We moved to Belleville, Illinois in 1966 and I began my tenure at Belleville East high school. We had two children Victoria age three and Lori age two. Our new home was located in west Belleville behind Abraham Lincoln grade school and West junior high school. It was a very convent location for our children; no streets to cross, just go through the backyard gate and enter the school yard. We lived there for ten years. That was the time period that we started family camping. We had very little camping experience but we did visit my mom and dad a few times on their camping trip. Money was very tight and we considered tent camping but the preparations time, equipment and transportation was problematic. We decided to buy a popup camper which was easy to pull and we had lots of room in or Volkswagen van for kids and equipment. We later found out that the van was no very good on hills and we traded for station wagon. We started or camping experience on weekends and holidays and soon we were camping nearby states. We visited many camp grounds in southern Missouri. For the most part we avoided tourist traps and stay an state and national parks. It was hard to resist all the advertising signs proclaimed to be the eighth wonder of the world. The children soon began to enjoy roaming around in nature and enjoying eating outside and spending cozy nights in the camper. Our daughter Lori did not completely buy into the program but she was a great help with our youngest son Lowell who was still in diapers when we began camping. Our longest trip was our trip to Disneyland in Florida with a stop in Plains Georgia to visit Jimmy Carter’s home town and of course we stopped at Billy Carters gas station where I purchase a souvenir an of Billy Beer. When wen got to Florida we camped at a campground in Kissimmee a few miles from the park. The heat and humidity of July was bearing down on us. The tent canvas dripped water: it was like sleeping in a sauna. The children's spirits were high in anticipation of seeing the magic of Disneyland. We had three day passes and they could hardly wait for the doors to open. Buy the third day we had to drag them back to the camper because of Disney overload.
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