Thanks to friend, photographer Mark Gocke, for letting me share this photo. It shows why I live in Wyoming.
(BTW, my husband and I are going to (hopefully) stand on top of the Grand Teton in August.)
Frontier Life
Why Camping is My Favorite Family Activity
Jerry and I have three sons, Wolf, 9, Hayden, 7 and Fin, 2. My favorite thing to do with the family is camping. I just love it. It’s a way to get close to nature, get dirty, find things to do that are not artificial or expensive, and typically the best campgrounds/campsites don’t have cell signals.
People who know me and know how I love gadgets and all of technology’s wonders don’t believe it when I say it, but I sometimes like it when my cell has no bars. It forces me into isolation, which is what I want, but often have a hard time surrendering to.
We recently camped for most of our Spring Break vacation. Except for yurt stays the first two nights, which were fortunate given the blizzard conditions, we camped 4 nights.
The boys love looking for treasures, finding and collecting rocks and other interesting items, climbing trees, helping build a fire, making s’mores, reading aloud to each other, playing ball, looking at the stars and everything else that comes as part of the camping package.
My parents rented an RV from CruiseAmerica in Salt Lake City and toured some of Utah’s national parks on their own before meeting up with us on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon for a few days.
Boy, did they arrive in comfort. What a great idea and business CruiseAmerica has. My boys fell in love with the RV and truth be told they much preferred that to tent camping. Some of the fond memories from the camping time with their Mommom and Poppop were the walks they took and helping my parents find their way with walkie-talkies after getting lost and disoriented several times. : >
Great times to be sure. We can’t wait for the next camping trip.
Here’s a short video that captures the essence of our camping experiences:
A shout out from the Frontier
Hello from out on the frontier, in the Old West, in Lander, WY. The U.S. Census Bureau actually classifies Wyoming as “frontier†(not even “rural!”)
Frontier means, “land outside the region of existing settlements.â€
Um, yep, that pretty much describes where I live and work.
In the early 20th Century, a famous American historian named Frederick Jackson Turner, used to argue that people were changed when they encountered the frontier.
He wrote papers about the frontier, saying, “Unlimited free land offers a psychological sense of unlimited opportunity, which in turn had many consequences, such as optimism…â€
I really like that statement, and like to think it’s true that those of us on the frontier tend to be optimistic.
There are only 500,000 people in all of Wyoming. There are more antelope than people in our state. Our biggest “city” has 50,000 people. My town of Lander, situated in the foothills of the Wind River Range, and home to the National Outdoor Leadership School, is home to fewer than 7,000 people.
In all directions we have huge expansive views of undeveloped, pristine country. In my own Fremont County, there are more than 40 peaks that stand taller than 13,000 feet, and even during peak summer months we have to share our trails with very few other people.
Every weekend is – or could be – a vacation. Will it be Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons, the Red Desert, South Pass, Oregon Buttes, the Wind River Range, Sinks Canyon, Devils Tower or Flaming Gorge? It’s all within reach for a weekend getaway. And our evenings tend to be all ours, as well, given it’s a 10-minute walk, or a 2-minute drive to the office for most of us in Lander. There’s no time wasted in a commute that’s for sure.
We in Wyoming get made fun of once in a while because we’re sort of alone out here on the frontier. But I would rather be here than anywhere else in the world.
And because we’re content where we’re at, and must work hard to make it in an isolated and rugged land, we can take the ribbing.
About this blog
Hi from out on the frontier of Wyoming!
My name is Shelli Johnson, and this blog is a place for me to post notes, and opinions about life and work, which are most often connected.
Sometimes you’ll get an opinion about marketing or tourism promotion, other times I might reference a great post or article or book, and other times (often, probably) I’ll share notes about trips and adventures I have taken, complete with photos, maps, or video clips like this one: