Growing up, my family camped every weekend. When my sister and I were toddlers, my parents had a tent, which they would put up for a weekend with a screen tent next to it. About the time I was 5, Dad decided to get a pop-up camper from Montgomery Ward.
The pop-up was light blue and had a canvas top. Two double beds slid out on each side. There was nothing built into this camper. It was as plain as you can get. But, again, we'd put up a screen tent outside, with a picnic table underneath it.
I didn't travel much outside of Wisconsin while I was growing up. However, my parents made sure my sister and I saw plenty of Wisconsin.
One of our favorite stops in those early years was Yellowstone Lake State Park in Lafayette County. We'd camp and spend plenty of time fishing. There weren't Jet Skis back then.
Fishing was always great at Yellowstone.
I recall once when I was about 6, my grandfather and I were in his boat at one end of the lake heading toward a reed bed when he spied a large Northern pike lying on its side in the morning sunshine. This was odd behavior for a fish, I thought, but Grandpa knew what was going on and turned off the boat motor with the craft easing toward the fish.
He silently grabbed the net and motioned to me not to make a sound. I could tell his plan was to scoop the big game fish up as soon as we were close enough.
Just at the point where Grandpa could make his move, the big fish bolted, heading for deeper water. I won't forget that odyssey.
My grandmother made plenty of fish shore lunches at Yellowstone and it was a favorite stop for my family.
When camping, you have to beware of the weather.
In the early 1970s, we were at Yellowstone when a tornado touched down and toppled a number of campers at the campground. I can remember us kids being ordered to sit in a car as the storm raged; it seemed to pass on the other side of a hill from us.
Afterwards we heard that there had been a boy in one of the campers that tipped over who broke his arm.
Aside from this one bad-weather blip, my memories of Yellowstone are quite fond.
My dad stopped hauling the trailer in 1982. He and my mom bought a small mobile home in Adams County that was on a lot in a subdivision on the Petenwell Flowage. After that, each summer weekend was spent going to a little place called Monroe Center where we could ride bikes to the nearby Adams County Park and go fishing on the flowage whenever we wanted. There were trails in the nearby woods that some people rode dirt bikes on. If the decade had been correct, they would have been more suitable for mountain biking.
My dad really started getting into the fishing side of things and while we went to the trailer, it was simply a base from which to launch a fishing trip on the Wisconsin River, Petenwell or Castle Rock flowages.
I was my dad's main fishing partner. It was an opportunity for which many kids would be envious. However, fishing weekend after weekend, when it wasn't necessarily something I wanted to do, became a lot like eating green vegetables - especially as high school arrived.
My involvement in sports and other activities led to my mom and dad leaving me in Janesville for the weekend as they went to "the cabin" and went fishing. Their trips started to branch out and for several years they went to Ontario, Canada, where they stayed at Sioux Narrows and fished for smallmouth bass.
I made the trip once with my dad in the early 1990s and I could see what was to like about Lake of the Woods. Every cast could be a fish, especially if you were after Northern pike.
If you got into a school of bass, you could easily catch your limit of huge keepers. And for those who sought large pike or muskies, the sonar showed deeper water where these fish and lake trout lurked.
While I grew up camping and fishing, I officially "retired" from the practice earlier this year when I retired as a leader from the Boy Scouts of America. I got in one second childhood worth of camping with the Scouts as my son, Derek, went through the program and eventually became an Eagle Scout. I was happy to camp out under the stars and again get used to a tent, but my back has stopped caring for hard ground on a cool night.
I still fondly recall a childhood of camping, making s'mores and pudgy pot sandwiches by the fire and telling stories. There was much fun in being free to roam a campground, make new friends and share adventures.
- Matt Johnson is publisher of the Monroe Times. His column is published Wednesdays.