This book was a thrift store score from last spring and I think, quite possibly, my new all-time favorite find, and at only 75 cents. There's something so very right and wrong all at the same time about this book. It makes me deliriously happy on the one hand and on the other, it's appalling. So many people don't live or camp in such splendor every single day of their lives.
Since the boys were born, we've become car campers, bringing practically one of everything in the house along with us. Well, not a circus-style changing tent, but almost. We don't bring craft kits, like the ones above, but goodness knows, I'd like to. I usually do pack along some paper and markers or watercolors, maybe a flower press, and knitting, of course. Someday, I know I'll be packing along the makings for lanyard zipper pulls and sand candles, just like summer camp.
Just 4 observations/thoughts:
1. Since when are spinning milk cartons "the universal symbol of camping"? I'm thinking this tradition needs to be reinstated.
2. Does anybody call S'mores "Princess Pats"? If not, this might be another candidate for reinstatement.
3. No one would ever use this phrase in the same way as above today: "Explosion in our campgrounds"
4. Our family pictures from when we were little don't look all that different from the ones above, only a good bit more rustic and with cloth diapers strung from tree to tree. There always was a Norwegian and an American flag hanging off the front of the blue canvas tent's awning. That tent was the very first thing that my parents ever bought on credit because they couldn't wait another summer to go camping.) My childhood camping memories are sweet, sweet, sweet!
5. I can't tell you how badly I'd like to make a bunting for stringing from tree to tree when we're camping. Shouldn't every campsite look like a carnival? I'm going to have to try making some of those milk carton spinners, too, only out of Silk soy milk cartons.
Oops. That's 5.
6. I wish there was room to share more of this book here. I found a copy online of the predecessor to this book, the first volume of Ford Treasury of Station Wagon Living, and couldn't help but order it. It just arrived the other day. I'll scans some of it soon.
7. Here is the other thing I picked up at the thrift store that same day. I didn't even notice the coiincidence until a friend pointed it out when I was in line to pay for it. $1.50, total, well spent. (I rarely indulge the boys their requests at the thrift store since most of the toys are so junky, but this one I couldn't resist.)
We're off car-camping for the weekend in the next valley over between us and Glacier Nat'l Park...not in such style, though. We'll be in a minivan.
Happy weekend and happy trails!
