This event takes me back to a former life. To a time in life with my first wife. When my two kids were very young.
Most of our vacations were traveling from the mid-west (Ohio), to out west, to visit family living in Montana. To make ends meet financially. Our trips always involved camping instead of motels. Many times car camping. Using a tent. Cooking on a camp stove at a picnic table.
Other times we just plain went camping because we always had fun doing it.
My son was only months old when he “slept out” in a tent somewhere in the mountains of Wyoming. I had just been discharged after serving 4 years in the Air Force. We had been stationed in California at the time of discharge. The government had shipped all of our household goods back “home”. We were headed back to Ohio and home, to start our new segment of life.
Making that trip home was a road trip of about 2300 miles. We were set up for camping at various places on along the way. No real itinerary or time deadline since there was no job lined up yet.
One early morning in the mountains of Wyoming. After camping the night in a tent. We woke to snow on the tent and all over the ground. It was cold to say the least!
Somehow I think camping got into my sons blood from that? He was an infant at the time. Or maybe it is a DNA thing? Even after he became an adult with his own family. He and I have shared a few crazy backpacking trips together.
As a young family we somehow got snookered into buying a camping membership timeshare. Managed to swing a used class-C motor home, and traveled a little more in style.
My daughter was really young by the time the timeshare and RV came into the picture. Preschool age if I recall correctly. The timeshare offered a covered heated indoor pool amenity. I remember her learning to swim with little arm floats. First in the shallow end.
Through a winter, in the cold mid-west. It was one of the more pleasant escapes. Swimming in the winter. She soon went from the shallow end of the pool, to jumping off the diving board. Pleasant memories all around.
We socialized with several work friends and extended family members that had kids the same age. A group that also enjoyed camping.
So this current “campfire tale”, has three or four families camping together. We had secured several adjacent campsites in our timeshare. To enjoy a pleasant summer time weekend.
We came together to de-stress from work and household duties. As well as letting the kids have fun together riding bikes unsupervised, and just be out in nature. Times seemed so much simpler and safer, for kids back then.
One evening we where all sitting around a rather large campfire. Kids and adults. Several layers, or rings, of folding chairs circled the campfire. It had gotten dark sometime before.
Typical of camping back in the 1970/80’s. Meals weren’t elaborate or expensive. Most of us were cooking a hot dog on a stick. With a plate of baked beans and potato salad.
The kids had already moved on to roasting marshmallows, and making smores. Kids drinks as well as adult beverages, were arranged on the ground next to chairs.
There would be a pop or snap in the fire. Sparks would race up through the darkness toward the sky. You have to imagine the setting.
Its dark. A nice campfire. A couple dozen of us circled around the fire. Some standing, leaning toward the fire. Cooking something over the coals at the edge if the fire. Plates of food on some of the folding chairs. Drinks on the ground. Some of the people seated in their chair. Everyone enjoying the moment, telling stories. Laughing. Commenting on flaming marshmallows. Stuff like that. Just general clean family camping fun!
That is about the time someone yelled “Skunk”!
I am sure it took a moment or two for all of us to process that yell. Then conclude someone wasn’t just fooling around.
What took place next. Probably took all of 5 or 10 seconds. It seemed like slow motion, looking back on it.
Everyone, Kids and adults, all started moving. Quickly scattering! Falling out of chairs. Tipping chairs over. Paper plates of food, launched into the air. A scream or two. Running in the opposite direction from the fire and that black and white critter.
To turn around and see the forest creature scarfing down all the food. All the goodies that now laid scattered all around the fire ring.
We all stood a respectable distance while the skunk enjoyed its dinner unaccosted. With the warmth of the fire all to itself no less.
To this day I never understood why that skunk never sprayed anyone. In all the commotion that immediately followed its entrance into the light of the campfire. Many people were within inches of the skunk. Not exactly calm or being quiet.
Once that skunk had cleaned up all the scraps, or had its fill. Off into the dark it went.
I am pretty sure this was not its first campfire dinner?!
