My grandparents took all of their older grandchildren camping every summer, for two weeks (1950's and early 60's)............sleeping in tents, cooking over the campfire before they got a Coleman stove, and I remember being about 7 when I got invited to go. Those were the best summers of my life. My cousin, Sharon, was 3 years older than I was so she was always there, and was my best friend my entire life. My grandparents were old, in their 70's, so I always think they were amazing to do that at their ages back then. There were always 6 or 7 of us to ride herd on.
Grandma cooked such great food, in huge volume, and I still marvel at the pancake eating contests she allowed between my brother and my boy cousins. Grandma snored so loud that one year someone put a sign on our tent, complaining about how loud she snored, complete with a sketch of sawing logs. Whenever she said she was going to bed, Sharon and I and the girl cousins would run for the girl's tent. We had to get to sleep before she did.
We went to Twanoh State Park, on Hoods Canal, in Washington State. We had hiking trails, swimming with a raft and diving boards, boat rental, paddle board rentals, a great playground, with swings, slides and a merry go round thing, all those things are gone now because of lawsuits I think. When it rained, we would pack everything up and go to one of the outdoor kitchens, that were really open sided cabins, built forever ago by the CCC. We would build a huge fire in the fireplace and grandma would cook over the wood stove at one end, and the cousins would play games. Later they built a tennis court and when we were teenagers, we would have dances on the tennis court until one of the adults in our camp would come and make us go back to camp. We were JW's but they were pretty easy on us, for the most part.
Great memories.