Thursday, July 9, 2009

Camping on Tollgate

The summer that I turned ten years old, our family went on an all summer camping trip. I don't remember all of the details, but Dad was working in different places that summer, so we tagged along in our little camp trailer. It was the funnest summer of my childhood.

My favorite campsite was up on the mountain between Elgin and Pendleton Oregon. A place called Tollgate.

Dad pulled our little gold and white camp trailer out of Elgin, past the lumber mill and up the mointain to Tollgate were we found the perfect campground.

A few days after setting up camp a nice lady forest ranger stopped by for a chat.
She gave us four kids big garbage bags to clean up the campground. We became proud members of the Woodsy Owl team and toured around on our bicycles picking up every scrap of garbage we could find.
I bet that was the cleanest campground in Oregon when we left it.

Most of the time we were the only campers, so we explored the woods and went anywhere we pleased.

A nice young couple did camp beside us one weekend. He played "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" on his guitar and taught my little brother Todd how to play frisbee.

We would pick blue berries in the woods and Mom would make us blue berry pancakes, Yum!

5 comments:

Mary Humphrey said...

Don't you just love childhood summer memories? I do!

Paula said...

And I ran threw a great big patch of stinging nettles! But really, it was a way fun summer. I've stopped at that campground several times on my way to Elgin. Always fun memories!

Shelby said...

Oh I do love summer memories.. and fresh picked blueberries in pancakes!!!!

I remember that song bad bad leroy brown.. baddest man in the whole 'blame' town.. great song.

Twisted Fencepost said...

Sounds like great memories.
I went camping one time that I can remember as a child.
My Dad taught me to fish that year, from a seat on his john boat.
I still have the boat, it has good memories for me.

Gidge said...

Oh I just love this memory of your camping trip. Todd has talked of it too. What a great memory!!