Camping, RV'ing, tenting...whatever you call it, it's not in my repertoire. The last time I accompanied friends in a RV for a weekend we parked in one of the beach lots along the coast here in California. The people in the RV parked next door had a drunken party until very late; people on the other side might very well have been a circus act. There was possibly a dozen and maybe more people sleeping in a vehicle designed for four. The whole scene was crowded, noisy and we had to take showers in a public facility, far from glamorous. Quelle horreur! I just don't get it. Our standard of living which we worked hard to attain, plunged to near-primitive status. We didn't get much sleep and couldn't do much with our meals. Our friends were having a great time; I was counting the minutes until I could go home, or to a nice hotel.
Maybe if we'd been camped next to Mr. and Mrs. Foley, pictured above, who look like lovely people, I would have been willing to try it again.
It's not that I don't like traveling...I love it. And I'm willing to sacrifice creature comforts to see sights around the world that require staying in remote places. But we get a big pay-off in the end. Not just the beach—with a few frisbee throwers, fat men in speedos and screaming kids. Uh oh...I should delete the last curmudgeonly sentence, but that's where I am in life.
It's not surprising that I have no camping photos. My French-Canadian farm family did love picnics however and I have a few photos of them.
My grandfather, Hector Fortier, in the above photo is doing something with a frying pan and a tree. I hate to think there was a fire in there somewhere...it looks dangerous. I don't know who the others in the photo are but they are clearly enjoying themselves. Hector has been marked "HF". My grandmother in her late 90's marked up many of her photos...probably because she could no longer remember the people. Some of her photos have only scribbles on them—I suspect she had some dementia.
The second photo is of my grandparents, Hector and Pulcherie with three of their children: my mother Jill, Addie and Jean. They are enjoying a feast of Paulin's fancy biscuits or they were shooting a commercial for the product. The biscuit box seems too prominent in the photo for accident. Plus my grandfather's hand looks posed. My mother on the right was never so casual and that curl on her forehead??
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| Picnic |
Last I have a few photos from a walking tour my husband, friends and I did a couple of years ago in Japan...the Nakasendo Way, which is a walk from Tokyo to Kyoto along an historic route. We had a glorious time and most days picnicked along the way. At night we stayed in very comfortable Ryokans and ate beautiful meals. Close enough to camping for me.
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| The ryokans supplied the kimonos every night. |
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| We were so exhausted from walking all day we could have slept anywhere. |
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Yes, I like my creature comforts and my privacy too. Who wants to have to put up with other peoples shenanigans by choice?
ReplyDeletePulcherie is an interesting name I haven't heard of before and the picnic photograph is lovely.
I'm with you! My idea of "roughing it" is Holiday Inn Express. The hubster and I tried camping once in our early married life. We had the car jam-packed with provisions, but when we reached the camping grounds, it began to rain. So we turned around and went home. The end.
ReplyDeleteI think the biscuit box adds interest to the photo.
ReplyDeleteI agree...your eye goes right to it. I wonder if it was a sign you were doing well, that you could afford the biscuits.
DeleteYour description of camping at the beach brought back a memory from the last time my husband and I camped. Our neighboring campers weren't exactly loud, but one fellow liked to accompany himself on a guitar as he sang around the campfire at night. He wasn't loud, but he sang off key and wasn't much better on the guitar. It got worse when the rest of the family tried to join in with harmony that didn't really harmonize. Another neighbor was quiet except he had to get up in the middle of the night - sometimes more than once! - to visit the outhouse and he must have unzipped and rezipped 3 three loud zippers (at least they sounded loud in the middle of the night) to do it. ZIP, ZIP, ZIP!!! Then . . . ZIP, ZIP, ZIP!!! The next summer we rented a cabin and have done so every year since then. They come with private commodes, showers, washers & dryers, dishwashers, coffeemakers, microwaves, TVs, Wi-Fi, and sometimes . . . hot tubs! I camped for 53 years. I figure I paid my dues - though I did enjoy it for most of those years.
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