Camping With Kids

I like to hunt fish and hike and all that involves camping and I have been doing it most of my life and now that I am er ah fifty..ish. I just love it even more and over the years I have learned a great deal about living outside, I m not an expert or anything like that. Let's just say I've been there, done that and have the tee shirt to prove it. Often times my son and I will take out my ten year old grandson and some of his friends. Now you got to keep a pack of ten year old boys pretty busy around a camp especially after the hike because during the hike they're normally in awe of their surroundings and stay pretty focused, you know looking for Snakes and big hairy Bears and such, even had one of the boys spot a grizzly from afar even though there are no Grizzly bears here in North Carolina. They do have vivid imaginations don't they.

They ask an awful lot of questions too, my Grandson asked me on one trip; "Poppa what if we can't find any water we could die of thirst!" I said; "well Sprout" that's what I call him. "We can just make our own water" he looked at me kinda funny then laughed and said "Poppa people can't make water only God and Indians can do that, you're so silly" I said; "Ok I'll betcha my Ring Ding desert for your Moon Pie we'll have at least a half a canteen full by morning" and we sealed the deal with a handshake and a smile.

Next we rounded up as many sandwich plastic bags as we could find about fourteen in all. We took the bags Duc tape and some small rocks and went into the tree line where I quickly found a grove of Fir trees We put one small rock in each bag then started to place each bag over a small bug free bushy tip of the tree's branches then sealed each bag as tight possible and securing them completely closed with a small bit of tape. Kept us busy for about two hours, when we were done we went back to camp and cooked up a great dinner then told scary stories by the fire. Yep that never gets old and keeps the youngsters and me from wandering off in the dark.

After camp chores the next morning we went back to check our water factory. The first thing my grandson said as we approached the trees adorned with their glistening clear bags was; "Gosh Poppa they look like Christmas tree's" I said; "they sure do and they gave us the gift of pure drinkable water."

Sure enough we began to gently remove the bags from the branches and pure the precious water into a 32 ounce Nalgene bottle all total we had 12 bags, one had fallen off and a critter got the other. But we managed to fill up a little over 14 ounces. My boy was very impressed with his old Grandfather, I explained that while we slept the heat of the day was trapped in the bags and the chill of the morning caused condensation to form on the vegetation thus producing about an ounce or more from each bag. The more vegetation you cram in the bag the more water you get.

We cleaned up and when back to camp where for breakfast I had a Moon Pie washed down with a cool cup of my new water, had just a hint of a pine flavor and Sprout thought I was the best thing since the invention of Moon Pies. Life is good.