TENTING IN TENTS ON THE OL' CAMPGROUND

 


My husband’s grandfather, Harry Brasier, before he was married so sometime before 1909, went canoeing across five Canadian lakes with several friends.  These are two of those friends sitting in front of their tent somewhere on the shore of one of those Canadian lakes.

My Dad and his younger sister in front of the family tent at Meeks Bay, Lake Tahoe in the early 1920s.

My Dad in the early 1930s with his one man wonder tent.

1945 – My Mom stands in front of the inherited Bradley family tent during a short camping get-away with my Dad on a break from dealing with three little children 5 years old and younger. (Mom’s sis-in-law, my Aunt Shirley, was taking care of us back home.)  And oh my gosh – Mom’s wearing a dress!  Camping!!  Mom!!!  What were you thinking?   

Two years later in 1947 with the old Bradley tent and our 1942 Pontiac sedan.  This time we kids came along.  That’s me standing by the car.  I was 7, my brother, 4, and my sister, 2.  


And Mom had learned nothing – she was still camping in a skirt!

Sometimes we camped without tents.  We tried doing this one summer when we were going to move camp in a ‘couple’ of days.  We liked to camp at Meeks Bay, but we also liked to camp at Bliss State Park just down the road a bit.  Back then, however, camping at Bliss was limited to 10 days but my Dad had a two-week vacation.  So we’d camp at Meeks for the first 4 or 5 days, then move over to the state park for the remaining 10 days and this one year Dad thought it would be easier to move if we didn’t have to take down two tents plus a lean-to for my brother, to move.  As it turned out it didn’t really make all that much difference and the inconvenience of not having tents for several days was a bit of a bummer.  So from then on we set up the tents at Meeks, took ‘em down, and moved them to Bliss!  This was also back in the day when we could enclose our whole chosen camp site at Meeks with tarps hung on ropes strung around the trees so it was very private.  That’s me saying “Good morning” by the way.    

We didn’t usually put up all the canopies until we got to Bliss, however.  We generally had a canopy over the kitchen, and one over the ‘dining room’.  Mom’s back there cooking something.  Dad had built a collapsible cupboard to use as a pantry.  In later years it could no longer be used to store food, however.  Food had to be stared in cupboards provided by the campground which could be tightly locked at all times because of the bear problem.  The bears eventually became a real problem.  I chased one out of our campsite with a broom one time.  Luckily it was a young bear – probably around 2 years old.

My Grandma Louise came camping with us sometimes.  This was her campsite and tent in 1958.

Before they got their trailer, my Mom & Dad camped in this tent.  After they got their trailer it became my tent.  My daughters and I slept in it.

Meanwhile, my son slept under a canopy tent.

These round pop-up tents are so handy - especially if you have to move camp for some reason, plus, because they’re rounded, they shed rain really well, so . . .

. . . in 1991 when I decided to buy myself a new tent,  I bought a pop-up.  It was a great little tent.  Unfortunately, one day, anxious to get to the beach, I forgot to close & cover the large back window.  A bear passing by looked in, apparently saw something promising, and ripped through the back of the tent leaving a big paw print on my sleeping bag atop a cot beneath the window!  Yipes.  Some camp neighbors saw what was happening and scared the bear off, and I managed to duct tape the tent back together for the duration of my vacation but it went in the trash when I got home.  What a shame. 

The next summer, then, I bought another new tent but had a big surprise when I went to set it up.  I bought the tent at our local Kmart in Sonora, CA, & headed off to Lake Tahoe.  When I opened up the box the tent came in & laid out all the parts so I could put the tent together, I discovered the tent poles, which were supposed to be male & female so they could be fitted together properly, were all female poles so there was no way I could put my tent together!  Fortunately, there was a Kmart store at the south end of the lake.  So I drove all the way down there, explained the problem, and the store manager was very understanding, took the faulty tent back even though I hadn’t bought it at that store, and made sure I got a new tent with all the proper poles – opening the new tent box & laying out everything in the store to be absolutely certain.  What a nice fellow.

I drove back up to the campground, put my new-new tent with the proper poles together, and finally made it to the beach just in time to find everyone I was there to see, packing up to go back to camp!  

I might have been camping, but I camped in style!  I had a nice cot with a lovely air mattress and a roomy oversized sleeping bag with a crocheted blanket for extra warmth.  I had a fluffy rug on the floor and a bedside table with a lamp & everything else needed.  My clothes were in my suitcase stacked handily atop a clothes hamper & I used the top of my suitcase as a desk to write on while sitting on a comfy fold-up chair, and out of the picture, just this side of the chair, was a small portable clothes rack for hanging certain clothes, plus there was a curtain strung across the front door so during the day when I was only going to be in the tent a shot time to change clothes, I didn’t have to go to the trouble of zipping the front of the tent shut.  Talk about lazy camping! J

The 2-room igloo tent.

Some people don’t camp with tents.  My Mom & Dad’s trailer was pretty nice!  And it was a great place to be when it rained!  We’d play cards and sip hot chocolate till the rain let up.  Neat times to remember. 

:-> 

La Nightingail

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