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How-To
I love helping people get started camping, especially those jumping in alone. Many people write to me expressing a desire to join in all the fun. When I ask what is stopping them, the most common reply I hear is a fear of towing. I understand and want to help put your mind at ease. I have a few steps to overcoming a fear of towing.
Expert Advice
It’s the time of year for giving and if you’re like me, treating yourself to a few items on your own wish list as well. Since I grew up in a camping family in the 1970’s, using a lot of hand me down items from the 1950’s, I tend to be drawn to classic camp items that evoke the nostalgia of happy times and the simple pleasures of life. I found a few of those to share as well as some new things bound for classic status. Here are a few of my favorite things!
Recipes
When I was growing up Friday night was pizza night! When raising my own family, I followed that tradition, so it’s no surprise that when I arrive at the campground on a Friday night, I want pizza! Two years ago, I made it my mission to perfect cast iron pizza at the campground. I watched videos, tried different methods, and studied the masters of campground cuisine. There was a lot of trial and error; some edible, some not. Here’s what I learned.
Trip Planning
A love of design and of the outdoors led Jill Evans to combine these passions and create a rolling home on wheels where adventure and the comforts of home and hearth go hand in hand.
Expert Advice
Every year I try and hand make gifts for the special people in my life. There is such a temptation to just log on and “swipe” a gift to the friends and family on your list but I feel that the old fashioned sentiment of offering good cheer is lost in that transaction. This year I went old school with my Girl Camping friends and made each a bucket of fire starters. After all, sitting around the campfire with these women is just about my favorite thing. Here are a few of my offerings.
Trip Planning
When I was a kid my parents had a book on the shelf – “The Most Scenic Drives in America” by Reader’s Digest. I used to take it down and look at it all the time. I don’t remember a specific drive that I longed to take, but I remember the whole idea of road trips and going places that were so different from where we lived. Somehow I got possession of that book and it is still in my office today. I pulled it down recently and was surprised by how many of those scenic drives I had already taken, mostly on the east coast. This summer I had the opportunity to travel to what has often been listed as one of the top ten scenic drives not only in the USA but in the world, Going-to-the-Sun-Road in Montana.
Trip Planning
In 2009 when Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan premiered their Emmy award winning documentary, “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea,” I was riveted to the screen every Sunday night of its run. All of the parks are beautiful in their own way and I hope to someday make it to all of them, but when it came time to start checking off that list I began with Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, America’s first park.
Trip Planning
When you are in the midst of child rearing you find it hard to believe the day will come when you will be free to indulge yourself in all the things you dream about. I grew up in a camping family but we tended to stay east of the Mississippi. In one of our trips we traveled from Chicago to Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, and the Bay of Fundy; an epic trip for city kids. My parents dragged seven kids in the family wagon to some far out places but we never did the classic American road trip to see our most visited National Parks. With my youngest out of high school and working a full time summer job this is finally the summer that mom gets to take off.
Trip Planning
Van Gogh’s “Starry, Starry Night” was surely inspired by the darkest of skies with the brightest of stars. When it was painted in June of 1889 in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, France, there wasn’t such a thing as light pollution or the ‘Bortle Scale’ which rates evening skies on a scale of 1 to 9 for optimal star gazing darkness. The whole East Coast lights that can be seen from space, scores a dismal 7 with the exception of northern Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains with an impressive darkness rating of 2!
Trip Planning
They say that Virginia is for lovers and it’s true. Lovers of national parks, hiking, scenic overlooks, nature watching, cavern exploring and night sky star gazing!
Trip Planning
One of the best parts of promoting Girl Camping is watching women go from thinking that it looks like a fun thing to do, to actually going on their first campout.
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