Camping

Camping is such an imprecise term. It can mean a tent in the wilderness with a cold stream for bathing and a bush for a potty. 

Or spending vacation time in a 45’ motorhome with an inside shower, 50 inch TV, and electric fireplace.

So, if someone in a house uses a motorhome for their time away, what does a person living full time in a trailer do? 

Go tenting, of course. Have yourself a primitive experience that will make you appreciate what you come home to.

It was past time to get away from it all. We were tired of sitting still, having been in our seasonal site since May. We locked the trailer and lit out at warp speed. Twelve hours and more than 900 kms later we stopped for the night in Michigan. 

We found a regional campground that we had stopped at before, in a trailer. A regional campground, like state and national parks, are very fair minded. Whether in a tent or trailer, your site is the same as everyone else’s. It was late, and still warm, so we threw up our screened shelter, inflated our air mattress, and crawled into our sleeping bags.

We should have taken the time to erect a proper tent. The mosquitoes found their way into the shelter. And the air found its way out of the air mattress.  Not a good start, but not discouraging, either. 

Hey, we had real flush toilets close by!

Off we went to our next stop. We skimmed the corner of Indiana and blew right through Illinois. Our goal for the second night was to be in Iowa, a state we had not yet stayed in. New places are exciting. 

We drove past farmland and low, rolling hills to find a state park near our route.

A Wal-Mart along the way had provided us with a new air mattress, so we eagerly put up our real tent. And would have inflated the mattress if we had a pump that fit. I considered blowing it up manually, but after a couple of breaths realized that it would take all night. So again, we slept on our old self-deflating mattress. At least the mosquitoes kept out of the tent.

Wal-Mart was our new best friend. We bought a 12V inflator and crossed our fingers for the coming night. That one was spent at a small campground just outside the South Dakota Badlands.

Our tent site happened to be beside the tallest pole in the area. Just before we retired, we could see this massive thunder storm cloud advancing over the plains towards us, lightning flashing.  Too late to do anything but tighten all the ropes and pegs, we rolled into the tent, onto a still inflated mattress.  The rain came down so hard; it was as if someone had dumped a bucket over top of us. It took about half an hour to recognize that our tent was waterproof, and our mattress was firm. We relaxed, and fell asleep to the pounding of water over our heads.

Amazingly, the hot and dry prairie wind overnight dried our tent fly completely by the next morning. So when we woke up and saw another storm coming, we packed up in record time. However, we weren’t in any hurry to hit the interstate. We were on the edge of the Badlands, an area where the grasslands gave way suddenly to a deep river valley. Erosion along the edge created a steep section of canyons and gullies of loose rock that would have been very difficult to cross in the days of foot and horse travel, hence its name.

The road through the  Badlands National Park loops up and down along the edge, giving you spectacular views of the grasslands along the top and the colourful strata of the cliffs and canyon edges below. After driving the 30 miles of scenic road we hopped back on the highway, headed west to see Mount Rushmore.

It was not a good time to visit this popular tourist area. On a Saturday afternoon in the summer, the traffic is very heavy going through the mountain roads to this monument. Fortunately, we were able to get a good look at the carvings from the road, and did not need to actually enter the park area around it. A quick turnaround got us heading back to the interstate and on our way.

Once we crossed into Montana, we decided to view the countryside from roads less traveled. We got off the interstate so that we could see more of this “big sky country”. We drove long, long country roads that bordered expansive ranches and interesting geography. These 2 lane roads were mostly straight and empty. We could set the cruise control at 110 kph, which was under the legal speed limit, and cover many miles in a fairly fast time. 

The roads gradually climbed increasingly higher hills, creating a roller coaster effect of going up steep hills and down long, deep slopes. I would have thrown my hands up in the air and yelled “Wheeeee!”, if I had felt at all comfortable doing that speed on a 2 lane country road being watched speculatively by the mule deer standing alongside. And when those straight roads started winding through a low mountain pass in the western side, with no lessening of the speed limit, I was ready to get back onto the wider interstate.

There were many questions at the Canadian border about why we would have driven through the States from Ontario to Alberta just to catch a flight to San Francisco. However, they did let these suspicious characters back into their own country. 

Our last tenting spot was in a private campground in Fort Macleod, Alberta.

Now, in many campground “resorts”, the tent camping area is often hidden in the back acreage. It has always puzzled me that the big RVs, with their TVs and self contained bathrooms, are placed close to all the amenities – the full bathroom and showers, and the games room with the TV. While the second class citizens in the tents have the smelly pit toilet and no sink to wash in.

But hey, I’m not complaining. We chose this vacation style.

And we chose this town because of its close proximity to our last sightseeing goal for this leg of the trip. Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump is just outside of town, on a ridge with steep cliffs. I always thought the name referred to the buffalo that leapt to their deaths, but instead it was named for a curious young brave who wanted to stand under the cliffs to watch the event unfold. Obviously, he didn’t survive the show.

I was also expecting to see deep piles of bones at the bottom of the ridge. In fact, this site is so old, and had been used over so many thousands of years, that the bones are buried along with other dirt, rocks, and plant material that had also fallen from the cliff. Scientific digs have proven that the bottom of the jump contains 36 feet of bones, rubble, and artifacts. So while what we see today are grass covered mounds under a short cliff, hundreds of years before this there stood a tall and deadly precipice.

That was our 5 day camping trip. It wasn’t high end camping, but at least I never had to pee in the bush. The next leg of our vacation will be at hotels and family homes, with hot showers that aren’t costly and timed, and clean flush toilets. A little bit of luxury for a couple of weeks at least. We don’t want to get tired of camping.

We will have to do it on the way home.

W