We had four pieces of camping equipment in our family when I was a child. The first was an eight-person wall tent. The tent was erected with two vertical poles and a ridge pole between them. There were quite a few ropes and stakes that held everything up. There was no floor in the tent, but the canvas was waterproof unless you touched it from the inside. The second was a Coleman white gas lantern with fragile mantles. We always carried a few extra mantles that glowed once they burned to ash. The third was a two-burner white gas stove. Both the stove and the lantern required pumping them up to make pressure for the gas to burn. The fourth piece of camping equipment was a homemade picnic box with places to store plates, cups, silverware, cooking and serving utensils. We car camped as a family and I have fond memories of those trips, even one when it rained all night and several of us got sick, probably from food poisoning. We had stopped at a cafe for supper instead of cooking our own and it turned out to be a mistake. Perhaps the hamburger was less than fresh.

My first piece of personal camping gear was a boy scout canteen. It was metal and had a canvas cover with a strap so it could be carried over the shoulder. Later I got a knapsack. I built my first pack frame and carried the knapsack on that frame. The frame was made out of laminations of soft wood according to plans that appeared in Boys Life Magazine. By the time I went on camping trips with our scout troop, I had my own sleeping bag. It wasn’t a fancy, lightweight model, but it worked unless it got too cold.

Later, we backpacked with minimal equipment. We didn’t have a tent, so we built a lean-to out of a ground cloth. We had a simple kit of cooking and eating utensils and I carried a hatchet for cutting firewood. We made simple fire rings that we cleaned up before moving on and dug shallow privy holes to bury our waste. Everything else we packed out what we had packed in, which usually involved a few empty cans.

Before we were married, I bought a backpack as a gift for Susan. She never packed with that pack. I always carried it while she used my old pack. It probably isn’t the only time I purchased something I wanted aa a gift for her. Nonetheless, she agreed to marry me and we are now in our sixth decade of camping together.

When our children were little we purchased a good four-person tent with a vestibule. It was compact and served us well for decades. As they entered their teenage years we purchased a used popup trailer that had two beds, a simple dining area, and a small galley with a sink and a two-burner cooktop.

Around the time our children headed off on their own adventures, we got a popup pickup camper. We could leave the bed made up when we traveled and had a simple bathroom with a shower. We camped in that camper across the US and Canada. On summer we lived in the camper for a month as we traveled.

When grandchildren arrived, we sold the pickup camper and bought a pull trailer with four bunks at one end and a double bed at the other. Between the sleeping quarters is a kitchen, a bathroom with a shower an ample dining area and a sofa. It is a pretty luxurious vehicle. Most of the years we’ve owned the trailer, we’ve towed it multiple thousands of miles. The year after we retired, we pulled it form Washington to South Carolina and back. The 6,000-mile trip involved lots of interesting camping adventures.

We have never been limited by equipment when it comes to camping. Even in the early days before we owned a tent, we always had adequate shelter, a way to cook our meals, and a way to take care of our needs. We also had a sense of adventure and joy as we explored the world around us.

Lately I have begun to realize that what I seek in our next change in camping equipment is to downsize. We’re camping with three of our grandchildren right now and we’ve got short trips with grandchildren planned for the next two weeks. Getting ready for these trips involved removing a cover and pulling the camper out of the barn, getting it washed, filling water tanks and draining antifreeze, making sure that all of the systems were working and giving the interior a cleaning. The camper had to be stocked with groceries and made ready for te trip. Then I had to hitch it to our pickup and use caution while pulling it. When we arrived at the campground, I had to back it into our camping space. We are not connected to electricity or water in this location, so I had to make sure that our batteries worked and we had enough water in our tank.

While we have never been limited by a lack of equipment when it comes to camping, I realize that if we want to continue to camp in the next decades of our lives, we may be burdened by too much equipment. I suspect that I won’t want to be backing up a 25 foot trailer with a long-bed diesel pickup when I am in my eighties. There is no rush and no pressure to make changes, but it makes sense that somehow we need to shed a bit of our equipment in order to keep camping. We probably don’t need a jackknife sofa and two sets of bunkbeds for grandchildren on every trip. Our grandchildren are quickly going up. Our oldest grandson is starting to get a bit big for the kids beds. Soon they will be able to go on camping trips of their own and probably will start out with a tent and a sleeping bag.

It never has been about the equipment. It always has been about the adventure.