Silverman - Camping With Kids : Complete Guide to Car Tent and RV Camping

Camping with Kids: The Complete Guide to Car, Tent, and RV Camping

1st EDITION January 2006

2nd printing August 2008

Copyright 2006 by Goldie Gendler Silverman

Front cover photo copyright 2006 by Mike Calabro, www.urbancamper.com

Back cover photo copyright 2006 by Mike Calabro

Interior

Illustrations copyright 2006 by Sarah Silverman

Cover and book design: Lisa Pletka

Book editor: Eva Dienel

ISBN 978-0-89997-361-6

UPC 7-19609-97361-4

Manufactured in China

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except for brief quotations used in reviews.

SAFETY NOTICE: Although Wilderness Press and the author have made every attempt to ensure that the information in this book is accurate at press time, they are not responsible for any loss, damage, injury, or inconvenience that may occur to anyone while using this book. You are responsible for your own safety and health while engaging in any of the activities described in this book.

Acknowledgments

When I started to write Camping With Kids , I set a goal for myself of collecting information from at least 100 different individuals. I am grateful to the following 122 people who were kind enough to talk to me or write to me or respond to my emails; to the many anonymous people who shared their experience on the internet; and to the parents who permitted me to photograph their children: Jackie Alexander; Laura Alexander; Amy Anderson, KOA Seattle; Stephanie Arbaugh; Roger Arnell, RV Gold, Oregon; Ranger Jeff Bagshaw, Haleakala National Park, Maui; Raina Ballard; Roberta Bennet; Zach Bennet; Robert A. Boyd; Diana Brement; Clark Carr, Island RV, Kona, Hawaii; Henk and Elke Dawson; Henk Dawson, Jr.; Sarah Essex; Sam Essex; Beth Gendler; Tom Gonser of www.rversonline.org; Ellen Gonser; Bridgit Giedeman; Susan Hankin; Sara Hanneman; Nancy Hanneman; Marlene Haslam; Sandra Lankman Heindsmann; Maggie Herman; Randy Hermans; Sandy Jarvis; Madelaine Jensen; Ava Hamilton Joyrich; Eden Hamilton Joyrich; Andrea Kaawalea, Ethan Katz; Jesse Katz; Volcano National Park Visitors Center, Hawaii; Bill and Jane Kadner; Ruth Kimball; Adam Kimball; Joanne Kloster, RVLife ; Ricki and Michael Koppel; Kathy Kruger, Washington State Safety Restraint Coalition; Sara, Danielle, and Elana Kupor; Janetta Lee; Holly Levin; Wendy Liebreich, Portland Luggage Co.; Betty Luttrell; Cindy Lynch; Zoe Meyers; Wendy Miller, REI PEAK Program; Jack Mohnhautp, Happy Seat; Chris Morgan, Insight Wildlife Management; Dobbie Norris; Deborah OConnor; Jennifer Paver, Washington State Safety Restraint Coalition; Joyce Riley; Vicki Robbins; Gloria Roden; Carina Sauerzopf; Barbara Short; Jenny Singer; Robert Singer; Habib Steffen; Kristen Thorstenson, Washington State Safety Restraint Coalition; Christine Underwood; Jeanie Underwood; Nan and Jack Wiseman; Randee Young, the SkiForAll Foundation; 52 sixth and seventh grade students and two teachers at Assumption St. Bridget School in Seattle; and one US Forest Service ranger who didnt want his name used.

I am also deeply indebted to two photographers, Henk Dawson, Jr., and Jon Ostrow, who shared their work with me, and to three mentors, Marcella Benditt, Marion Gartler, and Louise Marshall, who started me writing books. Most of all I am beholden, that old-fashioned word, to my photographer, driver, listener, nurturer, companion, and best friend, my infinitely patient husband, Don.

Contents

Preface

I did not grow up in a camping family, but the seeds of an outdoor life must have been planted somehow, because as a young girl I loved no play activity so much as running through the trails at a city park near my home, Elmwood Park in Omaha, Nebraska. My friends and I raced along the dirt paths, back and forth on either side of the creek, crossing at creek level on stepping stones or high in the air on fallen trees or big metal water pipes.

In college, while other couples went off to the movies, the young man who later became my husband and I cooked our dinner in a park or beside a lake on the small, portable grill we always kept in the trunk of his car.

So it should come as no surprise that eventually we should become campers, and when we had children, we camped with them, too.

When my husband was a medical intern and we were new to the Pacific Northwest, his department organized a campout on the Washington coast. We had limited funds. A local store advertised a special on Coleman stoves and lanterns, and since we could afford only one, he asked a coworker which we should buy. The lantern, he was told. Big mistake. We thought we could cook over a fire, but the wood we collected was damp. We never got our fire going beyond smoke. I remember our son Jeff in his red pajamas, sitting in the borrowed tent in a makeshift bed of old comforters over thick layers of newspaper, eating dry Cheerios while we tried to get a breakfast fire started.

A few years later, we were spending all of our family vacations camping with our three children in a rented trailer on the Oregon coast. Our favorite park was Jesse M. Honeyman State Park, a magical place with huge sand dunes almost three stories tall that slope down into clear, ice-cold lakes. We rolled down the dunes, dug in the sand, and hiked across the dunes to the ocean beaches. We told Jeff not to lose his shoes while he was playing in the sand, so he carefully buried them at the side of the dune; we never saw them again.

Sometime along the way, we became backpackers, leaving the car behind. I wrote a book called Backpacking with Babies and Small Children. Like this book you are reading, it was based on interviews with many people.

Years later, we went back to Honeyman Park with Jeff, his wife, and our two grandchildren. We set up four tents in two tent siteseach grandkid had to have a tent of his or her own. The grandchildren were much more interested in riding on the dune buggies than in digging or hiking. Daniel, who was 8 at the time, told me he did not like to go places where you had to walk to get there. Both of the kids preferred going into town for fast food to eating meals cooked outdoors.

Today, all of my children and grandchildren camp. Jeffs family camps in tents next to the car; Judy and John are backpackers. Last summer, our grandson, Daniel, 19 and home from college, accompanied my husband and me on a three-day backpack near Mt. Baker. Daniel carried all the food, the lunches for our dayhikes out of base camp, and he even carried my backpack across the skinny tree that served as a bridge over a wild and rushing stream.