Do you want to step outside? Don't forget the sleeping bag!

Do you want to step outside? Don't forget the sleeping bag!

http://www.ajc.com/services/content/...ekalb/stories/
2007/06/22/0623metbackyard.html
http://tinyurl.com/369fqf

By MEGHA RAJAGOPALAN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 06/23/07

Chapel Hill subdivision in south DeKalb County isn't exactly prime
camping territory. The houses are packed close, and nearby are fast
food restaurants and busy highways. But that isn't stopping Gail
Maunula and her three young sons.

Though the wilderness-loving family has gone bouldering in Tennessee,
hiking on the Appalachian Trail and is planning a cross-country
camping trip next year, they've picked their own side yard for the
last campout of the season before it gets too hot.

And they hope the campfire's glow will attract other kids from the
neighborhood who haven't had the opportunities to rough it outdoors.

"It's simple, easy to do, and we don't have to pack up all our stuff,"
she said. "It's a good kind of camping."

That's the sentiment behind the National Wildlife Federation's third
annual Great American Backyard Campout, an annual event that takes
place Saturday. When it comes to getting close to nature, the NWF
says, a backyard is as good a campground as any.

"It's not a hard activity, where you have to buy gear. You don't even
need a tent," said Ashleigh Poff, a spokeswoman for the NWF. "You can
just go out to your backyard and sleep under the stars."

The initiative aims to address what Poff calls Nature Deficit Disorder
- the condition of a generation of kids who prefer television and
video games to hiking and roasting marshmallows.

"They're losing their sense of wonder and exploration, and the desire
to care for the environment," Poff said. "We're trying to address the
disconnect."

In Atlanta, Brendon Barclay is taking 40 kids camping on the 26 wooded
acres at the Atlanta Outdoor Activity Center in West End. Barclay, who
is the director of Sustaining Urban Villages, a nonprofit organization
that instills a sense of environmental responsibility in urban
children, tried to have a similar campout last year, but the event was
rained out. This year, he has a backup plan. They'll move the campsite
to the organization's building.

"If we can't camp outside because of the rain, we're bringing it
inside," he said. "Rain or shine, we want to make sure we do it right
here."

Exposing urban kids to nature can be tricky, but that makes it all the
more important, Barclay said.

"Imagine a kid who doesn't have any concept of why a tree is
important, other than it looks nice and gives shade," he said. "We
want them to learn about that."

Maunula, who grew up in urban Los Angeles, never went on a single
camping trip as a child. Instead, she performed in beauty pageants
that her mother enrolled her in, but she envied her brother's
adventures in Cub Scouts. Now she works hard to instill a love of
nature in her own sons.

"I was determined their childhoods wouldn't be anything like mine,"
she said. "I don't want to handicap them in the same way."

Maunula, who home schools her sons, sees the world as a giant
classroom. The three boys, who are 7, 10 and 12 years old, love video
games as much as any of their friends. But they say their camping and
hiking expeditions have taught them lessons books can't.

"We learn how to respect the wilderness and get away from the little
things that make life easy," said 10-year-old Langston. "Take nothing
but pictures, leave nothing but footprints."

Sleeping outside without a tent might be an okay fine idea in some
places, but don't try it in Ontario - you will be eaten alive by
mosquitoes, blackflies, midges, no-see-ums, deer flies, blah, blah,
blah.

Trust me on this one.

M.

wrote:

Sleeping outside without a tent might be an okay fine idea in some
places, but don't try it in Ontario - you will be eaten alive by
mosquitoes, blackflies, midges, no-see-ums, deer flies, blah, blah,
blah.

Trust me on this one.

In 1948, we went camping from Maryland to Colorado to see my dad's
folks. We didn't have a tent - just sleeping bags, which we put on
top of a ground cloth. My dad would heat water on the Coleman stove
to shave in the morning. We would camp for one or two nights, and
then get a tourist cabin for a night so we could bathe more than a
sponge bath.

If it was raining or there were a lot of insects, we put the seats
down inside our 1948 Ford two door sedan and made one big area out of
it and slept inside. My mom had made screens for the windows so we
could have some air.

We also had to get a cabin when we went to Yellowstone - because of
the bears they wouldn't let us camp without a tent.

wrote:
Sleeping outside without a tent might be an okay fine idea in some
places, but don't try it in Ontario - you will be eaten alive by
mosquitoes, blackflies, midges, no-see-ums, deer flies, blah, blah,
blah.

Trust me on this one.

M.


I'm amazed the people in this article are doing it. When I lived in
Atlanta, no way I'd have camped out in my yard in the summer - the
mosquitoes were terrible. Sleeping out in spring or fall was fine -
we've done that in Atlanta and here in Charleston, S.C.

Clisby