A tent...a lantern and a stove

A tent, a Coleman lantern and a Coleman stove........yep, that was all you needed to go campin' back in the day...actually you didn't need the stove and I guess the lantern either...well for that matter you didn't need the tent....but who wanted to rough it........I was thinkin of those items while killin' some time before a luncheon as I was browsing through a R.E.I. store.

Don't ask me what R.E.I stands for but all I know is... it is a membership-type store,  it's got everything you need to live outside in the wilderness and you better bring a truck load of cash. It ain't cheap.

As soon as you walk in the place, you have kayaks on the right followed by mountain bikes..it seems like hundreds of them ...I kinda checked out the kayaks and it reminded me of my Stillwater days, but what kind of adventure would it be if your boat stayed afloat all of the time...they were way cool though...Next came the clothing and hiking shoe department.....I guess there could be something said for having the right hikin' boot.... I mean, you might be out there for day after day and you sure don't want any blisters....but come on, they had hiking boots for $300.00 and $400.00. They had day hiking boots and night hiking boots...I know, I know there will be one or two of you hiking aficionados who will tell me $400.00 is a good investment for a dang piece of leather....I mean let's face it Lewis and Clark hiked across the good ole U.S. of A and were probably just wearin' moccasins........they even had simulated rocks you could climb on to test out your boots 

I wandered over to the tents and sleeping bags. Now when I pitched my first tent, it was in the backyard. It was canvas, it had wooden poles, and itchy ropes and metal stakes....it smelled like...um....canvas.....and if you touched it when it was rainin' it supposedly would leak in that area..it didn't matter though..it leaked wherever there was a grommet.....we did a lot of things in that tent in the backyard....some of which ended up in a police report as a result of playin' strip poker as little Skeeter kids.......you can read about that though in my forthcoming book, "Skeeter"......I think the neighbors might have put their house up for sale after that incident.

I was amazed at the tents in R.E.I.....I mean you could compress a tent that could sleep 37 people in it down to a size of a cigar box...and it only weighed a pound or two. The sleeping bags were another story...I mean, they have what I call snuggle comfort even if the temperature got down to minus 80 degrees....trust me, I ain't going campin ANYWHERE where it gets under 50 degrees let alone a minus number...some of those bags cost as much as $700.00.

I had to hurry along cuz it was starting to get close to lunch and I did check out the packaged freeze dried food section...The had all the fixin's to feed 24 people, with a 4 course dinner..including 3 dessert choices and all you had to do was add water....amazing....I remember when a couple of us went camping down to Cumberland Lake and all we took was a can of beans...and about 4 cases of beer....and that canvas tent....we didn't play strip poker...but I do think one of us ended up naked sleepin' on a picnic table.

I guess times have changed a little bit and camping isn't quite the way it used to be....it's nice having the luxuries of home...but I thought that was why you wanted to just get away