‘Camping is all about family’

FAIRMONT June 21, 2008 08:32 pm

— Little Hayden Branson is always up for a road trip.
While Mom and Dad (Mike and Sondra) gather the food, clothes and other boring grown-up stuff, Hayden takes care of the most important part of the whole trip: loading up his toys.
Thomas the Train train set.
Frisbee, plastic bat and ball.
Football and fishing pole.
Crayons and coloring books.
Anything Fisher-Price.
And those neat little Crocs shoes.
At age 4, he’s already a veteran camper.
“We first took him camping when he was a year old. Right off the bat,” Mike said.
“It’s funny how easily it works out. Strangely enough, it’s easier on a camping trip than at home. There are so many things focused on him to do as a family. When he takes a nap, everyone just comes back to the trailer for lunch and to hang around.
“He’s never more than an ear away.”
Hayden likes to load his stuff on the trailer himself, especially his little BMX pedal bike.
“He’s the bicycle-est riding kid I’ve ever seen in my life,” Mike added.
The Bransons go on two kinds of trips, he said.
“One is strictly camping, and one’s oriented around my racing. We try to turn that into fun, a different type of environment.”
It just wouldn’t be a Branson family trip if Hayden didn’t help load the trailer.
“He enjoys packing the trailer himself. He loves to carry stuff to the trailer. Part of the camping for him is actually loading the trailer.”
Hayden also pitches in to help set up camp once the family gets to wherever they’re going.
“He likes to help with the awning and put the legs down, all those little things,” Mike said. “If Mom and Dad are doing it, he does, too.”
Once the trailer is parked and camp set up, then it’s time to kick back and have some fun. That’s when Hayden breaks out the sports gear — plastic ball and bat, Frisbee, football — and have some fun with Dad. And when dinner is over, he loves to roast marshmallows over the camp fire.
By now, the Branson parents know just what to take to make the trip comfy and fun for their little slugger.
“Lots of extra stuff,” Mike said. “When we’re camping, he gets extra wet and extra dirty. There’s more time to squirt each other with squirt guns. If he wants to dig in the dirt and get to be a mess, that’s OK, too.
“That’s what camping is for.”
While Sondra did the now-almost primitive tent camping when she was little, now she takes as many of the modern conveniences of home as she can when they’re camping.
“Some people would say it’s not camping at all,” Mike said with a grin.
“You might not be roughing it and sleeping in a tent, but you’re still enjoying outdoor life, away from the hustle and bustle of home.”
The Bransons are a living advertisement of the joys of RV-ing.
“It’s one of the few ways you can take your family somewhere where the only thing you do is be a family,” he said. “You leave everything else behind. There are no worries or problems of home or work or phone calls. Whatever got that time you can devote now to your children and family.
“That’s the most fun part of camping.”
He was a camping kid. “I grew up basically at Big Bear Lake. We were there almost every weekend.”
“It’s really a lot of fun to see how much Hayden enjoys to go camping,” Sondra said. “He asks almost every weekend when we’re going next. He’s delightful.”
When they go camping, they focus on having fun with their tow-headed little bundle of energy.
“We don’t worry about keeping the trailer clean,” she said. “We’ll handle cleaning and dishes after the weekend is over.”
“He’s part of the entire process. We let him pick out which toys he wants to take and he loads them himself into the trailer. And he gets to decide, once we get there, what he wants to play first.
“And he helps us set up with the coolers, chairs and tables. He likes to do that.”
You prepare for a weekend at camp with a kid “just like you do when you go away for a weekend in a hotel,” she said.
“You take extra clothes, two outfits per day.”
“He enjoys camping too much to leave with a sitter. It’s all about family, for me,” she said.
Camping is just plain family fun.
“It’s relaxing. He can play outside and I can sit and watch him. Camping is all new to him, so it’s still exciting.
“We don’t get caught up in the daily things we do around the house. Dad plays with him while I read, and I play with Hayden while Dad does something else.
“It’s a fun time. We understand that and have made it an easy process.”
Make it easy for yourself, she advises new campers.
“You’re always going to forget something. That may be your biggest worry, but it doesn’t matter. You can make due without. Don’t stress. There’s always something else you can use.”
Keep track of what’s needed with a check list of foods and supplies, she said.
“As you learn what you need the most. When you start the season out, you fill the camper back up.
“This is really the fun stuff. It’s easy. You don’t have to worry about rain or dark. We just back the trailer in and we’re fine.
“I definitely promote” family camping, she said.
“Everybody gets caught up in the busy life, the everyday hectic things. I just take the minimal stuff. I put it all away and don’t worry. I leave computers home, but I do take a cell phone.
“We all need that. We’re living a life too much in the fast lane.”
E-mail Debra Minor Wilson at dwilson@timeswv.com.

Photos

Mike and Sondra Branson make sure Hayden is a part of the preparation for family camping trips. He likes helping out, too, they say. Times West Virginian