The tent my grandfather brought along should have been thrown away decades before, but he insisted that it was a treasure he just couldn’t bare to get rid of. As we started to put it up I noticed its peculiar green color. It only had one window, that of which the zipper had been broken. The floor to the tent was so thin that when you laid down you could feel every fracture in the earth below you. Hanging from the ceiling was a device that probably was once used to hang a lante

I’ve been camping many times since that first experience, but the second time I went wasn’t until I was about 15 years old. I’ve come to realize that the fuzzy bird I thought tried to attack me was simply a bat, and that as long as we didn’t have any food in our tent it was unlikely that the bear would even come close to us. I really enjoy camping now, but will never, ever take an inexperienced eight year old along with me.

breakfast of one egg and one piece of sausage, and we were off. Simply the walk itself to the nearest stream was enough to have me gasping for air. The stream was at least 10 miles from our campsite. We walked up and down enormous hills, through swamps and low laying trees. By the time we reached the stream it was 9 am, and about 85 degrees. We found a spot on some slimy rocks, hooked the mice we had for bait to our poles, and cast them into the swiftly moving stream. For about 45 minutes there was no action. I had a few bites here and there, but it was never anything bigger than a sunny. It wasn’t until about an hour later that I got my big surprise. All of a sudden I felt an enormous tug on my line and as I tried to pull it back, it pulled my small helpless body in. It all happened so fast that I didn’t really have time to realize what was going on, but the next thing I knew I was floating down stream, my pole not within my reach, and my grandfather running along side me onshore.

courage to peak my curious 8 year old head out the door, and there stood a massive, snarling, black grizzly bear. Right as I looked at him, he turned his head and stared right back into my eyes. I shot back inside the tent at about 100 miles per hour and covered my face with my fleece sleeping bag. At this time my heart was racing and I started to feel the sweat drip down from my forehead. I looked over

Some topics in this essay:
Grandfather Al, , daddy legs, camping trip, experience camping,