My First Camping Trip
I was thinking the other day about the first time I ever went camping.
It probably wasn't what most people would consider a camping trip.
When I was a little boy, my dad had his own contracting business building houses. I remember one weekend he was working on a house on a really beautiful piece of property. The house was only roughed in at the time. The roof was barely dried-in, there were stacks of building materials everywhere, and it was a long way from being somebody's home.
But for one weekend, it became our campground.
Behind the house was a little pond full of fish and frogs, and Dad decided he was going to take me camping there.
We didn't have a fancy campsite.
We didn't even have a tent.
Instead, we made ourselves a bed on top of a stack of plywood inside the unfinished house. I don't remember exactly what we ate that night. I want to say we caught fish from the pond and cooked them for dinner, but honestly, that part of the memory has faded over the years.
What hasn't faded is the next morning.
Dad wanted coffee.
He showed me how to build a small, quick fire to boil some water, then sent me around the property gathering pine cones.
I can still remember collecting those pine cones and watching him show me how to arrange them and get that little fire going. Nothing complicated. No fancy fire lay. No expensive stove or specialized gear.
Just a little boy, his dad, a handful of pine cones, and a pot of water for coffee.
Funny what sticks with you.
All these years later, I've camped in a lot of places. I've slept in tents, hammocks, under tarps, beside rivers, in swamps and out in the woods. I've accumulated more camping gear than that little boy could have ever imagined.
But every now and then, I'll still gather up a few pine cones and build a little fire to make my coffee.
And as soon as I smell that pine smoke, I'm right back there.
I'm a little boy again, sleeping on a mattress on top of a stack of plywood in a half-built house, watching my dad make his morning coffee over a fire we built together.
I don't know if Dad realized he was teaching me anything that morning.
Maybe he was just trying to get his coffee.
But more than likely, that little pine cone fire was the beginning of a lifelong love of camping and the outdoors.
Sometimes the adventures that shape us aren't the big ones.
Sometimes they're just a weekend with Dad, a little pond behind an unfinished house...
and a handful of pine cones.
🔥 Stay Wyld.