Moore Family Camping

I was reading Golf and Shopping Rules blog about selling the tent trailer and opting for a nice hotel brought back memories of our own family camping. I remember when we first started camping as a family, first back when we were kids and we stayed in a big heavy army tent that stayed up all year on our Montana property. I don't recall much about those times except the food (yeah yeah, that's all i ever recall). My mother was always so good about having us eat healthy that those times we got to eat crap we went nuts. My Dad would buy chips and pop and other crap for the trip and it was sublime. I remember savoring my rootbeer for like, 2 days, flat and warm it was, but it was still heaven.
Next came the Utah camping when Natalie and I were married (not to each other), we began our yearly ritual of camping over memorial day at Gooseberry as a family. I remember while we sat up the tents, Jim would turn on his Toyota truck and turn up the music really loud. Back then we all listened to the same music so it was great. My mother would try and be a good sport while gritting her teeth at our loud irritating music. Then, as we got older, we all split ways on our music taste and we no longer blasted music while we set up tents. Natalie wanted her classic rock, Jim and Valerie migrated to stupid alternative music, I, wanted dance music (disco and the like). I don't know about Gary back then, Amy and when Mike came along wanted horrible devil country music, Alicia didn't care and Ryan wanted Jesus Wants me for a Sunbeam or Popcorn popping. My Mom would have wanted some form of oldies music - anything from Elvis or italian dinner music. Dad was good with whatever but probably would have wanted his oldies too.
One of the funnest things was watching my Mom, Dad, Gary, Alicia and Ryan set up the tent. It was hysterical. It took them hours to set it up because no one cooperated and they all would argue about the technique. My mother hated being told what to do would so she would rebel and deliberatly work slowly. Gary would argue with Dad about how the tent should be set up get frustrated with my Mom and Alicia. Alicia would loose interest early and wander off somewhere and have to be reigned back in. Ryan, not sure, probably pooping somewhere.

I want to say I miss tent camping, but i really don't. I miss that we were all in close proximatey and could camp anywhere but I DON'T miss peeing and pooing in the woods at all. I HATED having a tiny Moore bladder that required me to have to get up at 3:00 am to go pee in the woods and worry that a badger would bite my bum during the process. Later I developed the first indoor tent chamber pot or chamber Kerr canning jar. gross. Natalie tried a chamber big gulp cup with disasterous results as her "cup runneth over", all over the tent. Ryan had his own way of dealing with the problem. Having the necessary equipment, he was able to stand at the tent door, point and aim, never having to leave the tent. However, the time he was half asleep and got turned around and ended up facing IN the tent and giving my poor Dad a pee facial halted this method. Speaking of Ryan, one of the funnest things was watching my mother taking wee ryan (16 years old or so - hee hee) out to the woods for a #2 break. She would make a chair with her arms so he wouldn't touch nature with his bum. As we sat in our camp chairs we would hear from the woods, "Ryan, hold still, no ryan not there, RYAN! now you got it on your pants! NO don't pull them up, RYAN don't touch anything I need to boil your hands. Now its on my shoes." She never offered to hold me in a human potty seat while I went. WELL!
My favorite times were the nights and mornings. At night we would all sit around the fire and spit sunflower seeds into the fire and watch the stars and ponder life mysteries. Inevitably Ryan (Ryan Ryan Ryan, did the world revolve around YOU?) had to pee and off to the woods my mother and Ryan would trot in the pitch black. This was when the men would plot to scare the poo out of my mother by sneaking up on her. She would scream and we would laugh hysterically. My poor mother.
Then came the day high society came to town. Natalie and Jim bought a pop up tent trailer. They were nice and toasty warm in their tent trailer with a REAL porto potty. The rest of us yokals still tented it for years until, again, high society came to town and Amy and Mike bought an enormous trailer complete with real beds, indoor plumbing, shower, tv, stove etc. and the history of Moore family camping changed forever. No longer were we content to freeze at nights in our tents and blow up mattresses we saw the future and it was good. Since then nearly all of us have fancy trailers and now no one wants to go anywhere that doesn't have hookups. We still have fun but I won't forget those early camping years and how fun they were. this was a fun subject so I'll probably post again with more camping thoughts.