I Was Going To Save Her

Camping was a big part of my growing up.  I have many memories of roughing it.  Living near the Snake River gave us great places near us to go camping.  When I was little we would camp in a tent.  In high school, we had a motorhome.

Camping in a tent was fun as a kid.  Unlike most families, we did not camp at state park that had flushing toilets and showers.   We would find a place that had an outhouse and was along the river.  I don't remember much about the cooking part of camping.  Mom always took care of that.  Us kids would spend our time fishing and exploring.  My nephew was usually with us.  He liked to see what animals he could catch or if he couldn't get an animal (which I don't think he ever did), he would catch bugs.  It rained occasionally while we were camping.  As tents go, as long as you didn't touch the tent it wouldn't leak.  My nephew took that as a challenge to see if he could touch every part of the tent.

I remember one time of camping very clearly.  We had set the tent up.  Mom, dad, my sister and nephew had gone down to the river to fish.  I was at the campsite doing something when a strong wind came up.  It started to blow the tent away.  I thought I will get in the tent so it doesn't blow away.  The wind got stronger and I started screaming.  No one came to my rescue.  I was frustrated because no one seemed to care I was going to be blown away with the tent.  Finally someone came up to the car to get some fishing tackle.  I yelled at whoever it is that I had saved the day because the tent almost blew away.  They didn't seem to care. But later we decided a storm was blowing in, and we should just pack up and go home.

Another time of camping, we had gone with some friends who had a motorhome.  We slept in the tent and they slept in the motorhome.  We set up camp close to the river.  My littlest sister must have been 3, making me 10, and my nephew 9.  The adults had some misadventures of their own with losing fishing poles in the river.  But us kids didn't really care too much.  We were having fun and that's what mattered.  My nephew and I were jumping off the dock and swimming.  We would get tired and sit on the end of the dock.  My sister like most kids do wanted to do what we were doing.  Mom wouldn't let her jump off the dock because she couldn't swim, but she let her sit on the end of the dock with us.  We were kicking our feet in the water, so my sister kicked her feet too.  As most little kids are, she was a bit top heavy and fell over head first into the water.  My nephew jumped into action.  He hopped up and started to jump in the water to save her.  My mom in the mean time calmly walked to the end of the dock, grabbed my sister's leg and pulled her out.  She was fine and my nephew kept saying, "I was going to save her, I was going to save her."  And I'm sure he could have.

Later when we got the motorhome we took a few camping trips in it.  Always a bunch of fun.  But my best memories of the motorhome was playing in it while it was parked in the driveway.  It was the place to go to get away from the world as a teenager.  When I had friends spend the night, we would sleep out there.   For a while we had a tv with cable out there.  It felt like my own space until my dad would come tell me he wanted to hang out there a while.  One summer while a friend was spending the night, we created a recipe for lemonade.  I know it wasn't so fabulous, but if you added enough sugar, it was good.  Since then I have gotten a real recipe for lemonade.  It is far better than the lemonade we made way back then.

Lemonade

7 cups water

1 cup fresh squeezed lemonade

1 cup sugar

Mix all ingredients well until sugar is dissolved.  Chill and serve.