GORP -- Good Old Raisins and Peanuts

I saw a small baggie laying on our front wall and wondered what it was. My view was partially covered by a large pot.

"Looks like gorp," my husband said.

*Light bulbs go off!*

Sure. I remember sitting in the Michigan sunshine two days before, and eating from the bag ... Wait! Two days? In an oak-neighborhood filled with birds, squirrels and raccoons? I checked the bag. Not even a nibble-hole in it. I opened the bag and ate a handful. Yep, I may not have remembered leaving the gorp bag there, but I did remember how stale the nuts were. I nibbled on a few more, along with the raisins and M&Ms and thought how picky our neighborhood wildlife was.

It reminded me of one of our honeymoon experiences where our backpacking meal tasted so bad, we couldn't eat it. Thinking to not waste the food, but let the raccoons whom we knew abounded there have a treat in the night, we left it on the picnic table, and crawled happily into our tent. In the morning we found raccoon prints on the picnic table, but the awful-tasting meal was left untouched by the gourmet critters.

One positive thing I've learned from this experience is: chocolate doesn't get stale! So... off to finish up my M's without the GOR&P.

A Wilderness Adventure with Kids

We were in the Canadian wilds. We'd paddled up the Little Madawaska River for a couple hours without seeing any other canoeist or hikers since our campground. Loons dove in the water near us; we'd passed a swimming beaver; there were frogs the size of our fists; we ducked under fallen trees as we paddled past. Ahh... the wilderness.

The river opened up into the next lake. It was ten times the size of the lake where we'd set up camp. We could see the road which ran through the park. It traveled alongside the lake, about two miles from the mouth of the river where we were.

Suddenly, we passed a boat ramp. How odd, we thought. no boat trailer or car was in the small gravel parking lot and grass grew between the pebbles. Then, we came to a picnic table along the beach. Curiouser and curiouser. We pulled in by the picnic table in order to stretch our legs and eat our snack lunches.

Our young boys spotted an outhouse back in the woods. Again, how odd to have such a sign of civilization in the wilds. They suddenly "needed" to go. I looked around at all their tree choices, and shrugged an "okay." My husband and I stood on the shore watching the waves on the large lake and taking in all the beauty and wonder before us.

Then, from the woods behind us, came a "ker-flush!" It took a moment to identify the sound. There were no sinks, but the outhouse in the middle of the wilderness had a flush toilet. Surprise! Guess we weren't as far away from civilization as we thought.

Survival Camping with Childen

We're buried under about a foot of new snowfall. Beautiful stuff, that. So as I'm tidying up inside our toasty warm house, listening to the sounds of neighbors' snowplows, I came across a palm-sized survival pack I'd put on the dining room table a couple weeks ago. (FYI, we only eat at the DR table when company comes; other than those times, it's up for grabs.)

Seeing the survival pack made me smile. I'd made one for each of the four of us in our family for when we'd go camping. We'd often take all-day hikes through the Canadian wilderness (pre-cell phone days, not that there's a tower anywhere near there now, anyway). It was just a nice security knowing we each had essential things in case we got lost, like a tin cup for drinking or cooking, sealed and dry matches, bandaids, toilet paper, string for fishing, etc..

During one of our first camping times after making these, while my hubby and I set up the tent, we noticed our three- and six-year-old were missing. We were in a new campground, hilly, wooded, ravined. Naturally, as soon as we parents noticed our boys were not in sight, we dropped our tent poles and started jogging around the area calling for them. After a couple minutes we heard one of them from a ravine next to our site. My heart nearly stopped, imagining them dead or injured at the bottom. Nope. Not our survival savvy boys.

Our older son decided to use the survival kit to help our younger son up the ravine they'd climbed into. OS had one end of the three-foot-long string. YS had the other end. DH and I affirmed their good thinking, then went back to setting up our tent while our children played in the wilderness nearby.