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Grandpa By: Chelsey McIntosh English 20-1 March 14, 2011
Camping to me is more than just getting away for the weekend. People think it’s about having fun and relaxing, but for me it’s so much more. Every summer my family and I go camping out to Pepper’s Lake. It’s been a tradition ever since my grandpa died. I was seven when he died of lung cancer; I don’t remember him that well though. I remember going camping and fishing with him but my memories are vague.
After he passed my family went out to Pepper’s Lake and we all went looking for a place to spread his ashes. We walked down a quad trail that was in the middle of a marsh and thought that it wouldn’t go far. As we walked in the forest of pine trees that surrounded the trail we came upon a lone spruce tree. It was beautiful, even though it was small it stood tall and proud. It looked out over a stream flowing through the valley. Grandma thought it was perfect; she spread his ashes beneath the tree.
Every year when we go visit grandpa, we place little knick knacks on the branches. There’s a dream catcher, an angel, a bushel of grain from his farm and lots of other little keepsakes. There’s a little monument that has his picture and his name on it that we put beside the tree. Grandpa loved Lamb’s dark rum, so every year when we visit him we have a swig of it for him.
After, we go back to camp and play games like bean bags, snakes or bones. I’m not very good at any of them but my favourite is bones. Grandpa was really good at bean bags and if he ever lost he wouldn’t whine or complain he would just congratulate the other team for beating him. This taught me that no matter how bad you want to win, if you loose its not the end of the world and that there’s always next time.
My favourite thing to do when we go camping is quadding. I love it! The boys usually go and the girls stay back at camp and play cards and other games. But I go quadding with the guys and I always will. We have a Honda and a Suzuki, Dad drives the Suzuki and my sister and I go on the Honda. Sometimes we fight over who gets to drive but usually one drives halfway and then the other drives, so it’s pretty fair.
Grandpa loved quadding too and I remember sometimes when I was younger I would go with him on his quad. He loved going through the mud and he always tried his darnedest to get me muddy. I love quadding because it’s fun and exciting to go through mud holes. Then when someone gets stuck you laugh at them because they have to get winched out. I love the adrenaline rush you get when you have to drive up a steep hill because your scared to death that something bad could happen. But when you make it up, you feel relieved and proud of yourself that you did it. The best part of quadding is being out in the fresh air, with the wind in my face.
At night we all sit around the campfire, passing around Baja Rosa and chatting with each other about whatever comes to mind, and admiring the wide open sky and the shining stars above us. Grandpa loved looking at the stars and we used to race each other to see who found the big dipper first. It was fun and I kept getting faster but he always beat me. Sometimes there are funny stories to tell about quadding. Like when the rhino rolled over in a mud hole and my uncle got soaked head to toe. Or when I was going through some muskeg and grandpa came up behind me and zoomed passed leaving chunks of muskeg all over my face. Then for the rest of the day I planned my revenge. It seems like there’s always some funny story to tell around the campfire.
I miss my grandpa a lot but having this tradition makes me happy and reminds me of the good times I had with him.
