This seems to be the year where everyone once to get out and go camping. When I think of camping, I am taken back to my days as a child. Every summer we’d pack up the truck with food, clothes, and camping gear to go spend three weeks to a month swimming, fishing, and hiking up at Mono Hot Springs in the California High Sierras. It was always an adventure filled with lots of fun and surprises, but always the same too.
There were a lot of the same families that came up every year while we were there so we got to know some of the regular kids and had fun playing horseshoed and hiking around. I remember we use to also have a horseshoe contest. Many times we would all go to bed tired and with sore arms from throwing them so much, but it was fun. My mom probably thought tired kids were good kids, lol
We also did a lot of fishing and my sister always seemed to be the best fisherman. I liked fishing ok, but I always liked to read so I would usually just bait a hook, throw the line in the water, and sit and read and go swimming in the lake. Needless to say, I didn’t catch too many fish, but I still had a good time. Even without my support, we usually had plenty of fish for dinner many nights.
One of the things I remember clearly too was a family whistle we used to let our parents know we were safe and ok while they were out on a boat on the lake. One of them would whistle our crazy whistle and we would all whistle it back. If we didn’t, or they didn’t hear us, they would come looking for us. It seemed to work very well for us, and we still use that whistle today sometimes to find each other in a store. (Why use a cell phone when you have a whistle? lol).
The other thing I really enjoyed while camping up there was the mineral hot springs baths. Even though they were really hot, it was so nice to relax and soak for a while. There was nothing like waking up to birds chirping and water running. It was a great experience spending part of our summer up there. I just checked out their website and it looks like it changed a little since I’ve been there many years ago, but I still have fond memories of our time spent there.
