Summer camping!!!  We as a family have been doing this for as far back as my memories go.  As children we always looked forward to this week.  My mother’s family, the Rigby clan, would meet at a designated place and we would spend the week together; swimming, hiking and sometimes just doing nothing.

As children, we never ran out of things to do, though.  We would trap squirrels, run from bear cubs, hike to the top of mountains, swim in glacier lakes, slide down glaciers, water ski, swamp canoes and just go and go until we fell into our beds at night.

A few of the places we have visited over years are: Palisades, Island Park, Jackson Lake, Redfish lake, Warm River and the Yellow Jacket Mountains in Idaho.   Some of these places we would frequent multiple times.  And, most of the of the places would have a lake so that we could boat, canoe and in general stay wet all week.  Camping is just not fun without getting wet, though rain, when camping, can dampen the spirits unless you have a deck of cards.

This tradition has been carried on with our family, though not as regular as the Rigby family did.  But, still we have had some good times.  Distance became a big issue as we got married and moved out of state because of jobs.  But, those that could, would.

I have created this post to set the stage for stories that we all remember while doing the family campouts.  I am going to post a few pictures to get the juices flowing.

This picture was takes a few years back, maybe 60 years ago.  It is my uncle Leo’s pickup full of kids.  Not sure I can name all the kids in the truck, but I am standing and Ann is next to me and Doug is at the end with his cowboy hat.

 

 

 

 

 

The following is a more recent picture.  This one was taken back in 2006 as we were coming home from Palisades.  We had stopped to get a square ice cream cone at Rainey Creek store in Swan Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

This one was from our 2008 camping trip, again at Palisades.

 

 

 

 

And again in 2009.   Palisades seemed to be the chosen place.

 

 

 

 

Now we have 2010 and again at Palisades.

 

 

 

 

And, that’s all folks.  I have no more family pictures of the Palisade trips, since this was the last year that I participated.  In the four years that I did go, I was able to take a lot of pictures and so periodically I will pull some and post them for all to enjoy.

Remember, this blog is about stories and your stories are wanted so that we can remember how great this life, we are living, is.