Large Camping Tent Experiences
For the first time enjoying holidays without my parents.
I must have been sixteen years old when I left Cologne.
A two days journey lay ahead of me to reach the Dutch island of Terschelling.
A few weeks ago I had bought a motor-assisted bicycle.
The pace to travel, officially allowed with these bikes was a joke: 25 kilometres an hour.
But fortunately all "mofas" at that time exceeded this official limit by at least 50%.
Otherwise reaching Terschelling would have been a night mare.
Back in in the early seventies, when I was a teen broadcasting was heavily regulated in Germany, and all over Europe.
We all had portable radios with us to listen to Radio Caroline a "broadcasting pirate" transmitting from a ship in the Atlantic.
May be today nostalgia is playing tricks: but "Twenty five or six to four" performed by Chicago was this Summers hit.
Radio Caroline must have played it at least twice an hour.
This first journey leaving mom an dad back home was in many ways a premiere.
Lets some of these premiers stay secrets still, but: it was was my very first tent-journey, or "Zeltreise" in German.
Me and the other teens at the dutch sea would never have called this summers lifestyle "Camping" .
Camping was practiced by the elderly.
Men in short trousers drinking beer the whole day while their wives polished the trailer: a horror scenario for kids like us a year after Woodstock.
Woodstock, in Woodstock they lived in tents too.
And lets realize we are writing at an anniversary: that summer of love took place 40 years ago.
Since then and many times after traveling with a tent for me as a synonym for "close to nature" , "into the wild", and of course: "forever young".
I do not know exactly when my last "tent journey" for many years took place.
May be 15 years after Terschelling: in my late twenties.
Grown up we preferred warm showers from torrential cold rivers, small bed and breakfasts from mini tents and last but not least: sleeping out in the morning instead of getting up early because the morning sun started boiling the tent and its inhabitants.
Never did I plan to camp again.
That did not change when my Swedish friend Lennart Kolberg told me about his plans to launch a new internet review site focusing on "Large Camping Tents.
" "Would I write some guest articles?" "No, I would not.
Not my cup of tea.
" Strange, how things line up.
Three weeks ago I lived in a tent again, in two to be honest.
One for me and my mate the second for my son.
At the Atlantic again, close to the dike and dunes.
On a official camping ground, I admit.
However: a real small one.
Eight places only one hot shower only.
The trip reasoned in a sad occurrence: my mother had died and her sons, grandsons and relatives had to sail from Büsum to Helgoland to consign her ashes to the sea.
That had as long as I imagine been hers and my fathers wish.
Why living in a tent again? After so many years? I do not exactly know.
A certain lack of money, for sure.
"If wishes were fishes we all cast nets in the sea.
" Summer of love? Forever young?
I must have been sixteen years old when I left Cologne.
A two days journey lay ahead of me to reach the Dutch island of Terschelling.
A few weeks ago I had bought a motor-assisted bicycle.
The pace to travel, officially allowed with these bikes was a joke: 25 kilometres an hour.
But fortunately all "mofas" at that time exceeded this official limit by at least 50%.
Otherwise reaching Terschelling would have been a night mare.
Back in in the early seventies, when I was a teen broadcasting was heavily regulated in Germany, and all over Europe.
We all had portable radios with us to listen to Radio Caroline a "broadcasting pirate" transmitting from a ship in the Atlantic.
May be today nostalgia is playing tricks: but "Twenty five or six to four" performed by Chicago was this Summers hit.
Radio Caroline must have played it at least twice an hour.
This first journey leaving mom an dad back home was in many ways a premiere.
Lets some of these premiers stay secrets still, but: it was was my very first tent-journey, or "Zeltreise" in German.
Me and the other teens at the dutch sea would never have called this summers lifestyle "Camping" .
Camping was practiced by the elderly.
Men in short trousers drinking beer the whole day while their wives polished the trailer: a horror scenario for kids like us a year after Woodstock.
Woodstock, in Woodstock they lived in tents too.
And lets realize we are writing at an anniversary: that summer of love took place 40 years ago.
Since then and many times after traveling with a tent for me as a synonym for "close to nature" , "into the wild", and of course: "forever young".
I do not know exactly when my last "tent journey" for many years took place.
May be 15 years after Terschelling: in my late twenties.
Grown up we preferred warm showers from torrential cold rivers, small bed and breakfasts from mini tents and last but not least: sleeping out in the morning instead of getting up early because the morning sun started boiling the tent and its inhabitants.
Never did I plan to camp again.
That did not change when my Swedish friend Lennart Kolberg told me about his plans to launch a new internet review site focusing on "Large Camping Tents.
" "Would I write some guest articles?" "No, I would not.
Not my cup of tea.
" Strange, how things line up.
Three weeks ago I lived in a tent again, in two to be honest.
One for me and my mate the second for my son.
At the Atlantic again, close to the dike and dunes.
On a official camping ground, I admit.
However: a real small one.
Eight places only one hot shower only.
The trip reasoned in a sad occurrence: my mother had died and her sons, grandsons and relatives had to sail from Büsum to Helgoland to consign her ashes to the sea.
That had as long as I imagine been hers and my fathers wish.
Why living in a tent again? After so many years? I do not exactly know.
A certain lack of money, for sure.
"If wishes were fishes we all cast nets in the sea.
" Summer of love? Forever young?
Source...