I love to camp. Usually. The last time our familycamped in bad weather was about ten years ago. We made it through the first day of severe rain and a storm that turned into cold spell, but we were cold. We camped in Yosemite National Park, a breath-taking little valley so packed with beauty, so when we decided to return to the wild, we were eager to take advantage of the legendary swimming hole in the middle of the park.
The problem was that we had set our sights so low and concentrated our energy in just few places. We didn’t have the money to spend a lot of money in a place where hotels and motels were few and hotel begrudgingly accepted our money. Travelers thought we were nuts to stay in a hotel when we could see the park from the seat of a bicycle.
So, we became convinced that a camping holiday was the only way to experience the beauty of Yosemite. And, after a couple of seasons camping in Idaho and Wyoming, we had the right biking boots and backpack to make the trip.But, we didn’t want to stay overnight in a place where we were so far from everything. The thought of not having a hot shower for a couple of days was frightening. Especially, when it rained all day.
We ended up camping for a week in a place a ocean away from home. We’re still not sure how we lasted five days, let alone a week. Most of our friends thought we looked like we were in a war zone. And, while it was true that we did have to get out of the city to camp (arrive at the campground, find a spot, pitch your tent, set-up your braai stand), we did it in a gorgeous spot under the trees. It was like a Garden of Eden. We had berry-berries and wild blackberries, and drank water from our garden hose. We were happy to arrive.
Then, we tried to annex a bigger piece of territory. We wanted to stay longer and have our own place to sleep. That’s when we were tempted to camp on the beach. We loaded all our stuff into my car and went an hour out of town to some place where we thought we could park the car. Sure enough, they turned out to be the wrong place. There were toilets up there and it was probably public. So we didn’t get out of the car. Rather than go into the middle of nowhere and figure out how to get around, we decided to pitch a tent on the beach.
We’re glad we did, because it was one of the best experiences of my life. It was relaxing, and having the beach all to ourselves was a treat. Rather than going into the town and finding motel or hotel accommodations, we decided to stay in our Beach Tent Camper. It was a lot of fun, and we had good time. We actually felt like we earned the right to stay in a tent on the beach. It wasn’t until we were ready to go home that we had to remind each other. We were sad day one was over, and wechildishly decided to stay a few extra nights to enjoy Mother Nature.
It’s been almost 10 years now, and we still relish being on the beach. We havefed grapes to the sharks, and have baked sun lots of times. We thought we had bought into the “great” and wonderful idea of camping. But, like most things in life, we wereaffe drivers. We kept telling ourselves that next time, it would be in a tent.
I know that won’t ever change. But, it’s nice to know that we can try and go a little further, to be relaxing and enjoying our time on the beach.
We have our fishing rods and live about 5 miles offshore. The next time we go out beyond the boat, we will lye back in the Flamingo Tent Trailer and come back to the lovely and peaceful beach. The nice thing about a tent trailer is that, except for having to push a button somewhere, once we get it where we want to stay, we can just drive home. The storage is nice, since you can bring all your stuff with you. Storage on a trailer is also nice because you can bring bags and baskets and just put them in the trailer, rather than blowing them up and worrying about forgetting items.
If you plan to stay overnight, the tent trailer is nice, because you can drive it to the middle of nowhere and still be able to get to where you want to go. And if you have children, you can plan to stay with them and drive the trailer there so that you do not have to worry about setting them down in a location that is hopefully not worse than your own driveway to get to.