Sensory Clues

[Steve L.]

Fresh cut straw brings me back 40 years to summer jobs throwing bales of hay around. The smell of a cheap White Owl cigar immediately brings my Grandfather to mind.

What sensory input(s) means camping to you? What input to one of your five senses immediately sets you to thinking of camping?

Although it's been years since I've backpacked it's the roar of a Svea stove at full tilt. Nothing like it. (I'm making that noise right now. Heads popping up like prarie dogs in the cubes around me. Wah!)

It's the "squeak squeak" of priming a Coleman gas stove or lamp. (No more noises. They're already think I'm nuts, why prove it.)

It's the smell of stale campfire smoke on my clothes the next morning.

edited to elaborate some.

[Alf S.]

Hi: It's DAMP canvas, DAMP sleeping bags, DAMP sneakers, DAMP firewood, DAMP matches after a violent thunder storm in the middle of the night
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie

[Cam A]

Sounds - Loons calling at night; elk bugeling (sp?), the crackle of the fire. Being in the quiet of nature long enough to get the "cotton-batting" in the ears feeling, then finally hearing the wind and the songbirds. (Quiet enough to hear a mouse fart at 20 feet)
Smells - smoke from the fire; the earthy smell of the bush; the glorious smell of water; mint in the fog of morning; pines in bush.

[Al Stansell]

It's the smell of Ol' Woodsman bug dope and the smell of bacon (Hopefully not at the same time )
The sound and smell of a campfire, waves lapping the shore, and the taste of s'mores!!!

Alec

[Robert Brummett]

Well said, all!

And it's all still available to Casita-dwellers. (Sans dampness, of course.)

[Ooops! Sorry. Should have said FGRV-ers!]

[Dave Mac]

Stars....not just a few but Millions of them. When we went camping the other week at Huntington Lake, Ca the wife asked me "what's that cloud...is that a cloud"? It was the Milky Way and I think she had never seen it before.
Dave

[Greg A]

Stars....not just a few but Millions of them. When we went camping the other week at Huntington Lake, Ca the wife asked me "what's that cloud...is that a cloud"? It was the Milky Way and I think she had never seen it before.
Dave

My wife asked the same question two weekends ago at Circle Pines in Williams, AZ. Alas, the cloud was the infamous Milky Way a rare site for Urban dwellers. I understand if you have the right equipment that the Milky Way makes sounds as well.

[Byron Kinnaman]

Stars....not just a few but Millions of them. When we went camping the other week at Huntington Lake, Ca the wife asked me "what's that cloud...is that a cloud"? It was the Milky Way and I think she had never seen it before.
Dave

Now that's camping.
The best camping I've had is NOT in the trailer. The trailer is luxury that allows us to be out in marginal or worse weather. We've done that in our tiny backpacking tent.
Mostly camping is getting away from the artificial urban world. Away from city noise, away from light pollution, and into the world nature made. Listening to the sounds of nature, observing the wonders of nature. Watching an insect, or a small animal. Looking the large variations in flora. Watching the ripples on a small lake that's glass smooth. The list goes on and on and on. All those things you can't see, smell, or hear in the artificial urban world.

[james kent]

The swaying of the canoe as you stroke across the lake. The straps digging into your sholders from an oversized pack on a rough portage. The burning arm muscles as you fight the wind.
___The gentle motion of the hammok at the end of a good day____g'nite all...

[Ed Felker]

... the smell of hardwood burning. No matter where I am -- in the city, in a restaurant with a hardwood pizza oven, in a neighborhood in winter when fireplaces are all ablaze -- as soon as I smell hardwood burning I think of our many years of camping with the kids In Letchworth NY in a tent more than 40 years ago.

[bonnie w]

The saliva-inducing smell of a neighbor's fried onions, the sizzle of a moth falling into a oiled frying pan, the buzz of mosquitoes when I have my full pull over netting jacket, making friends with the intruding crows, and having the ablity to laugh when it's my turn to empty the porti potti ! Waking up to the aroma of fresh coffee a friend has made for me. Trying to figure out how some little field mice have entered the trailer, and freaking out how to get rid of them. Life is good !

[Bob H]

The sounds outside my Scamp's door is much like this. I have two owls that perch in the tree over my head most evenings.
Drives my dog nuts!

[Frederick L. Simson]

What sensory input(s) means camping to you? What input to one of your five senses immediately sets you to thinking of camping?

As I brush the tracked-in dirt off the silk duvet/down comforter, noticing a coffee stain on the 600 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets.

[Connie M.]

The sounds of rushing water and a crackling fire, the sight of craggy mtns. and immense forests, the smell of fresh air and damp earth, the feel of wood and stone - and the taste of the bug that I've just inhaled!

[CharlynnT]

These days, it's the ability to "take the house off the hook."

I love my nearby friends, my neighbours, my neighbour's kids, my kid's friends, my friend's kids, AND it's so nice to be out in the middle of nowhere with just us for a night or two.

Sensory deprivation: no knocking on the door.