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!