What got you started loving the outdoors?

Hey Outsiders! I'd love to read about some of your first experiences with the outdoors. Was it a summer camp? Fishing with your dad? Exploring with friends? Camping with family? What got you started loving the outdoors?

Here's mine:
My dad's from Oregon and, ever since I was little, whenever we'd go up to Oregon we'd go visit Crater Lake. I loved the scenery there, walking along the trails, how every so often there'd be a little patch of snow, and how at peace and together my family felt there. My dad was a very outdoorsy kid and I could tell how at home he felt wandering around the trails at the national park. My mom doesn't love being in the outdoors, but she loves pretty scenery so this was about the extent of outdoor experience I got as a kid. These times really gave me a true love for just wandering around woody areas, climbing trees and the like. Let me tell you a secret, outsiders, I've still never been camping. Shameful, I know! But remembering these times at Crater Lake really make me want to fix that.

Tags: childhood, experiences, first

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I grew up in the city, or at least the outskirts of the city. Some of my favorite memories involve climbing trees were I would sit for hours and read. We also used to take Sunday drives to the country. Often in the summer we would go visit my aunt who lived on a farm. I was always in awe and when the State Fair was in town, the exhibits from the country were my favorite.When I had children of my own, we started camping. My kids are all grown now and I "camp" every day. For ten years now I've lived on a river bank surrounded by woods without electric or running water. Every day I get to enjoy the beauty and peacefulness of nature. Having been there, done that, it is hard to believe that our ancestors would give up this way of life for the "convenience" of living in a city, working in a factory and otherwise climbing on each other on that ladder of "success" we call life. This is life that I live now. When people visit for camping and swimming, they always say they wish they could live like I do. I tell them to just choose it. I didn't do it because I had the money to. I did it because it is what I chose to do with my limited income. I always hoped, and am still hoping, that I might find someone to share this dream and vision that I have but so far there have been no takers. They can't seem to break their addiction to the rat race.

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