’s home, and he made sure that Judy and Jeff’s 20-year-old son John joined us (“John really ate a lot of pancakes last time”). Then we sat out back in the warm, sweet air and talked of past and present events. Mom recalled the summer that Ard left for San Francisco, and Ard mentioned moving in – both Ard and Eva Mae! – with their big sister Elaine and husband Gene. 1948 maybe? That was a brief chapter I’d never heard about before.

The next week, after the Mt. Hood campout, we spent an evening in Oregon City with my cousin Sharon and her husband Dean. They were caring for happy, huggable baby Ryan, or “Smalls” as Dean affectionately calls him. Sharon is as spunky as ever, and Dad complimented her on her ability to express herself. “Your words just flow,” Dad told her, as she brought us up to date on their life. At dinner earlier at Tebo’s, their daughter Nicki briefly stopped by. What a beautiful young woman, so like the spirited 10-year-old who welcomed my Marie at the long-ago party for Grandma Marie.

Leaving Oregon City, we headed toward Olympia to find the home of Dad’s cousin Gary and Bev. They live in Lacey near a stretch of the trees that give Washington its “evergreen” name. A round, raised garden bed in the sunshine on their patio was bursting with beans and tomatoes and carrots. Inside, Bev showed us her grandson’s glass art while Gary and Dad talked endless politics. Then we sat down to Bev’s incredibly good rhubarb pie. I lingered longer than I intended over coffee and conversation and the awareness that my parents and I were parting here.

Our camping was done but not the travels. Mom and Dad were soon to go south to see more of Mom’s family in Oregon. At Gary’s brilliant suggestion, they discovered Amtrak could take them to Eugene and later to Sacramento, making a rental car unnecessary. They already had reservations to return to Omaha via cross-country Amtrak. I felt a tug to accompany them and see my other two Oregon aunts – Eva Mae and Elaine – and a bunch more cousins as well. But that will have to wait until another time.

Instead, I turned my nose toward the north. A familiar stretch of I-5 took me right through Seattle to Everett, where Geri – part buddy, part mom – was waiting for me. So nice of my friend Lisa to share her mom. While my parents caught up with sisters and nieces and nephews in Oregon, Geri and I were working out at Curves and eating fresh blueberries for breakfast and watching the backyard cats and squirrels and bluejays. In the evenings, a ray of sun crept up the trunk of a huge cedar tree in Geri’s yard, and the nights got darker than the camping nights of just a week ago.

For any family out there still tuning in to this short-term blog, I plan to post one more piece and a few more photos, so check back in a few days. And thank you for reading!

Camping with parents and progeny

What could be sweeter than camping with my parents and two of my daughters! After a night in Portland, we shuffled our gear around to make room for the five of us in my rental rig. Highway 26 took us to the little town of Zigzag and then we turned toward Mt. Hood National Forest. When we found a campground, it was packed – camping is alive and well in America! But at the very end of the big loop, one last spot was open. “Let’s snag it,” Heather said.

It was a huge site with tall spruce and pine and cedar and ample space for setting up our three tents. Grampie was quick to inquire about our appetites and set 4 o’clock as the moment to start up the campstove. Hanna had brought flour, we had some Granny Smith greens, and our cooler was full of eggs and milk and other basics that we bought before leaving the city.

My dad LOVES to cook apple pancakes. While the bible may say that “Wherever two are more are gathered in my name, there I am,” my dad has always acted on “wherever at least five people are hungry, here come my apple pancakes.” Back at the New Seasons store in Portland, he even bought an extra can of fuel (then was shocked to see that it cost twice as much as he paid in Nebraska).

For the uninitiated, Dad’s apple pancakes are made with thin batter and thinly sliced apples. The apples must be tart, the batter must be just right, and you should eat them with sugar, not syrup. Mom makes the batter while Dad readies the two-burner campstove that he bought specially for this trip. The picnic table is slightly uneven so he puts twigs under one side of the stove to make sure the griddle sits perfectly level. Dad pours batter onto a hot griddle, lays apple slices over this thin first layer, then pours more batter over the apples. While they are frying, he spoons oil copiously onto the griddle around each pancake to ensure crispy edges.

These pancakes are always good! Dad’s made millions of them, all devoured by family and friends and passersby. One year at Granddad Craig’s Lake Edith, my dad fed about thirty of us one morning, starting with the kids. By the time he fed the last grown-up, the kids lined up again.

The first time Heather and Hanna camped, they were one-year-olds crawling around in diapers. That was a memorable Black Hills campout with sibs Colleen and David and Diane, our mates and young ones, and Lisa too. And of course Grammie and Grampie. Now these two younger daughters of mine have popped up their tent and are swinging Grampie’s ax like old pros. Dad brought the ax on this trip knowing he wouldn’t take it back home on Amtrak, and he told the girls it was their inheritance if they wanted it.

Paul Bunyan, move over! Hanna set to work on a downed tree that lay across our campsite along with tons of other dry wood. The camp host had told my parents that this campground had been closed for the last couple years and now they’re hoping that campers will help clear out the dead stuff. We did our share. Hanna sliced through twelve inches of tree trunk like it was water. When she carried a piece over to let Grammie smell the fresh scent of wood, Heather picked up the ax and started chopping. By morning, the tree was gone and only twigs and sawdust marked that stretch of ground.

Those days were warm and the evenings cool near the base of Mt. Hood, and we stayed up past dark enjoying our bonfires. Nothing like the company of 24-year-olds to energize an octogenarian, septuagenarian, and me – the happy one in the middle. I’ve camped with my elders and youngers many times, but now – when “children” are adults and everyone is absorbed in work and life – it is an extra gift to spend a few days in the wilderness together.

Yellowstone and on

After showers and a night in real beds in Sheridan, Wyoming, we drove over the Bighorn Mountains and into Yellowstone Park. Mom and Dad had a camping site reserved in the Bay Bridge Campground, a stone’s throw away from Uncle Harlan and Aunt Marcia’s site.

Harlan and Marcia camp here every year, usually for about ten days. They’ve seen the wolf packs from year to year, they’ve walked paths along the shores of Yellowstone Lake, and they know where to find the rocking chairs too. So we had our own personal hosts! Marcia served us chili the evening we arrived, and one morning she made eggs benedict for the five of us. Camping at its roughest! Sitting around the table in Marcia and Harlan’s little trailer, I heard stories of old Wausa I’d never heard before.

It’s been a long time since my childhood visits or the trip here with my own daughters, and I’d forgotten how magnificent Yellowstone is. The wildlife, the rivers, the immensity of the land, and all the bubbling pots. The stink of sulphur still fills the air!

On our first day in the park, Mom and Dad and I played tourist. We drove a loop around the park, we watched Old Faithful erupt, we stopped to photograph the bison. The north rim along Yellowstone Falls was closed, but we viewed the falls from the south rim. We ate our picnic lunch beside a wide stream while an elk stood in the cool water along the far bank and fly fisherwomen cast lines that glinted in the sun.

We expected low temperatures at night, so Mom and Dad situated their tent in the open to get the morning sun. I staked my tent in a cove of trees. We all kept cozy and slept well. Maybe I’m just accustomed to wet and cool Kodiak, but it seemed that each sunrise brought immediate warmth.

Our days in Yellowstone were a new kind of family time. Just me and my parents and the aunt and uncle I grew up with. On our last night together, the five of us dined at Lake Lodge, overlooking the area where I’d spent the afternoon exploring with Harlan and Marcia while Mom and Dad relaxed on the big veranda.

Then Mom and Dad and I hit the road again. So many mountains, summits, forests, rivers, and miles of road. Traveling through the West puts a person in proper perspective. Little dots on a sea of sagebrush. Moving west out of Yellowstone, we drove small highways across Idaho that are definitely the roads less traveled – lots of open country, few cars. We were heading for the Sawtooth mountains – Melvin country, we called it, since my dad’s cousin Melvin told him we should check it out. It was new territory for my parents as well as for me. We picnicked beside a lake in the Sawtooth National Recreation Area, spreading the red and white checkered tablecloth on a picnic table and pulling sandwich makings and chips and salsa and carrots out of the cooler.

These picnics with Mom and Dad are calm affairs compared to the feeding frenzies of the past. The roadside picnics in Hawaii come to mind, when twenty-one members of the Hult-Olof-Merle-Craig-Munter clan gathered for Mom and Dad’s 50th anniversary. Almost nine years ago! I especially remember our picnic above Waipio Valley – a blur of hands reaching over the picnic table, everyone hungry and jostling and laughing, refueling for the next adventure.

Speaking of family, it was so fun to pull up this blog for Mom and Dad and find messages here! Kristy, Elizabeth, Melissa, you made my day and Grammie and Grampie’s too. Hooray for nieces and granddaughters and Coleman Pipers!

Black Hills once again

My dad is an adventurous 82-year-old who loves to camp. He and my mom, who is 76, have led six decades’ worth of camping trips with kids and grandkids and family friends. I’m the 54-year-old kid who decided to join the latest plan that dad hatched.

Last winter Dad wrote up an itinerary and sent it out to the bunch of us. MARILYN & DON, it said across the top. It began with the most beloved destination:

Black Hills, Lake Sheridan. Arrive afternoon of Wed. July 9th. Campground site unknown. Depart Saturday morning, fairly early, for Yellowstone…

Before we pulled out of Wausa, Mom and I tweaked the schedule to start with a visit at my brother’s in Gothenburg. So instead of crossing into South Dakota and heading northwest, we drove southwest across Nebraska and spent our first night with Dave and Kathy and Emily. Dad had to agree with this. His byword is “flexibility.”

Now we’ve had two nights at Sheridan Lake in a campground so familiar we could have walked here blindfolded. Our favorite site – Chipper Loop #86 – was occupied so we pitched our tents a couple sites up from the lake. But that was OK because we don’t have a boat along – one of many “firsts” for this trip.

Everything here is evocative – the scent of the pines, the extra-long picnic tables, the narrow road that loops through the campground. My siblings and I were small when Mom and Dad first loaded us into the station wagon for the long drive to “the Hills.” We water-skied here, we visited Mt. Rushmore, we learned the pleasures of living outdoors. Then our children came too, evolving from diapers to drivers’ licenses as the whole unwieldy group of us converged for a week of camping, swimming, waterskiing, and sitting around the campfire at night telling stories.

Now it’s only three of us, and there’s a memory at every turn. We see the rope still hanging from the tree where big kids and grandkids went swinging out over the water. Dad recounts (with great satisfaction) Daniel’s first time up on skis. Mom remembers the gash in Heather’s hand from her pocket knife. I recall how Kristy learned to ride Heather and Hanna’s unicycle. We laugh about the year that the girls formed a band for our evening entertainment, banging on the camping kettles with spoons and spatulas.

Dad tells me about a piece of his own boyhood that I’d never heard before – his first trip to the Black Hills. He came here with the Wausa Boy Scouts when he was thirteen. He didn't think he would be able to go because each boy had to pay five bucks, but at the last minute his parents came up with the money. Everyone piled into a truck for the trip out, and at night some of the boys slept in the truckbed with a canvas pulled over the top and some slept on the ground with a canvas tied between trees. “There’s a few things I remember about that trip,” my dad says like it happened last summer. “Number one: we ate a lot of beans.” The boys also had campfires and hikes, and one day they hiked up to Harney Peak and came upon a pond with lots of frogs. That night they ate frog legs. I did the math: Dad was born in 1925….It must have been 1938 when that troop of guys was farting around the campfire and having a grand time.

But nostalgia is only one slice of these days we’re living now. In the morning I padded down to the lake to swim before breakfast. Then Dad did what he loves to do – he cooked pancakes and eggs on a camp stove (but no bacon because Three Corners store was out of bacon when we arrived). Then we walked the trail that leads around our finger of the lake, Mom and Dad holding hands on the sloping trail and me trailing behind.

We do the same things but a little differently. For instance, we’re eating well at our campsite but also, frequently, in town. One night we ate out in Hill City, the next night at our traditional Powder House outside of Keystone. Back at our campsite, Dad built a blazing fire without bothering to wait for darkness. In fact, a bright sun was not quite setting when we sat by the fire. Our average age is closer to 70 than 17, so why not create a new plan? It was almost dark when Mom and Dad crawled into their tent, where their ancient double sleeping bag was waiting on their new air mattress. I was yawning too so I ducked into my tent with my Alaska REI bag that is way too warm for summer nights in this part of the country.

We ask for traveling mercies at the start of the day, and each day we receive an abundance. It’s part of the joy of hanging out with M & D. We have no HultCraft boat along this time, fewer family members, less chaos, but still plenty of fresh air and fun.