Camping

Peninsula State Park Camping Trip

This story comes to us from Patti in Clarendon Hills, Ill.

Door County, Wisconsin is a beautiful place to visit with incredible weather during the month of August. Typically, we are a family who would stay in a local resort, say the Newport or the Highpoint Inn, but not this particular year. We decided that we would purchase a larger tent to house my husband, myself, and our 3 daughters, ages 1-1/2, 5-1/2, and 9-1/2.

It was quite the adventure. We drove from our house in Clarendon Hills, Illinois approximately 4-1/2 hours, okay let’s make that 5 hours with all of the Read More » »

10th Anniversary Enjoying Isle Royale National Park

Terry from South Elgin, Ill., sends us this photograph, about which he writes:
“My wife Debbie and I recently spent our 10th wedding anniversary at Isle Royale National Park. We did a number of day hikes around the Rock Harbor area during our four day visit. One day we took a canoe across Tobin Harbor and hiked up to Lookout Louise. The views from the lookout were spectacular. When we hiked back down to the canoe, I took this photo. Besides being a nice photo, it also shows how the level of Read More » »

Rustic Camping in the Dunes of Lake Michigan

This story for our adult general category comes to use from Keli in Eaton Rapids, Mich. In submitting her story, she writes: 

“I’ve had so many wonderful adventures in all of the Great Lakes that it was hard to select only one story! The attached events live in my mind as one of the most memorable. If you haven’t been there, Nordhouse Dunes Lake Michigan Recreation Area is a MUST. Several years ago many of us fought hard to keep slant oil drilling from taking place there - thank goodness. We remain Read More » »

Camping at the Beach

This story comes to us from Bonnie in Rockford, Michigan. Bonnie is 6 and is entering in the camping category. In submitting her story, she writes: “This story is about a girl who loves camping by the beach.” Well said. Here’s her story.

Once upon a time there was a girl named Bonnie. She went camping at Hoffmaster State Park. Bonnie and her family set up a tent, had a campfire, slept on an air mattress, and went to the beach. The beach was close by. She loved to swim at the beach. The waves were really big. Bonnie and her Read More » »

A $5 Trip to Au Sable River

This entry in our story contest’s camping category comes by way of Randy in Columbus, Ohio. It’s a humorous look of a camping trip that experiences some surprises along the way.

 You can enter the contest too.

Many among my friends and family find my love for camping to be frivolous, if not downright weird. A fine thing for scouts and church youth groups, perhaps, but an adult sensibility clearly holds that sleeping on the ground, skipping daily showers and cooking from a small propane stove is a silly way to spend precious vacation time.

It’s true, camping involves some Read More » »

Struggle for a Healthy Great Lakes

The Great Lakes have been around for 12,000 years or so, a hiccup in geological time. Still magnificent but far from pristine, the lakes have been altered dramatically in the last 150 years by settlers who scythed the forests, gouged out the minerals, exiled the indigenous peoples, drained vast wetlands, planted chemically dependent corn and beans, straightened and dredged feeder rivers, dug canals that let in invaders. Too, they and those who followed flushed their untreated and toxic effluent into a freshwater cistern mistakenly thought large enough to absorb it all.

The location of some of North America’s greatest cities Read More » »