Camping!!

We are going camping this summer!  It will be car/tent camping along our route to go see family but it will be camping none-the-less.  I'm excited about it.  I love camping.  It was always something we did with my dad.  I love that I can pass that on to my kids. 

Now that I'm older and working off of a restricted budget I'm realizing a lot of the things my dad did wasn't because he didn't want to use something but that he probably couldn't afford it.  Thus, he made it into more of a comment on how one didn't know how to camp correctly if you needed all that stuff.  Which I'm sure some of it was that too but I can imagine he would have liked to have used a sleeping pad, but there were a couple of things holding him back.  They were too expensive for their budget and they were too bulky to carry on your back easily into the mountains.  He didn't like to camp close to people.  He was more of a backpacker and a little on the anti-social side.

At any rate, I'm finding myself drawing on those experiences.  I'm not too worried about bedding.  I know how to make a bow bed or straw/hay bed.  Packing our own food isn't a big deal.  Just takes lots of planning.  I'm remembering too that I enjoy camp cooking.  I don't like cooking at the house but give me a wood fire and very limited utensils and I have no problem.  Especially if you have a lot of people that need to eat. 

So far I'm planning on baking bread and making the stuffed buns.  I call them Bear Buns because the first time my mom did this we had bear meat to put in them.  The name stuck even though you can put whatever kind of meat you like into them.  I'll probably do a mix of cheese and broccoli, bbq burger, bbq or creamy chicken in them.  Breakfast will be mostly instant oatmeal.  It packs easily, is easy to prepare, and I have it in the pantry.  We'll take instant *gasp* coffee.  I've never done this before but there are a couple of companies doing some pretty good coffee that happens to be instant.  Again, easy to pack and prepare.  This way too the kids don't have to have water heated separately from the coffee for hot chocolate.

I'm still working out dinners.  I figure a mix of canned chili, hot dogs, and the Bear Buns along with some potatoes and onions and we'll be good.  We are still a month away so I'm not too worried about what to do for that yet.  I'll just keep an eye out for good sales and work our menu from there.  Of course at least one night we'll need s'mores so I'll make some graham crackers and maybe even the marshmallows just before we leave.  We'll see how ambitious I get.

My camp kitchen is pretty well set up.  I don't need much.  A spoon/spatula, a good knife, a couple of pots, a frying pan, a cutting board, a dish towel, a dish rag, a pan for doing dishes, some sort of mixing bowl, and some plates and silverware.  I think for camp just the tent, sleeping arrangements, and some coloring books and crayons for the kids.  Oh, we'll bring the dog bed and his goodies too.  I might make our camp a little nicer too if I can either get my rag run finished (Ha!) or find and inexpensive rug someplace.  I find myself wanting a few niceties as I get older. 

Of course I'll have some standard camp supplies with me in addition to the above stuff.  When camping I always have some extra rope, waterproof matches, a large knife that goes on my belt, my multi-tool, some candles, sunscreen, and bug spray.  I usually make sure I have some sort of sewing kit too.  This works for tent repair, clothing repair, or stuffed toy repair which is what I find myself using my sewing stuff for more and more these days.