I remember our first camping trip. We talked about camping, fishing, canoeing, and possibly going to Sea World and Geauga Lake in Aurora, Ohio. Its now called Geauga Lake’s Wildwater Kingdom because they merged together at some point. Well needless to say, we were nervous and anxious all week long just thinking about going camping. We broke out our camping gear and did an inventory list. We drug the two tents into our back yard and learned how to set up a tent. We had a new two man tent and an old six man tent. It took us about an hour and a half to set up our tents on the first try. It didn’t help that there were four of us boys trying to do our own thing. None of us had ever been camping before but we all knew how to set up our tents. We were dumb as kids. We could have listened and been done sooner, but we were four boys. We had to make a trip to the camping store to get our supplies. We needed a couple sleeping bags, a new camp stove, some new lanterns and mantles, batteries and flashlights, and new fishing line for our fishing poles and a few new bass lures. We practiced setting up the tents every day after school. We got better each time and faster each time. Thursday night we left one of the tents up and got to sleep outside for the first time, EVER! Well it didn’t go very well. We all heard things outside the tent that really weren’t there. We lived in the city. We were just dumb. We made it till about midnight then we went screaming from our tent and disappear right through the back door. Our mom found us hiding in our room. We woke up early on Friday morning went outside and tore down the tentand packed it away for the journey we were going to embark on in about 8 hrs. Off we went to school.We heard a lot of horror stories from our friends about camping. Like I said we were young, it was right before summer of 1978 and Friday the 13TH had just been released on VHS tape. Well a lot of kids teased all week about Jason and what he did to campers. We didn’t have a clue. When that bell sounded, we ran the entire way home. We didn’t know whether to be scared or not. Well the weather forecast wasn’t good and wasn’t getting any better. We heard our parents talking about canceling our camping trip and that just wasn’t going to fly with us at this point. We begged and pleaded with our parents to continue with the plans. Needless to say we had the van loaded with all of camping gear within the hour! Twenty minutes after that we were on our way. We had forgotten about all the horrors that we had been teased about at school. We were getting closer to the park were we had reservations to camp for the weekend. We stayed at Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park™ Camp-Resorts which was about 10 minutes from the place we were going tomorrow. I remember the campmanager tell us that there were thunderstorm warnings and tornado advisories. We did care, we had never seen a tornado and we lived in Ohio, not the tornado belt. It was starting to sprinkle and our parents started talking about going and getting a motel room and us kids were incorrigible. We were not going to a motel at this point. We put the tents up in minutes this time , about 10. My dad and two younger brothers set up the big tent and the two older brothers set up the small tent. Well friday night went well. We pitched the tents, learned how to fish, learned how to set up camp fast, and we met some new friends. We went to sleep in a light misty sprinkle!
The next was going to be a long day. The ground and half of our camping gear was wet but the skies were starting to clear up a little. We all decided to make a go of it. All day long the weather was threatening to rain. We went ahead to Sea World. Half way through the day it really started getting bad. We could see the storm cloud billowing in the west. We started thinking about our tents and camping gear as the winds really started to pick up. The winds were getting up to around 20 to 25 mph. We asked if the tents and camping gear would be alright. Dad said that we had water-proof tents and they were very durable. All of the sudden it started to down poor and the skies turned yellowish-orange. The wind stopped like I had never seen. The sirens started to whistle and a tornado had touch down with in a few miles of us. Everyone was freaking out but our dad. He got us all to shelter and told us that everything would be fine. We were more worried about our tents and camping gear than the tornado. It was over in minutes but it seemed like hours. The all clear sounded but they shut down the park because of the weather conditions anyways. All that us kids could talk about was the tents and what our new friends were doing. We arrived back at the camp grounds and it was completely flat but one tent! Our brand new Eureka! two man tent was still standing. We got the other six man tent back up but it took a lot of work. Some of our poles were bent from the winds and the thunderstorm. The weather forecast said that it was going to get worse before it was going to get better. We braved the weather one more night because it was a long day and it was getting late fast. Us kids were in the six man tent and our parents were in the two man tent. About midnight the six man tent had all it could take of the weather and it collapsed on top of us. It was really raining and it scared us really bad. My dad got us out and we put the younger kids in the van with our mom. We put a lot of our camping gear in the back of our van. My dad and two of us slept in the two man tent till 6:00 am. We broke down our camp quickly and we were on the road by 7:00 am. We made it home safe and sound but we did see another funnel cloud as we were filling up with gas. As we drove away we saw a tornado start again. All in all it was a camping trip that i’ve remembered for 30 years and i would would trade that camping trip for any price.