Best/worst camping stories....whats yours?

[punkin570]

Since there are several of us that camp....I would enjoy hearing all the different experiences (best and worst) that some of you have had along the years. This should make for some good reading and laughs. I'll start out first.

My best camping trip ever was on our 10th anniversary. Hershell and I went to Big Buck Huntin/Fishing resort in Tn., my parents had charter membership there. We stayed the enitire weekend, took the 4 wheelers and rode the trails with other groups of ppl. We sat at the edge of the lake and fished and played around with a turkey box call...called some geese from the other side of the lake to us...it was peaceful, calm, and the weather was great....times like that are hard to find.

My worst was in 1995, we went to Tippah Lake in Tippah Co, Ms. Was the worst trip ever...One of the tents ripped, Hershell's boat motor locked up on him, hadnt planned on cookin fish that particular trip but he caught some and wanted me to cook them so after a lil arguin i hadda go into the nearest town and buy some fish cookin supplies...my son (5 yrs old then) picked up a snappin turtle (was as big as him at the time) and brought it back to camp in a bear hug....it used the bathroom all over him and i had left an important bag of clothes for the kids at the house that had his spare shoes in it plus all cheyennes clothes (she was3). It rained on us...I was never so gald to get my tail back home. Swore up and down I was never going through all that again. I lived and learned from that trip alot. So glad I have gotten better at predicting stuff adn pack more prepared.

Now its your turn, lets hear from you.

[HoggyO]

Well, I cant pin point one good trip, but anytime I can spend time with Family and friends camping is a great time, there is nothing like sitting around a roaring campfire and shooting the sh*t with everyone!!

Now, on the other hand I can pin point my worst trip....it was either my first or second trip with my parents, my dad who was new to the whole "camping thing" must of had a brain fart and decided to put my little one man tent on a slight incline...well, that first night it started to rain and I woke up in the middle of the night and the only thing in the tent was my head..I must have broke the zipper on my tent when I started sliding down the hill in my sleep...I spent the rest of the camping trip sleeping in the back of the Bronco...Now that I'm sort of the Camping expert of the Family, the next time my Dad goes with me, I'm setting him up on the hill!!!

[BAM]

I camped a lot as a kid. Lot's of great memories with most of them of the little peculiar things that happened. Waking up with hundreds of big black would ants in my bedroll, came from the wood on the fire. Deciding to go camping late like after dark, forgot the flash light and rolled my bed out on some cactus, one of my many dimmer moments in life. There are a lot of stories, most not suitable for this forum, during my quest to be world champion bull rider, of the night's spent at roadside parks, local fairgrounds, motel parking lots and rodeo grounds in Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana. I will share one with you that happened at the Denton Texas fairgrounds, the early summer of 1976. As it turned out there were a lot and I mean a lot of bull riders at this rodeo, Well over a 100. Anyway lets get to the point, I was out during the slack ( The contestants that don't get to perform during the show due to time constraints, don't want to keep the local town folk up to late ) and as luck would have it the slack bull riding was the last thing to go. I am starting to ramble so I will get to the point, Rolled my bedroll out about 4:30 am and went to sleep, woke up about 5:30 am with a black Angus bull smelling my face, Might have had something to do with the partial bale of hay I spread out to make the ground softer. After I got over the shock of the very close view of a bulls nostrils and the paralysis started fading I noticed that there was more than one bull, about 2 dozen or maybe more, I am not sure. When I started to ease out of my bedroll, I guess the movement startled them enough that that they moved back and gave me an opportunity to escape to the truck with nothing more than a lack of sleep and one heck of an adrenaline rush.

[muskyman]

Me and my buddies were fishing a catfish derby at Lake Skinner in California about 15 years ago. We had been camping there and living off what fish we had been catching. The event was tagged fish and we had been there a few days, luckily the tagged fish were worth food, free camping, and some of them money and boat rentals. For being 16, it was a cool thing not relying on your parents or anyone else but yourself. Well, since we were teenagers, and the outdoors type - you know trouble is only a cast away. At the end of the trip, I had dumped all the extra white gas I had into the fire pit ( there was no lit fire ). Well while I was leaning over, dumping the white gas, one of my buddies got the bright idea to toss a match in there as well. Keep in mind I had dumped about a pint of white gas in the pit so far. Well the flames engulfed my head, burned off my eyebrows and singed some of the hair on my head. I jumped back real fast, just not fast enough. Needless to say, someone got some serious @ss kicking for that stupid stunt !

[waterwalker]

My worst camping trip was when I as a Marine in the Viet war. I lived in a squad tint for a year. I am happy for those who like to camp. unfortunately for me, if I never see a tent again, it will be to soon for me.
Follow your passion and enjoy your hobby.

[Pontoon]

I have one that I will say was the funniest but at the same time my wife will say was her all-time worst.....
Shortly after my wife and I were married we decided to go on a camping trip with some old school friends up to the Sierras. The guys used to play hookie from school to trout fish anywhere we could and the Sierras were our favorite. Now my wife at the time was not what you would call a fan of rough camping and I don't think she would have agreed to go had it not been for the fact that the campground we chose had hot and cold running water and showers. She needed this amenity to take care of the "Crystal Gayle" long hair, perfectly manicured finger nails and all that make up that had to be worn around camp. LOL The other guys were in the same boat with their wives so we had our hands full just so we could catch some trout.
On the way up I made my usual stop in Bishop to get tackle and my must have 200 crickets. Well here's where the story begins. My wife heard me say the word cricket and she stopped in her tracks with the widest eyes and asked me what the crickets were for. I told her they were the best bait going for big rainbows and browns. She was petrified to see the guy dip out the crickets and put them in the cages. Well on the way back to the bronco she told me that she doesn't like crickets and she wasn't going to ride in the same vehicle with them bugs. I finally had to give in and tie them into the spare tire for the ride up the hill.
Finally we make it into Mammoth and meet the others at camp. We set up camp and all set out for some creek fishing. All was good. The gals were having a great time and after the hot showers and dinner we all sat down by the fire. Well it wasn't an hour into the evening we get one of the usual August Sierra thunderstorms. This one turned out not to be the short storm that we were accustomed to and it kept raining and raining and then it started to snow. Well everything was wet and it was cold so we went to plan "B" and decided to sleep in the trucks. I cleared everthing out of the bronco and got the sleeping bags inside and just before I climbed in I realized that if I didn't do something with the crickets they would freeze and I'd have no bait for the next day. I decided the best thing to do with them was to put them up front so they would stay warm. Well, my wife saw my little act of kindness and told me she would rather stand out in the rain than sleep with those crickets. I had no choice but to act as if I was putting them outside but in reality I shoved both cricket cages into the bottom of my sleeping bag.
OK, all went well until about 2:00am when I woke up to the feeling of little bugs crawling up my legs and shortly thereafter a blood curdling scream that woke everyone in the campground. I mean I would have had a better chance of survival if I had a mountain lion in the back of that bronco.
Needless to say I spent the rest of the night huddled ouside by the fire with my lovely wife trying to calm her down. Since no one else could sleep we all had a wonderful time watching the sun come up telling stories and reminiscing by the campfire.
Yes, we are still married (22 happy years) but our rough camping has been mainly with the girls huddled up in my parents motorhome and us guys sleeping outside tending the crickets.

[laidbck111]

My best camping trips seem to have been the ones with the most trouble. Nothing to bad just the typical things: bad weather, bad camp neighbors, coons getting into everything and so. But we always made the most out of a bad situation as a family and always had a good time. Shoot that is how I learned you can cook a fish whole scales and all then pull the meat off after it is done. Not the best but it did feed all of us. Seems like the less we took ther better our trip was are so it seemed to me as a kid.

[vlparrish]

Maybe not really my worst, but definatley memorable was a camping trip two of my friends and I did on a knob one night.We each had a sleeping bag a piece and that was it. Well right about dark we decided to build a fire, since I smoked I got a small fire built with my bic as the other two guys gathered some larger pieces of wood. Then when I got a decent fire going I began helping them pick up some good limbs and such. After a half hour or so we got settled into our bags and I started to light a cigarrette, only problem was I couldn't find my lighter. I gave up and we started to doze, that is when my bic, that I had accidently thrown in the fire exploded and not only scared the crap out of us, but blew hot coals and ashes all over us.

One of my favorites was when Kelli and I had been riding around one night when we were still dating. We went to a secluded spot in the woods where I use to do some fishing. The stars were out in full effect and we layed a blanket down on the ground on a sandy spot on the river bank and laid there just BSing and watching the stars. We both fell asleep and woke up about daylight. We were a bit cold, but had a great time and didn't plan on being there over an hour or two. Vern

[SassyManxLady]

I guess my most memorable camping trip was the time we were camping on the lake and a terrible storm blew up. My daughter-in-law was having a hissy fit for number 1 son hadn’t made it in off the lake before the storm hit and I was trying to reassure her that I was sure that he was tucked inside a cove, weathering the storm. I had always told him if a storm crept up on him and if he could not make it back to shore or camp, to tuck it inside a cove and ride the storm out. Now my husband is another matter. I had no idea where he was on the lake, and I know he has not got real good sense when it comes to being on water when it is storming. Leave it to him to be right out in the middle of the lake, riding the waves, thinking it would be a good way to troll or be on a point trying to hold the boat on the point and catch a hew more fish. He made it to the bank and he slid the boat up on shore, tied it up and just walked to camp as if it was just a normal nice day. Asked where number one son was and daughter-in-law went to blubbering again.
About that time, storm really got down to business and tents went to flying everywhere, kids went to screaming, and one family that consisted mainly of a bunch of folks who had spent the better part of the whole day seeing who could drink the most, jumped in their ole clunker car, dog and all. About that time, lightning hit, tree went down, thunder broke and daughter-in-law screamed, drunks took off, 3 tents flew by and grandbaby decided to pee his pants. I grabbed the baby, pulled his pants off him and went to putting some dry shorts and underwear on him, daughter-in-law was running in circles with both fists in her mouth, screaming and here came the drunks in the ole car. They took out one guardrail, one pop up camper and didn’t even stop until the car run off the end of one camp site where the railroad ties were built up. Then the car stopped. Folks poured out of that car and went to running everywhere. They left the dog in the car. After about 5 minutes, the storm was over. Folks were looking for their tents and checking their boats.
I look up and here comes number one son. He is smiling to beat the band with a stringer full of fish. His wife is reading him the riot act and screaming at him and having a hissy fit, still. I look at him and ask if he is okay. He says he is just fine and that right before the storm hit, the fish were really biting and before he knew it, it was too late to try to make it back to camp, so he just went into a cove and set it out. Daughter-in-law is still screaming and I turn to her and tell her if she does not shut up, I am going to give her something to scream about. I finally get use my Momma’s own words J
Parkranger shows up to see how everyone is, see’s the mess from the run away car. We had done checked on the folks in the pop up camper, but no one was there at the time of the storm. Law shows up over the car accident and the folks who own the car proceed to tell the officer that the dog just happened to be in the car when the car must of just rolled down the hill on its on. Therefore, in other words, the dog did it.
I was worried and concerned about my husband and son, but I knew I had to keep my cool and to let it show.
Sassy

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[Sparky Larson]

Two years ago, about this time of year, I was blessed to find this site. I got talking to a fellow Michigan brother about catfishing in his area and made arangments for my son and I to come down and camp out for a couple of days and do some fishin. This catfisherman was none other than Sal the Incredible Palombo Jr. Now, for those of you who don't know this guy, you don't know what you're missing.
Sal, told us where to set up camp on the banks of the Maple River, just outside of Maple Rapids. We got there about noon on a friday, (it was the middle of May), got camp setup with fire going and the whole nine yards, when it started to rain. I'm not afraid of rain mind you, but there was a little to much too suit me. So, it was downtown Maple Rapids here we come. Right down to the local Beer Garden, there we sat til about 3:00pm til the rain slowed down. (This town of Maple Rapids, is so small, that if you let one big Fart, the whole town hears it.)
When we got back to camp, It was evident that Sal had been there. He stoked up the fire for us and left damn near a cord of firewood for us. An hour later, Sal and his Beautiful wife showed up with enough food to feed a small army.
We fished all night and told stories of fish big and small til wee hours in the morning. After a couple hours of shut eye, Sal and his wife showed up to fix us breakfast. What a great host! Soon another Michigan brother showed up to join in the fun. (Vic Brown) Neither Sal or myself had ever met Vic before, but what a wonderful gentleman he was.
In between rain drops, we fished and told stories of the mighty Flathead catfish, Which neither my son or myself had ever caught. As a matter of fact nobody caught one that week-end. If the truth be known, the only fish that we did catch, was a few carp, sucker, small bait fish and a couple of small channels. But, catching fish isn't what it's all about. That week-end my son and I met three people we had never met before, and still to this day we get together and campout and fish. All thanks to BOC. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is a great site!
Sparky