My husband and I did not travel with our parents and siblings as children but when we got married we started to travel as much as we could via car and motels. However, upon the arrival of 3 children of our own we realized that we would no longer be able to afford vacations unless we tried camping. But would we enjoy that mode of travel? To find out we rented a Sportsman truck camper from a friend, loaded it on our truck and away we went. We drove from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan to Cypress Hills Provincial Park. We had a wonderful time hiking all the trails and enjoying the scenery. Our daughter (age 4) particularly talked about the “roundy roundy slide” that was a part of the playground there at that time. Our twin sons were 2 at the time.
One day we decided to drive through from Cypress Hills in Saskatchewan to Elkwater in Alberta. The road was very narrow and incredibly muddy. At one point we met a jeep that seemed to be waving at us but we kept on. When we reached Elkwater there was a sign blocking the road that said “Bridge Out”. We thought to ourselves, “What bridge?” Upon turning around and looking at the other side of the sign, it said “Road Closed”. Now it all made sense! Too bad there wasn’t a similar sign at the other end of the road!
However, our holiday went fine again until one night when my husband was chopping wood with a hatchet (never a good idea!) and accidentally chopped off the tip of the index finger on his left hand. We knew he had to go to the hospital in Maple Creek but we also knew we should look for the finger tip first. We couldn’t find it at that time but went into the hospital anyway. They wrapped his finger up and in time we got back to Saskatoon where he went to the hospital there and found out that he had to have skin grafting done so it would heal.
This all sounds like maybe we would never want to go camping again! But that is not what happened. Since that time we have owned a hard-top tent trailer, a Class C motorhome, a travel trailer, 2 truck campers and 3 fifth-wheels. We even spent a weekend in a tent at a lake. We just retired last fall, sold our home and are now full-timers. We spent our first winter in Texas and my husband currently has a part-time job for the summer at a golf course in Alberta.
All 3 of our children also still enjoy the camping and RV mode of travel when they have the time. Did we enjoy our first RV trip and was it memorable? Indeed it was!
Submitted by Gail Watt of Lloydminster, Alberta, Canada as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest.
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