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August 19, 2004 - Adventures in campingAugust 19, 2004 • The Suffolk Times Adventures in camping inn AI" r t r I ^. } Times /Review photo by Barbara Stoutenburgh Our tent is in the background. We had come out in the sun to enjoy our lunch with friends while on a trip "Down Under" in Australia. Little did we know how many friends we had — kangaroos of all sizes decided to join us. Just one of the many adventures that happens when you are out camping. TEENAGERS CONTINUALLY amaze me This past week our grandchildren decided to have a tent out in their back yard. They invited friends to grab their sleeping bags and join in the fun. There were screams and hollers and much laughter as they played volley- ball and other games and enjoyed a barbecue together. The whole thing brought to my mind all the great times and experiences our family has had. tenting over the years. FOCUS Even before ON kids, Barbara and I went camping NATURE over in the walk- by Paul ing dunes of Stoutenburgh Montauk. Fifty- four years ago, there were no regulations ana you couia preu.y MUCH camp where you wanted to. We trail - ered a little boat with all our gear over to Montauk on a Labor Day weekend. After we parked the car, we headed out to Goff Point with the boat, where we pitched our tent no more than 10 feet from the water's edge. We picked beach plums for jelly before we left. It proved to be one of the rare weekend, in our early marriage. Over the years, nearby Hither Hills State Park (which hasn't really . changed that much) has been a place our family has often gone to tent. We camped there with our kids (and later with our grandchildren), exploring the seashore, the woods, and all the natu- ral history that area has to offer. We found time to travel during the summers after I returned to college and started teaching. We traveled to Acadia National Park in Maine, wnere we saw our first moose and I went skin diving in the most frigid water I'd ever been in. I was so mesmerized by the clear water and the tapestry of the swaying world around me that when I came out I couldn't stop shaking. We hiked to the top of Cadillac Mountain, where, it is said, some times of the year the sun touches the slopes before any other place in the U.S. We tented in Nova Scotia in days of rain, when we spent hours reading and playing games with the kids. When it cleared we climbed the cliffs at Antigonish to see where the cor- morants nested. I never realized they were such aerialists as they maneu- vered for a landing alongside their nests. We traveled around Cape Breton Island, called an island of insl ration, where our kids saw their first eagles. We loved Prince Edward Island, with its red clay roads that covered of car with rusty dust. While the family enjoyed the day at a beach, I spent hours in a blue heron rookery photo- graphing. I found out the heronry is not the best place to be on a hot day as the young herons upchuck their half- digested fish when they get excit- ed! One summer we headed up the St. Lawrence River, camping along the way in our old reliable tent. I'll never forget stopping alongside the road where a lady was baking bread in an outdoor oven. It smelled so good we bought two loaves. I think they were 10 cents each. We went on our way, bui the aroma of the newly baked bread was so great we had to stop and get out a jar of homemade raspberry jam and soon polished off one of the I Our destination was the Gaspe Peninsula and Perce Rock. This was ai area I'd read about, where gannets ant other seabirds by the thousands nest on the cliffs. It was opposite here we pitched our tent. We watched the lob - stermen below as they came in, built a fire on the beach and dropped their obsters in a 52 -gallon drum filled with boiling seawater. I had to go down and ee for myself I'd never seen such big obsters ... some of them went almost ve pounds. I bought three of them to ake back for supper. We gorged our- elves on lobsters in melted butter and till couldn't eat them all, so some had to go in the ice chest. I took the tour boat out to Bonaventure Island, where all the birds were nesting. Most people took a look and returned but I stayed the whole day watching these magnificent gannets fly six feet above my head, landing in their nests all around me in their snow white attire with their con- trasting black wing tips. It was a n6isy, wild, wonderful day. And then there were times we'd head south with our tent. One time we WCiu aown to Snenandoah National Park, where we spent Easter always focusing on nature. I remember the kids found snakes coming out of the round where.they had been hibernat- ing. One after the other, they came out — big garter snakes. Another Easter vacation we went to Cape Hatteras, the famous place where the Wright brothers first took off into the air. We pitched our tent along the ocean shore and climbed the great sand dunes only to come back and find the wind had blown the tent down and everything was full of sand. What a time we had and how the wind did blow, so much so that all the campers moved inland up the James River. It was a warm, won- derful area. It was so full of birds. Seemed every bird that comes up north here spends the winter down there, an we reveled with the wonder of migration. Later we did a lot camping, but in different styles. We pulled a camper to the Rocky Mountains one summer with the family, where bears tried to get into our food chests during the night. With the same camper we went around the Great Lakes the year after that road opened north of Wawa. We swam until 10 p.m., as it stayed light so long up there. At Porcupine State Park the skunks wandered around the pic- nic area much like squirrels do here in our back yards. After the children were on their own Barbara and I took a pop -up camper on our pickup and traveled 13,000 miles around the country visit- ing not only family and friends but as many national park areas as we could. And then we. returned to the tents to take a long trip with friends. We car- ried two bags, one with tenting equip- ment and the other with our clothes. On Jan. 8,1991, we took off for two months, making a stop at Hawaii and then on to Australia, where we trav- �led south to see the little penguins valk out of the water and go to their tests and where we saw the beautiful glue mountain waterfalls and the won- aerrut Sydney Aquarium and tented near where the kangaroos joined us for lunch one day, while the kookabur- ras sat in the trees nearby. From there, with Barbara's planning, we went on to New Zealand, where we tented both the North and South Islands. We saw ferns as big as trees and mudslides that made us detour around, and slept in a campsite where we could hear the flightless kiwi bird calling during the night. The people were so friendly and helpful. We stopped in one of their kitchens for a cup of tea after we "pulled into the gap in the woods" to watch their dogs herd the sheep way up high on their 500 - acre farm that had its own waterfalls. What wonderful memories we all have of those faraway places. On our return to Hawaii it was my birthday, so Barbara decided to take me on a four -island hop of the islands. What fun! We would fly Aloha Airlines to one island, rent a car, throw in our bags, then circle the island, tent at night, and move on to the next island. Each island was unique in its own special way – beautiful flowering trees, lava pouring into the water, etc. I even got to see the modest burial spot where my teenage idol Charles Lindbergh was laid to rest. When we returned home we were told we had enough free miles to fly to Alaska. We were off, As we flew into Anchorage I looked out the plane window into the great glaciers that gave us some idea of the breadth and scope of this magnificent state. And so with a rental car we traveled around Alaska, throwing our tent up every night, sleeping in comfort, knowing we were in one of the great states where bears and fish and birds share the `It was a noisy, wild, wonderful day.' We've reminisced a bit about camp - g and how many ways you can do it, if you get a chance to get out and any of them, do it. There's always a of adventure waiting at the next mpsite. It's a great way to see this I inderful world of ours.