Come on sunshine!
I have an old camping mug - stainless, with a pretty big handle that hooks onto just about anything. Years ago I had it engraved at a place I worked in Boise - "Suzika, Camper from Swell."
There was a great spot for years, Poverty Flats. First ones there for a long holiday weekend staked out the campsites on the riverbend, and set up the keg/ice station and the Loo. Not far behind, the 'kitchens' would arrive with tarps and tables, griddles, grates and kettles. Everyone brought something: carrots, potatoes, bacon, onions and garlic, oregano, parsley, milk and butter and and a zillion eggs; chops and chickens, steaks and hamburger; cereals and fruits. And flour. There were always camp biscuits. Cheese. Somebody always remembered the cheese, hot dogs and mustard.
The fires early stoked; music arrived car by family car -guitars, harmonicas, banjos and fiddles. Spoons and autoharp when when David and Cathy could make it. Sometimes a tambourine. Old Crazy Al was famous for taking the batteries out of the occasional boom-box the teens tried to sneak in. Genius raids.
The children gathered wood and explored mossy things, happy dogs lapped and played in the water; we took turns up the road in the hotsprings, always stopping along the way at Three Trees pull-over to marvel at the frenzied splashings in the shallow spawning beds of the glorious, courageous, triumphant salmon returning from the Sea of Japan.
Come moonrise, we, all warm and fed, and mostly contented, filled the air with songs and laughter and conversation - and those perfect sounds, like the campfire's glow, wafted on the forest breeze late into the starry nights; the fire crackling, our work-a-day worlds a galaxy away.
I'd wear my camp shirt to work on Mondy morning, because it smelled like Trees and warmfires.
Here's to your Poverty Flats, Don.
.....camping
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