I love this. It is so true.

“There Really Is a Point to a Summer Camping Trip”
by Joanna Chadwick, The Wichita Eagle

Some of my fondest memories of childhood are from summers spent camping with my family.

We camped all across the western half of the country, sometimes at campgrounds with pools, more often in national parks with port-a-potties.

We didn’t have much money, so meals were either sandwiches or made from scratch on the campstove, such as pancakes or hamburger and dumplings.

I have three sons now, ages 6, 4 and 20 months, and I want to recreate those memories.

But roughing it? I’m not sure about that. Yet, during the past two summers, my extended family has spent several nights camping on my parents’ property in southeastern Minnesota.

It’s kind of roughing it.

We sleep in tents, all meals are made outside, there’s a port-a-potty. We’re about 200 yards from the house, though, so showers are still an option. And, I admit, we rented a huge inflatable jumper for the kids.

The family campouts are a huge hit; my sons are already talking about what 2010’s Stamman Family Campout will be like.

And why not?

Each morning on the campstove, my mom made pancakes that we smothered with syrup, strawberries and homemade whipped cream. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows over the campfire at night.

There was non-stop action with the cousins — games of tag, playing on the rope swing, trips through the woods, discovering where the deer had walked the night before by looking at their tracks and looking for, of course, deer droppings.

They rode in the trailer of grandma’s riding lawn mower, raced along the walking paths after the sun set, waving their glow sticks while trying not to run into each other. Laughing all the while.

They went from 7 a.m. until 11 p.m. Every day. With only a short break for naps each afternoon, which was more for the sanity of my husband and me.

Of course, there were challenges.

Such as the early morning trip to the restroom with my oldest, Blake. The sun was barely peaking over the trees when we had to make a trip to the port-a-potty that had quickly become a home for a bazillion daddy long leg spiders.

I was the executioner, eliminating about 15 spiders.

For my youngest son, Gavin, he loved everything — playing in the kiddie pool, eating marshmallows. But he was one crabby kid in the morning.

It wasn’t that he didn’t sleep well. They all slept well on that hard ground, unlike me.

For some reason, the kids never heard the crow that had a cawing fit for about 10 minutes at 5:30 the first morning. They slept through the chattering squirrel in the tree next to our tent at 4:18 the second morning. They didn’t even roll over when the cacophony of birds hit each day about 6 a.m.

But Gavin, an easy-going kid, fretted each morning until he had shoes on. The wet grass and the grass clippings that stuck to his feet were pure torture.

And he let everyone know. Including my brother’s family sound asleep in the tent next to us.

Once we got the shoes on, he was OK.

Cooper, who is 4, had his own problems. He took a head to the nose in the inflatable, a knee to the head during a race, and a frisbee to the teeth.

Moments after each injury, he was running with the cousins.

What made the campout so special was the family connection.

There was no TV to keep us occupied. We were outside, 24/7. The teenage cousins hung out with the little ones, the aunts and uncles spent time with all the kids, and everyone relaxed.

Yes, I didn’t get much sleep and the heat was unbearable at times. Eighty-five degrees sounds good down here in Wichita, but it was about 85-percent humidity, too.

But we created memories that will last and last, and just maybe, my boys will want to rough it with their kids someday.

Really, that’s the whole point.