My Dad, the Wild Man Part IV: Camping
- Sharie Weakley
- 38 minutes ago
- 8 min read
We were a camping family. It was a cheap way to see the country, and my dad loved the outdoors. When he was in high school, he took an aptitude test for a career. First option was Forest Ranger, second was engineer. He loved the solitude and mountains, so we camped. In the early years we had a tent trailer towed by a Chrysler station wagon that always overheated, particularly when going uphill. Yes, the kind with the wood panels. But later we had a ’71 Ford pick-up with an over-the-cab camper shell.
When we were young, we’d go to places around California: Cuyamaca, the Sequoias, the Redwoods. First, they were one-week trips, then two or three. He had every trip planned out like the D-Day invasion. He had the AAA flip books maps, he wrote ahead and had all the reservations, and he had planned out what we would do every.single.day. How to get in the most sights. It really was a little like a military campaign. But I remember being about seven years old and we were at a campground called Panther Flats, California. There was a great swimming hole and we were loving it. My dad saw how much fun we were having (we even had an inflatable raft) and he changed the plans so we could stay two extra days. My dad has perfect plans and he had NEVER changed them before. But we were having fun and he changed them.
Early on we did a complete California camping trip, and then one up the West Coast to Vancouver, but in about 1975 we did a six-week trip: The Canada Trip. We started out through Vegas, headed up through Utah, to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone, then into the Canadian Rockies National Parks, including Banff, Jasper and Lake Louise. It was incredible. The national parks, the scenery, the experiences and adventures. So fabulous. But that wasn’t the best part.
When we were camping, my dad was totally relaxed. When he was working, I really think he was always churning on work stuff in the back of his mind. But once we left home, it was all set aside. And, by the way, for every vacation before we left the driveway, we would pray and ask God to be with us on the trip. But once we got going, my dad was still up at 6 AM every morning. My mom and sister would sleep later, but I would crawl out of my sleeping bag and join Daddy outside. He would always start an early morning campfire; not huge, but enough to take off the chill and enjoy the crackle of fire. I would sit with him in the cold, with the fire, not saying much. Just quietly enjoying his company. Those trips were when I really got to know my dad. It was comfort and security and just the best of everything a daddy should be. And I had time when it was just him and me, without having to compete with mom or sister for his attention.
Whether he was building a fire, or taking us to a glacier, or chopping wood or driving around finding some historical marker, he was just relaxed and fun. I identified with him. He taught us to navigate. (Of course he already had the day’s directions mostly memorized, but still). We were never allowed to say turn right or left, it had to be cardinal directions: north, south, east or west. He taught us to build fires and chop wood. He laughed a lot. He enjoyed the really BIG trees and mountains. The Rockies are incredible, and my dad’s spirit just matched the majesty of the surroundings.
He was human though. Occasionally he got something wrong. Once we were camping in California at an elevation of about 5000’. The campground had signs all over saying beware of bears, lock your food in the car, etc. My dad’s response? There are no bears at 5000’! So in our tent trailer, we went to sleep with the ice chest and dry goods and all the food right there with us. In the middle of the night, along comes the bear. This is California, so it wasn’t a grizzly (those were killed off long ago), but it was still a big bear. He walked right through our campsite. He stopped to lick-up where my mom haf drained some blueberry juice. He ate the dog’s food. Went right by the end of the tent trailer where my parents were sweating it out. Then moved on to another campsite.
But that was enough for my parents. Barefoot, they scooped us up, still in our sleeping bags, and ran to the station wagon, dumped us in the back and hopped in the front to sleep there. We asked them why and they said it was too cold in the tent trailer. There are all kinds of problems with that explanation, not the least of which is they didn’t turn on the car heater, but we were young and gullible.
Then my sister said, “What about Mopsey? (our cockapoo). She’ll freeze to death!” My dad said, “The dog is fine!” And immediately my mom said, “Waaarreeen!” and we hear a bunch of pst pst pst whispering in the front. Then he grumped, “Oh, all right!” He jumps out of the car, still barefoot and known to have very tender feet, and went and got the dog. He risked his life with a bear to save our dog so his little girls wouldn’t have to face the loss of Mopsey.
The bear did not return to our camp site, but we could hear how he progressed through the campground with people yelling, clanging pots and pans, and clapping. The next night all the food was in the car, and we were back in the tent trailer. And little Mopsey got to sleep in there with us.
Then there was the time at the Athabasca Glacier on the Athabasca Highway between Banff and Jasper in the Canadian Rockies. It’s one of the most accessible glaciers for tourists. But first, it has the steepest paved road in North America to get up into the parking lot. Campers not recommended. There was a motor home three cars ahead of us, and it started slipping backwards and things were rather precarious for a moment. It was all fine, but didn’t deter my dad since we were technically a pickup. My dad was very confident in his estimation of things.
Then you pay to ride in a “snowmobile”, which was really a teardrop-shaped, very snug little enclosed vehicle on skies, and they take you out to the glacier. The safe parts - but all very adventuresome. We got to lean out of the door and look down a hole that leads who-knows-where, with my mom tightly gripping our clothing. Afterwards, you go hike around on the sidewalks at the toe of the glacier, look in the museum and gift shop, take pictures.
Well, as I said, you are supposed to stay on the sidewalks, because they lecture you about how the glacier looks solid, but in fact it can be just brittle ice on top and you can sink down. If you are really unlucky, you can break through to an under-glacier tube into an under-glacier river and never be seen again. But those were higher up on the glacier, not where we were. Theoretically. But my dad ignored the signs. He went tromping off on the ice, as we sounded the alarm, him saying “It’s fine!” Then he took another step and sunk down past his ankle in snow slush. Looking abashed, he retreated, just as some woman was saying to her son, “Don’t do what that man just did!”
To make this even worse, he wasn’t wearing his boots, because they were wet from the day before. He wasn’t even wearing his sneakers, because they were wet from the day before. No, he sunk in muddy slush in his wingtips. Those were the wingtips he custom ordered from Hong Kong because his feet were 14 AAA and you just couldn’t get those in the US. I still remember him cleaning them off with paper towels in the back of the camper.
When we were in high school, we took a five-week trip across the US in that same camper. We started from home in California, again went through Las Vegas to Hoover Dam (where we had a flat tire and he changed it in 100+ heat), the Grand Canyon (where we took a helicopter ride!), down to Dallas and through the deep south, seeing all the Civil War stuff and antebellum plantations. Up the eastern seaboard, through the Blue Ridge Parkway, Williamsburg, Washington D.C., New York, Boston, Vermont, and Niagara Falls. Then a hard push back across the country and home.
Sometimes we’d put in 12-hour days on the road – we’d still be asleep in the back and Daddy would be up driving at six in the morning. Sometimes two or three of us would be in the truck cab, and others on the bed up top. Sometimes all four of us would pile into the cab. My dad would drive, one of us would be next to him, straddling the gear shift, and one by the other door. Then the fourth would be sitting on the lap of the person by the right door. Totally unsafe and the lap-sitter destined to die if we were to crash, but a lot of fun.
Somehow we got on a kick of getting A&W root beer floats along the way. We’d be driving all day in the heat, see one and stop to cool off, and hit the road again. One day we were heading out of some southern city, and asked my dad if we could stop for ice cream. He said no, we were running late and needed to get to the next campground. We begged and he relented. We were getting on the freeway and almost out of town, but he said if we see an A&W, we could stop. He was sure we wouldn’t find one. Well, wouldn’t you know it, as we are getting on the last on-ramp before we hit open highway, and waaaay off in the distance, we see an A&W sign. All my dad could do was laugh, get off the freeway, and make a 20-minute detour. He’s a man who keeps his word.
The last vacation I took with mom and dad was after college. My then-boyfriend now-husband came with us, and we traveled California again. His friends said he must really like me, to go camping with me and my parents. The Sequoias, Yosemite, the Redwoods, Big Sur, Hearst Castle -- I think a good ten days. This was about 1992 and Daddy was still driving the 1971 camper pickup. It had seen better days, but it was still our trusty camper. My boyfriend and I drove tandem in his car, and slept in a tent.
When we left home, the camper had a minor steering fluid leak, but it wasn’t bad and he didn’t have time to get it fixed, so he brought an extra couple of quarts of steering fluid to top it off along the way. Well, that plan backfired. The leak got worse and worse. Pretty soon he was buying steering fluid by the case! I remember pulling into a Carl’s Jr for lunch, and as we followed him, there was a visible trail of steering fluid as he turned into the parking lot. My dad: an ecological disaster.
But once again, what a great time! All that camping just glued us together. So much adventure: we got out of our Southern California bubble. We saw and lived (most of) the whole country over the years. I have in fact been to forty five of the fifty states. Which ones am I missing? Kentucky, North Dakota, Wisconsin, maybe Ohio, and Alaska. And I’ve been to twenty-three of our sixty-three national parks, plus two Canadian parks. I’ve got more work to do on those. Something to do in retirement.