Mike and Jennifer tout the benefits of RV travel as it relates to family life.
By Mike Wendland, F426141
September 2016
As a kid, I dreaded September. It was “back to school” time. Now, as an empty-nest RVer, I am still a bit sorry to see September come, but for another reason: it means fewer families in our parks and campgrounds.
As much as Jennifer and I appreciate the extra elbowroom in the campgrounds at this time of year, we do miss seeing so many young families out there. We love the sound of children playing outdoors, and seeing families connecting with each other around a campfire.
In this high-tech world where everyone appears to be glued to an electronic device, it seems camping is one of the few activities left in which people actually interact face to face, communicating with words instead of text.
We also have noticed more families traveling full-time with their kids, while “road schooling” the youngsters. Instead of teaching the kids American history by reading facts and looking at photos, families are traveling to the actual locations where history was made, visiting such places as Washington, D.C.; Boston, Massachusetts; and Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. Then, to learn about biology and the environment, they might motorhome down to the Florida Everglades to see firsthand how the delicate balance between nature and man is playing across 1.5 million acres of wetlands. What a way to learn.
Camping and RVing can have a major impact on the lives of young people and create special family ties that make for a lasting legacy.
This summer, we had a great family vacation with our three grown children, their spouses, and our seven grandkids. Jennifer and I celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary with them, and as we all gathered together, a lot of memories were shared. The best ones all involved the outdoors and camping.
Jennifer and I both camped when we were growing up, and a couple of years after we were married, we bought a 13-foot travel trailer. Our daughter, Wendy, started camping when she was a year old. When son Scott came around five years later, we traded that old Shasta in for a Coleman pop-up trailer. That served us well for many years, even when child number three, son Jeff, was born.
For many years during the summer, we headed north almost every weekend, camping in state parks, national forests, and on a relative’s 200-acre hunk of deep woods property along the Rifle River in Michigan’s Ogemaw County.
Wendy remembers sitting with me for hours near a deer trail under a huge white pine as we waited to snap the perfect photo of a passing buck.
Jeff remembers eating so many marshmallows around a campfire that he got sick.
Scott remembers me complaining about having to empty the portable potty.
We laughed when we recalled the little mouse and her baby that somehow made their way into our camper and stayed there all the way to our Detroit-area home, making their escape in our driveway 150 miles away from their forest home.
We reminisced about so many adventures and misadventures; stories of storms; getting stuck in the mud; going to sleep on a nice, early-spring night, only to awaken the next morning blanketed by snow.
But perhaps the biggest influence all those camping weekends and summer vacations had for us over the years was simply the time we spent together, away from the distractions of home, the duties of school and work, the things of everyday life that scatter us.
Our family is closer because of those many days and nights we spent camping in the great outdoors. And now our kids are doing the same thing with their kids. Wendy and Jeff are avid tent campers. Both look at our motorhome with great envy and vow to get one someday. Son Scott, with four boys, takes his kids hunting and fishing, to dude ranches, and to the Colorado mountains.
Because our kids and grandkids are scattered across the country, it’s hard to all get together like we did this summer. This year, with 15 of us, it took two rented condos in Florida to house us all.
A couple of years ago, we took a family trip to the Rocky Mountains and towed a travel trailer with our Roadtrek Type B motorhome for Wendy’s family, as Jeff and his wife followed in a rented motorhome. Last year, we did pretty much the same thing during a trip to Maine.
Lord willing, there will be more opportunities for the whole family to camp and RV together in the years ahead. It’s a great lifestyle. Our motorhome takes Jennifer and me all over North America. We also use it to visit our kids and grandkids.
Now, when Jennifer and I are on our own in some campground or national forest and we spot a family with young children, we smile and remember those wonderful times when we were doing the same thing with our kids.
So now fall is arriving again. We’ve always thought September and October were the very best months to camp because of the weather.
But we miss seeing kids.