درسنامه صوتی

Camping – Commentary Lesson

Hi, this is Kristin Dodds. Welcome back to the commentary for the conversation Camping. So in the conversation Camping we were talking about car camping and we also were talking about RVs and campers and also we were talking about hiking in or backpacking in to set up your campsite, y’know, not having the developed campsites like you have with…if you’re in an RV or if you’re car camping.

Well, I was actually remembering a camping trip that I went on with my dad and two brothers. I think I was in middle school so I was in 7th or 8th grade, which was about…I was probably about 12 or 13 at that time. And we went on a boat, so it was boat camping. So we actually, we lived…when I was growing up in the state of Georgia, in the southeastern part of the United States…we lived near a lake and my parents owned a small boat, a little speed boat.

And so one summer, my dad wanted to take me and my two brothers camping and so we went. And it was our last weekend of our summer break or our summer vacation. So it was our, our break from school, our summer break. So we went camping. We loaded up our truck, y’know, we put everything in it we needed, just like you would if you were going car camping. We put all of our food, sleeping bags, our tents, everything, things we were going to like…matches to be able to start a fire.

And we set out onto the lake. We…we, I don’t know, we went maybe 30 minutes away from where, y’know, our boat was at the dock where we kept it. And we found this little private area so there weren’t any houses, there weren’t any people living nearby. And we decided it looked like a good place to camp. And we ended up camping right then, it was a sandy beach area. There were trees. There were some woods but it was also, because it was right at the lake, it was also kind of a beach area.

And it was…it was great. We had a really good time. We made a fire and it’s always nice to just, there’s something really relaxing and fun sitting around a fire at night with your friends or your family when you’re camping, just sitting around the fire sharing stories or, y’know, just talking. If you haven’t seen your friends in a long time or your family, maybe talking, y’know, catching up as we would say, talking about what you’ve been doing.

And so we had a nice fire. We cooked some food. I don’t even remember what we cooked. Probably very simple or basic food. And we…what are some other…I remember my…this is, this is something that people, sometimes when they go camping, especially if there’s kids, ghost stories. It’s a…it’s a tradition or a favorite thing for the kids to listen to the adults or the kids to tell each other ghost stories.

So I remember my dad telling a ghost story and sometimes people, y’know, it’ll be dark except for the campfire. It’s at night when you start telling the ghost stories. I can remember my dad putting the flashlight up under his face so it gave his face this kind of scary look. And I don’t remember the story he

told, that was so long ago, but I remember it scared me. And that’s the idea then. You go…you go get in your tent and you’re kind of scared.

But I think we only stayed one night so the next day we pack up the boat, we put everything back in the boat and we start to go back towards home and I think the next day we had to start back to school, which I wasn’t looking forward to. But our boat broke down then. The boat was…my dad had bought the boat second-hand so it was used and it wasn’t a very good boat. It was breaking down, it had always broke down.

So it broke down on us going back. And I don’t remember what we did. Maybe somebody helped us out and they pulled us back to the dock. Or, y’know, maybe eventually my dad got the boat started again. But that kind of…unfortunately, we had a good camping trip but that was kind of a bad way to end. But we made it back and, yeah, I just thought I would talk about boat camping because that was something we didn’t talk about in the conversation.

Something else I was thinking about, a lot of camping that I used to do with an ex-boyfriend of mine, like right after college, was animal camping. Now I’m kind of joking, but not really. What I mean by animal camping is we would always take our dog, or his dog, but I thought she was my dog, too. We would take her and so we would actually hike in or backpack in, like AJ was talking about in the conversation.

We would walk, y’know, pretty far into the woods and we would camp for two-three days. So we’re carrying everything on our backs and we’ve got our dog with us. But the funny thing is, she was always so protective of us, which was a good thing. So she would always run ahead of us on the trail as we’d be walking through the woods and she’d just run and run and run. She loved to be out in the woods.

And so by the time we got to wherever we were going to stop for the night and set up our camp, she would just pass out. And what I mean is she would just fall asleep. So we would be getting everything ready to make a fire and we’d be putting up our tents and just getting everything prepared to cook our dinner then and she would just fall asleep. Because it would still be light out and she knew that she was…well, I’ll explain in a minute.

She knew she was going to have to, that she would be awake throughout the night. So she was getting her rest in while we still had daylight hours. So after, we would cook our dinner and be sitting around the fire. Whenever we would then be ready to go into the tent and go to sleep, that’s when she would really become alive and awake and she would sit outside our tent all night, just alert. And what I mean by alert is she was just very aware, listening, watching, making sure that no people or no animals were coming to harm us while we were sleeping. She was amazing. So that’s what I meant by animal camping.

Actually, now that I think about it, when…with the boat camping trip I was talking about with my dad and two brothers, I think that we may have taken our dog at the time along with us for that. I don’t remember for sure, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we did.

So in the conversation we were talking about how we went down to a state park where there were a lot of redwoods, just like an hour and a half south of San Francisco. And we went, Joe and I went with AJ and his wife, Tomoe, and a friend of ours, Eric, who was mentioned in the conversation, with his son, and then another friend and his wife, Jake and Maria with their two children.

We had a really good time. Y’know…so this was more car camping. There were a lot more people around us and of course we had, there were buildings with bathrooms where we could take showers, use the toilet, y’know, sinks to wash our hands and face and brush our teeth. And so, yeah, and then a lot of people in campsites around us.

But, what, I remember we went on a hike during the day so we were just walking in the woods and, what else did we do. The kids were playing different games, y’know, throughout the day. At night, of course, we’d have a fire which was always really nice. Like I said, there’s something just really relaxing and nurturing about a fire.

Something else that’s nice is when we’ve done this before, usually like Joe and I will cook food for one meal and then Eric will cook food for another meal. We always do breakfast on our own but, y’know, lunch and dinner we share. Jake and Maria, they’ll…they’ll take another meal. They’ll cook for that meal.

Oh another tradition, I was talking about ghost stories when we did the boat camping, y’know, when I did that trip with my dad and brothers. So another tradition is having s’mores. And what s’mores are is you take a cracker, it’s called a graham cracker so it’s kind of sweet. You have a cracker and you roast a marshmallow.

So marshmallows, if you don’t have them in your country, they’re white. I don’t know what is in them, a lot of sugar, because they’re sweet. You can put them on a stick and you put it in the fire and it gets really soft. So then you put that on the graham cracker, the sweet cracker, and then you put chocolate. And the heat from the marshmallow can melt the chocolate. So the chocolate melts with the white sweet marshmallow and then you put another cracker on top so it’s like a sandwich. And you eat it. It’s really good.

And sometimes, even if you don’t make s’mores, a tradition is just to roast marshmallows. I like to get mine black, actually. You usually, most people will just get them brown so they’re just slightly roasting them, but I like to stick mine in the fire and let it catch on fire and then when it’s black, I blow it out and I eat it because I like the black, which some people think is crazy.

So the kids had fun making s’mores. And then we told a ghost story, too. Actually this wasn’t the trip that we took with AJ and Tomoe, but we’d gone camping with them the summer before and we had s’mores and I actually told a ghost story that really scared the kids. I didn’t mean to scare them so much but like I said, that’s a part of the fun. They were scared to go to bed then after I told it.

Then in the conversation we also were talking about or I was talking about going camping on a camping trip for my birthday which me and Joe and AJ and Tomoe then did. And we went, drove about four and a half hours north of San Francisco. Again it was car camping and we did a lot of hiking in the day. Of course, we had fires at night.

But we saw some amazing redwood trees, some of the biggest actually in the West Coast here. And I’m actually going to look for a picture of all of us by a redwood tree. We’re going to try and embed that in after this commentary. So just so you can get an idea of how…of the size of the trees with us standing in front of one. It’s unbelievable. They’re just amazing magical trees.

Alright, this concludes my commentary for the conversation Camping. Camping, it’s a fun topic. I love doing it and I would love to hear from you on the Ning site if you ever have an opportunity to go camping, if you…some people might not even like doing it, going out in nature. Some people, y’know, love it. So I’d like to hear from you.

Alright, have a good month and I’ll see you next time.