Camping has its ups and downs, but overall, it's a great family bonding experience. (Courtesy | Keep the UP Wild)

My intrepid friends, now nearing their 70s, are tent camping as they travel up the east coast visiting family. They’re doing this partly because of COVID concerns but mostly because they still like it. As one of them said, “The sleeping bag is soft. The coffee is hot. And the view is wide open.”

I used to like the wide open view, too. When summer was longer and school started later, our family could cram in one more weekend trip before everybody had to be on a tight schedule. One of those trips involved camping.

We used to camp back when sleeping outside seemed like a brilliant idea. My husband and I gave up camping decades ago, but every now and then I think it would be fun to camp a few more times. Then I remember what can go wrong.

My younger child used to call the space in front of our tent the living room, and he arranged the camp chairs in a circle. On one camping trip in the Smokies, a bear came over the mountain and lumbered toward us as though he were a guest invited into the living room for social hour.

“Don’t panic,” my husband said, but we all did until the bear sniffed around, found nothing of interest, and crept off through the forest. We slept in our borrowed van, all four of us, thinking we could have done that in our driveway back home. We lied when the children asked if bears could break car windows.

Still, we had some camping magic on that trip. Deep Creek raced by our camp spot as we had our coffee, and we tubed down its choppy waters before heading home.

On another late summer camping trip to Vermont and then Quebec, we pitched our giant green army tent in the middle of a campground near the city. The sounds of the families chattering in French was soothing, and we feel asleep easily after our long drive.

We woke up to a drizzle and then a torrent that flooded the tent. We shimmied out of wet sleeping bags and abandoned our canvas home, trudging to the camp store to buy giant rain ponchos with the big Canadian Maple Leaf on front. Chilled and shivering, we drank hot chocolate and decided to stay in a motel that night.

Back down south, we camped on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, where the black flies liked the taste of our blood and the sand blew into our tent. One year, when I left my car keys too close to the water’s edge, they floated away and the locksmith who came said the tide was so strong they were probably in Bermuda by then.

Our last few camping trips were at the Alabama Gulf Coast. By then, the children didn’t think camping was cool. They wanted to stay somewhere with a pool and a lazy river and room service, none of which was available at a campsite. Sometimes we gave in.

Once school started and our camping season was over, I didn’t miss it, but I saw what good had come from it. Children who are looking up at the night sky at the beach are not looking down at a cell phone glowing in their hands. Children who fall asleep to the sounds of cicadas instead of the chatter of TV rest better. The smell of the Alabama pines is a fresher scent than the recycled air in our homes. Camping teaches lessons you can’t learn in school. It gives you the wider view.

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