Category Archives: Title

Camping Etiquette – How not to annoy your camping neighbors.

by

0

While it is difficult to ruin a peaceful, relaxing weekend camping – there are surely those occasions where lack of etiquette from fellow campers can test our patience. To be sure, annoying people are everywhere, so I guess we shouldn’t presume a campground would be any different. Yet, when you are out in the open, more exposed than in the comfort of your home, and looking for the rest and relaxation that the outdoors offers, having a camping experience ruined by others is especially frustrating. Whether it is a lack of awareness or lack of concern altogether, some people just don’t get it. There are several sure-fire ways you can be annoying to the campers next to you. We would consider avoiding the following:

10. Night Owls – Those campers that roll in to set up past midnight, hammering in stakes, opening and shutting their car doors, shining their flashlights in all directions. While sometimes it is unavoidable to arrive late – please for the love of all humanity, try to set up quietly. We have been asleep for a while now.

loud talkers

9. Morning Glory: The birds may be chirping and the fish may be biting in the early dawn hours – but we are cranky after being awakened by the night owls that arrived at 1:00am last night and we really don’t want to smell your coffee brewing and smell your bacon cooking just yet. Can you wait until let’s say 7:00?

8. Party Animals:  I am sure your taste of music is fabulous, but this is not a rock concert and we have our own music we would like to hear, or maybe even conversations we would like to be having.  Do us a favor and turn down the decibel a notch or two.  While you are at it – those beers you are knocking back are making you talk louder and louder as the night goes on.  As interesting as your stories may be – we don’t really want to hear them.  And we sure would hate to see you stumble into your fire pit in a drunken stupor.

loud music

7. Pig Pens: We really don’t want to have to pick up all the trash you left behind before we can set up and we certainly don’t want to step in the dog dirt that you “forgot” to clean up.  YUCK.

trash

6.  The Anti-Socials:  Camping is a community experience.  By nature we enjoy being around others and we would like to say “Hello” and chit-chat a bit.  We share the love for outdoors, who knows what else we might find we have in common. Don’t worry we won’t invite ourselves over for dinner, we are just trying to be friendly. 🙂

 

i dont care

5. Absentee Parents:  Where are you exactly while your children and pets are running wild through the campground?  We can babysit but we don’t think you will find our rate very reasonable.  Afterall, we have better things to do.

4.   Not-So-Pampered Chefs:  We have spent our share of camping weekends in a tent, and we understand how difficult it is to wash dishes without running water.  But few things are more annoying than brushing your teeth in the bathroom sink and seeing remnants of someone’s meal left behind.  Most campgrounds have water stations you can use – or how about using paper plates and wash the pans at home.

bath sink

3. Shower Hogs:  It is so nice to enjoy a hot shower after a day full of hiking.  But we can’t enjoy a hot shower if you use it all up taking your 20 minute showers while a line forms out the door.  Be respectful, take a nice quick hot shower and be thankful that there are those few campgrounds left that haven’t installed timers or push-buttons to regulate water usage.

2. Peep-Show:  Hey tent campers – news flash- when you are in your tent with the lights on at night, WE CAN SEE YOU.tent shadow

1. Smoky Bandits:  Is being a cheap skate really worth destroying the forest?  Taking or cutting wood from the forest disturbs the ecosystem of the forest floor and leaves the forest more sparse for wildlife.  Worse yet, bringing in your own wood can spread the Ash borer and ruin the forest for generations to come.  Pay the $5 bucks and purchase wood at the campstore or from local vendors.

untitled

Bruckner Nature Center – Troy, OH

by

0

5995 Horseshoe Bend Rd. Troy, OH

(937) 698-6493  http://www.bruknernaturecenter.com/index.html

On a recent trip to my hometown of Troy, OH I took my husband to Bruckner Nature Center.  I had visited the center several times as a youngster with my family and Girl Scout troop.  The center was every bit as great as I remembered, and we enjoyed seeing the wildlife and hiking the trails.  If you are ever in the area (about 20 minutes north of Dayton) be sure to visit!

There are six miles of well-maintained, mulched trails that take you through the wooded nature preserve.  The trails are easy to moderate and very shaded in most parts.  There are a few ponds along the trails good for viewing fish and turtles.  One trail also takes you along the Stillwater river.

While visiting be sure to take a walk through the visitor’s center and Idding’s log cabin.  There is also a treetop bird vista where you can have a seat and watch all types of birds visit the feeders from the comfort of an air conditioned room!  Bruckner also serves as a wildlife rehabilitation center and there are several animals on hand for visitors to see.  I loved the barn owls!

Ever wonder what to do with a baby bird when it falls out of its nest?  Check out the website above to find the answer to this and many more questions!

 

“Going Old School”

by

0

Camping is an evolving hobby, something that progresses over time. Most of us begin at stage one with a tent. As time goes on we move to a pop-up, then to a travel trailer. In the retirement years, many campers evolve to the motor home or fifth wheeler. Where ever you are at on the camping “time line”, I am here to tell you that going “old school” is a good thing every once in a while. It makes you appreciate what you have. For Amy and I, we own a pop-up camper. However, this Labor Day weekend, in celebration of one year of camping together, we tent camped. We follow a band called Mumford and Sons. Excellent band! They have been touring America along with other bands in a huge production called “Gentlemen of the Road.” This weekend the tour landed in Troy, Ohio. Beginning Friday morning various acts played in downtown Troy. There was various music between Friday and ended with the main act on Saturday evening (Mumford and Sons). A weekend of music. Vendors in the streets of small town America. People enjoying gyros and funnel cakes and those wonderful adult beverages. Goose Island even created a special Stopover Ale for the tour. People came from all over Ohio to listen to the multitude of music.

The city of Troy opened up the city park along the river and the baseball fields for tent campers. There were rules, but camping was free. The Gentlemen of the Road tour offered shower facilities. Had it not been for the fact that one rule for tent camping was no animals, we would have camped in the park. I am not old enough to have been around during Woodstock, so I don’t have first hand experience of what that was like. However, this felt like a modern-day version of it.

Instead of camping in the park, we decided to set up tent in my mother-in-laws backyard, alongside my brother-in-law and his wife. Her house was only six or seven blocks from the festivities and it was great time to bond with family. Sure, we did not have some of the conveniences of the pop-up camper, however, it was good to relive the “old” days when we tent camped. The two night experience made us appreciate what we have now. This is not to say that tent camping is bad. In fact, there was less to worry about. Set up and breakdown was so much quicker with the tent. Even the dogs enjoyed the simple life of tent camping.

20130830_183750

I think sometimes as Americans we want to keep progressing, getting more and more instead of just being happy with what we have. Sure, Amy and I just paid off the pop-up last month and officially got the title today. So, at any point I could go trade it in for a new travel trailer. But maybe life is about being happy with what you have and not down about what you don’t have. Maybe we should be grateful for what God’s blessed us with and not envious of what our neighbor has. Sometimes we need to go “old school” to appreciate what we have. Amy and I are happy with our pop-up camper. Every once in a while we pull out the tent and camp to remind us of that.

In the words of Marcus Mumford – “In these bodies we will live, in these bodies we will die and where you invest your love, you invest your life.”

Accidental Tourists

by

0

We recently travelled to Decatur, IN for a Corgi reunion. Yes, that’s right – a reunion for our dog! Our breeder had new puppIMG_4027ies to unite with their new families and decided it would be fun to invite some of his previous customers out for a picnic. We had a great time! While I mean no offense to the fine people of Decatur,had it not been for this event I doubt we would have packed up the camper and headed up the highway to visit there.
The funny thing is…there were a lot of really great things about the trip we did not anticipate. For starters, we got to visit a new KOA campground (review coming soon). We got some really cool pictures of cornfields at sunrise and sunset (Click here to see photos) , and perhaps best of all we visited the Ouabache State Park in Bluffton.
bisonmod

This park, once occupied by the Native American Miami tribe, is situated along the Wabash river and includes the 25 acre Kunkel Lake, several nature trails, and an American bison nature preserve. We enjoyed taking the dogs along the trails and seeing the buffalo up close. It was well worth the trip!  🙂