While living in Colorado my husband and I participated in so many outdoor activities that reminded me so much of summers I spent at my grandmothers. We camped out in her back yard. Camping has never been an event I had a great interest in. My brothers while in the cadets would go camping every year. As a girl scout I went a few times but even then it was enough for me. There is something about worrying about wild animals, pitching tents, swatting insects, hanging food and no indoor plumbing that was not too attractive to me. It was until we went camping at Pikes Peak in Colorado. My husband was excited about the trip because he was used to bivwacking in the great outdoors with his military unit. Our trip began as we began to ride across country from Colorado to South Carolina in a Winnebago. First stop was Pike Peak. Some might say that I truly did not do camping because I slept in the Winnebago but I say I camped out. After all, all of our cooking was down outdoors and that was plenty enough for me. The best moments of this trip was watching the sun set, telling ghost stories late night while sitting on a dead tree stump and watching the sunrise. All along I was thinking about how similar this experience was to when my brothers, cousins and myself pitched tents in grandma's backyard.
This experience also reminded me of a trip we took as a family to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. We had some people in the family participate we actually had to have 10 different cars drive. Again, I am not one for the animals but I must say having more family around I felt much more safe. After all, I had family from my grandmother's family of twenty children and they were mostly mail. As a girl I felt so much more safe. This trip allowed us to again familiarize ourselves with one another. After all we were relatives dispersed throughout the nation.
