# Summer camping, anyone?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 29, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687 "2008-06-29T20:34:12Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2008, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/1 "2008-06-29T20:34:12Z")
I’m heading north in three weeks, looking forward to car camping at Jed Smith State Park, Crater Lake, and Mt Lassen. This will be my first “post-SUV” trip since the untimely death of my 4Runner. My stuff will still fit in back of my Mazda 3, but there won’t be any exportations down forest service roads, I’m afraid. Oh well, it will still be fun.
Anyone else headed for the great outdoors?
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### Author:  [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2008, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/2 "2008-06-29T20:37:51Z")
[QUOTE=blondebear]
I’m heading north in three weeks, looking forward to car camping at Jed Smith State Park, Crater Lake, and Mt Lassen. This will be my first “post-SUV” trip since the untimely death of my 4Runner. My stuff will still fit in back of my Mazda 3, but there won’t be any exportations down forest service roads, I’m afraid. Oh well, it will still be fun.
Anyone else headed for the great outdoors?
[/QUOTE]
Love, love, love camping-- Vermont, Massachusetts, Maine.
Cooking over a fire, pitching the tents, the little irons for making bread-pies…
Haven’t gone in a couple of years…
BTW-- where are those parks you mentioned?
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### Author:  [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2008, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/3 "2008-06-29T20:49:55Z")
There’s been a LOT of rain in the area and stuff keeps happening so nothing yet.
But I do want to.
Brian
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### Author:  [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2008, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/4 "2008-06-29T22:00:12Z")
I’m not sure if it counts. But I’ll be camping this summer as I’ve got weekend tickets to Leeds Festival.
I haven’t been camping since I was a kid. I’m really looking forward to it.
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### Author:  [@blondebear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blondebear)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2008, 10:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/5 "2008-06-29T22:17:51Z")
[QUOTE=IvoryTowerDenizen]
BTW-- where are those parks you mentioned?
[/QUOTE]
[Jedediah Smith Redwoods](http://www.redwoodhikes.com/Jed%20Smith/Jed%20Smith.html) is the northernmost of the redwood parks in California, just outside of Crescent City. [Crater Lake](http://www.nps.gov/crla/) is in southern Oregon, and [Lassen](http://www.nps.gov/lavo/) is east of Redding.
I’m crossing my fingers that the fire situation improves between now and then. The air quality throughout northern California at the moment is not good at all.
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [June 29, 2008, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/6 "2008-06-29T23:35:06Z")
Paddling about on Lake Superior.
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### Author:  [@picker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picker)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/7 "2008-06-30T01:46:22Z")
Just got back from a couple days kayaking on the Wisconsin River - great time, but had to stop on a number of sandbars and wait out some pretty heavy rain and hail.
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### Author:  [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/8 "2008-06-30T01:53:17Z")
We are going camping in August. It’s our vacation–camping and bicycling near Duluth, MN. It will be the first time I’ve been camping since I was a kid. I hope I don’t hate it as much as I think I might.
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### Author:  [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/9 "2008-06-30T01:53:55Z")
Yep yep yep! I’ve been several times so far - the first weekend in May is the start of camping season for me. Been out prob’ly 4 or 5 times since then. On the 11th of July, we hit the road towards northwestern New York state for a solid 2 weeks of camping with 2000 of our closest friends at a neopagan/hippie festival (think Burning Man, but much, much smaller). Well, not quite solid - one week, and then we head back to Ohio to drop the little one off with my in-laws, and then back for another week of fun with no wee one! Woo! 😃 The 15 year old is old enough to generally not be a bother, although his female companion of interest (I’m not allowed to say “girlfriend” yet) will be at the same festival, so I’m a bit nervous about teenage hormones and tents! :eek:
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### Author:  [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 2:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/10 "2008-06-30T02:37:21Z")
I’m off for Yellowstone in early August. Most of my stay will be in the park lodges - but 5 days of it will be spent horsepacking through the backcountry. Tents, campfires, and horses - what’s not to like? August can’t get here fast enough! 😃
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### Author:  [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/11 "2008-06-30T02:44:10Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
. . . teenage hormones and tents! :eek:
[/QUOTE]
Ah, such sweet memories! Oh, to be young again.
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### Author:  [@psycat90](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psycat90)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/12 "2008-06-30T03:58:16Z")
Definitely. We’ve been out twice in the last few weeks and are going again next week.
4 days on the Russian River. Hiking in the redwoods, kayaking and canoeing, sunbathing, fire poking, tubing down the river, and maybe a gay bar or two. Fun!
It’d be nice if there were fireworks this year, although I would completely, completely understand if there weren’t.
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### Author:  [@missred](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/missred)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/13 "2008-06-30T04:05:19Z")
Headed to East Tennessee toward the end of next month when my sister comes up from Houston. Camping at a state park or ACoE campground.
don’t you just love the recession 🙂
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### Author:  [@pullin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pullin)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/14 "2008-06-30T12:45:03Z")
Just got back from two weeks of camping\*. Grand Canyon (N. Rim), Pipe Spring, Zion, Cedar Breaks, Bryce Canyon, Mesa Verde (and a few assorted KOAs in between). It was great.
\*If you allow that term to apply to an RV with running water, genset, microwave, central air, and dvd player. 😛
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### Author:  [@Twoflower](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Twoflower)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/15 "2008-06-30T15:35:25Z")
[QUOTE=blondebear]
I’m heading north in three weeks, looking forward to car camping at Jed Smith State Park, Crater Lake, and Mt Lassen. This will be my first “post-SUV” trip since the untimely death of my 4Runner. My stuff will still fit in back of my Mazda 3, but there won’t be any exportations down forest service roads, I’m afraid. Oh well, it will still be fun.
Anyone else headed for the great outdoors?
[/QUOTE]
I made virtually the same trip, except counter-clockwise, a couple of years ago – loved it! Since you’re doing volcanoes, I highly recommend a stop at Lava Beds National Monument on your way by.
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### Author:  [@Hanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hanna)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/16 "2008-06-30T17:36:39Z")
[QUOTE=artemis]
I’m off for Yellowstone in early August. Most of my stay will be in the park lodges - but 5 days of it will be spent horsepacking through the backcountry. Tents, campfires, and horses - what’s not to like? August can’t get here fast enough! 😃
[/QUOTE]
**Jealous**
I just returned from Yellowstone (Norris CG) and middle-of-nowhere Montana. Then, two weeks before I got back from a camping trip that took me though Maine, New Brunswick and the Gaspe Peninsula of Quebec. I love to camp but a nice, warm, dry bed is welcome at the end.
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### Author:  [@gnagtcha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnagtcha)
#### Post date: [June 30, 2008, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/17 "2008-06-30T23:48:11Z")
> [@Pullin](#):
>
> \*If you allow that term to apply to an RV with running water, genset, microwave, central air, and dvd player.
I certainly do. Hell, an RV is just a fancy tent on wheels.
We started camping this year on Easter weekend at these great hot springs about twenty miles north of Bishop. Each campsite had its own private pool.
And then later in April we camped a couple of times at a campground that overlooks Washoe Lake which is right in between Carson City and Reno.
For Memorial Day weekend we took our annual trip up to Yosemite for the Strawberry Music Festival and got rained on for four straight days which made having a fancy tent on wheels that much more appreciated.
Did a trip up in the Sierras out by Sonora Pass a couple of weekends ago and this weekend we’re heading out to Taylorsville for the Solar Cook-off and next weekend ( 4th of July ) we’re going to Surprise Valley for an old fashioned 4th of July celebration in a little town called Cedarville. Did that about five years ago and my wife and I told ourselves we would have to do that again someday.
And after that, Labor day week out at Burning Man. Can’t wait for that one.
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### Author:  [@Snowcarpet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowcarpet)
#### Post date: [July 1, 2008, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/summer-camping-anyone/454687/18 "2008-07-01T23:49:09Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot]
so I’m a bit nervous about teenage hormones and tents! :eek:
[/QUOTE]
Yep, you should be, that’s how my sweetie and I hooked up (at a certain elfin-fest in Indy.) Ok, we were 20-something, but it was definitely tents-n-hormones…
Still haven’t finalized my camp plans yet, but should be headed to NY at some point mid-July!