Why All The Camping?
A few days ago my Facebook memories showed me a post from our camping trip last fall. In it, I wrote that I was hoping we’d be able to fit in a second camping trip in 2021. We’ve been on five camping trips this year (Darrell’s actually been on six), and I’m really hoping we can squeeze in one more before the end of the year. I honestly can’t remember the last time we managed to go on two trips in a year, let alone five.
So why all the camping?
Honestly, a lot of it had to do with my time running the farm. We have always fished as much as possible and enjoyed camping for our vacation each year, but then we bought our house, and it had a few acres, and I went crazy with the gardens and decided to try my hand at running a market garden. Fishing was slowly overtaken by my desire to run my own business (and to be fair, I wanted to leave a job that was making me miserable).
Once I was working the farm full time, there was no time for anything else. It was work, work, work. Darrell came home from work and came out to the gardens to continue working. There were chickens and turkeys to look after. Markets to get to. All the fun stuff.
And it was, it was fun. I loved it. But it was also hard. So hard. And at some point we were barely fishing anymore. We weren’t spending a week up north where we could decompress and listen to the loons. I wasn’t writing. Writing is essential to my well-being and I didn’t have the energy for it. Darrell was grumpy. I was stressed. Jack and the rest of the dogs were bored.
When I sat down long enough to think about it, I realized that to do one thing that made me happy, we had given up SO MUCH of what made all of us happy.
I made changes. I took a part time job that I was offered and switched the farm to part time. Then I ended up with a great full time job and decided to shut the farm down. We had the money and the time to fish a lot more and start camping again.
Jack’s age was really starting to catch up with him, so last fall we took him on as many fishing trips as we could. Just him and us (the other dogs grumbled about staying home but they got plenty of treats to make up for it). He ate so many fries on the drives home. Knowing that we wouldn’t have long with him was a real push to make sure we got out and enjoyed doing the things we all loved. He loved nothing more than to go on an adventure with us (well mainly Darrell, I was pretty much the third wheel).
When we had to say goodbye to him early this year, it was such a strong reminder that we need to enjoy what time we have together.
So we set about planning a summer camping trip. Then we ended up with a surprise long weekend and booked another. Neither of us wanted to stay at home, mow the lawn, clean the house, and putter around. We wanted to go fishing. We wanted to go somewhere different. We wanted to be by the water. I neglected the gardens more than ever (but we still grew 800lbs of potatoes).
And we had fun! The dogs love exploring new places. So do we. And we get to fish and sleep in a tent and cook food by the water while watching the loons swim by. There are so many amazing places in Ontario. So many hidden gems.
We also bought a new truck that came with an off-road package. When we were doing our research it seemed like the perfect fit for us, and another way to help us explore. That Ford Ranger with the Tremor package is FANTASTIC! We’ve had so much fun going places we wouldn’t take other vehicles. We’re looking to build it out a bit with some more equipment that will help us enjoy the outdoors and make camping even more fun.
Camping is the way our family gets to spend time together and create new memories. I’ve had people question why we would go away for an overnight camping trip. “Isn’t it so much work?” “Aren’t you going to spend a lot of time driving?” Sure. And we love it! Get away from everyone and everything. See the sites. Learn new areas. Explore! We’ve reached a point where those experiences mean everything to us. Being able to bring the dogs along means we all get to do something together.
The list of potential trips for next year is already quite long. We want to get our rather neglected canoe out and do some paddling trips. We anticipate getting much more into overlanding since the truck makes it so much fun to get off the beaten path. Our Backroad Mapbooks app has several waypoints on it for potential new campsites to check out and lakes to fish. There’s just so much to do and see!
So for now, camping is what makes us happy and keeps us ticking. There’s always a good chance that how we experience the outdoors will change. Maybe we’ll build a small overlanding trailer to sleep in. Maybe we’ll car camp more instead of boating in to so many sites. One thing’s for sure, we won’t stop exploring and camping. We’ve done that before and we all suffered for it.
If you’re trying to figure out what your thing is, give a thought to camping. It can be as inexpensive or as expensive as you want to make it. It can be as simple as a weekend trip to a park with all the facilities, or a more complicated several week long trip were you need to plan for being out of cell service and bringing along enough food.
It’s not all fun and games. Sometimes it rains your entire trip. Or someone gets hurt. Or the bugs eat you alive. But you’ll make memories that will stick with you forever.
That’s why we do it.
argosgirl
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