My family has always preferred fall camping to summer. Our favorite backcountry haunts and favorite trails are uncrowded and the weather is more predictable. We’ve had many nearly perfect camping trips through the years, but for some reason, it’s the ones that weren’t so perfect that stand out in our minds:

The time my boots caught on fire. It was Thanksgiving. It was really cold, so we built a campfire in a fire ring. I put my feet on a stone near the fire and after about 20 minutes, we smelled rubber burning. I backed away from the fire, and after a couple of hours, my boots had stopped smoking.

The time(s) the dog took the fire. We don’t always have a campfire, but if there’s a fire ring and wood available, we’ll build one for warmth, using small sticks and pine cones. Our irrepressible yellow Labrador retriever, Waldo, loved fire for a different reason – it was a collection of sticks. He would wait for the perfect moment to retrieve a flaming stick from the fire and then stand proudly, waving it like a sparkler.

The time the dog retrieved the bait (related to the previous incident.). I mentioned that Waldo was a retriever. We spent a long weekend fishing for brookies in a mountain stream, and each time we would throw a line into the water, Waldo would jump in and retrieve it.

The time we were surrounded by a herd of cows It’s not funny. We were hiking in a wilderness area where ranchers hold grazing permits, when we met a dozen unfriendly black cows that felt they deserved the right-of-way. We were on a narrow path with a raging stream on one side and a steep, rocky hillside on the other. We yielded by crawling up the hill and allowing the unfriendly group to pass.

The time we forgot the food It was OK. We didn’t forget the whiskey.

– Deb Acord

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