Campy

Hello, gorgeous beautiful glamorous campers! This weekend my family and some friends are entering that glorious Memorial Day tradition of the camping trip. Where to, you might ask? We're going to a beach on the Pacific, if that narrows it down for you. 
I got to thinking about why so many of us chose to fill our leisure time with sleeping under the stars (well, the hidden stars here in Alaska if it's Summer - we're pretty much getting Midnight Sun at this point), and remembered that I had this little fledgling site that I'd filled with a few (but not all from my vault) reference databases that I could play with. I felt like looking at vintage Kodachrome and the like photos and related ephemera from the 30's-80's or so. I wanted to see some examples of vintage camping, in photos, to tie our experiences with our bug spray-wielding and hot-dog grilling forefathers. 
I mean I flippin' love camping, but I'm a bit specific and fickle with my love. It must be in (usually) a state or national park campground, meaning it must be beautiful and serene. But I don't want it to be off the grid too much (i.e. some sort of toilet either flush or porta is essential), because I am a delicate, shy type person with my grooming and functions and also do not want to be eaten by a bear or taunted by a wolverine. On the flip side I don't want something so posh that it's ridden with RV's and pricey fees. I'm camping for goodness sake, I'm doing it because it's cheap and I like roasting marshmallows. I don't necessarily need a shower because showers in camps are usually either anemic or like something out of a TVA dam and nowhere in between. 
So anyway, I used my little magic tricks to find a few pretty little reminders of the type of camping I love: the kind with lipstick and a clean toilet, the kind with park rangers and day hikes. I found some random: 

Thank you, Shorpy. 
Just look at that happy camper up there (1971). Read the description on the Shorpy page, too. I love this guy's self-depreciating humor. I look at all the details in the shot and I think of all the preparations I just did for our impending trip. Will we look at our photos 30 years from now and marvel at the "vintage" Sigg water bottles and Bodum french press? Probably. 

Thanks again, Shorpy.
Please. Just look at this shot. Can't you just feel it? The flames licking the black night? I've missed that! Like I've said it stays light until almost midnight now and it's not the same. I loved the enveloping night camping down south and in the midwest. When I was little it felt like such an adventure to be staying outside after dark. To sleep in the moonlight. Nothin' doin' up here unless you're willing to camp in the winter and snow. I don't mind winter camping, in the south when it gets to maybe 20 degrees at night in most areas. Up here is another story. This photo, though. Look at that coffee pot! We actually are bringing one almost just like it, a back-up french press one. We go through a lot of coffee when we camp (and when we don't). I love the lady's orthopedic shoes, too. 

Thanks, Girly Q. 
Etsy sellers have some wonderful vintage camping ephemera (of course they do!), and I found this cookbook on Girly Q Vintage's shop. Looks like the lady in the kerchief is cooking up some beans or something, but the cookbook also guides you in "cooking game birds" and "cooking for survival". I have a vision of the lady in the kerchief frenetically cooking Dutch oven meal after Dutch oven meal for the man in the insert - because he is holding her hostage. That's what comes to my mind when I see "cooking for survival." I have seen too many Lifetime movies. 

Thank you Vintage Warehouse 
Another etsy print, the above from Vintage Warehouse makes me happy in about thirty kinds of ways. The lady doing the pouring's shoes. The gentleman with the plate's hat. The Model T. Whether it's a campout or picnic or a combo of both I want to be there. Look at that jug of milk. They're moving along and happy and young and wearing good clothes in the grass. 

Thank you, cardow.com (you can buy the postcard by clicking on the link)
Let me start this out by saying that my mother and father were given an identical picnic basket as a wedding gift. We used to take it camping and picnicing. My mom gave it to me years ago and I used that beautiful thing, and then we moved to Alaska and couldn't ship it so I sold it to a friend at a garage sale. And now I see that sweet basket and I feel like crying - for my lost youth and for my lost picnic basket. But, hey Boo Boo! It's a Yogi Bear Campground postcard! I love the cart, the kids, the guy in the Yogi suit! If you aren't aware, the Yogi Bear Campgrounds (called Camp Jellystone - just like the cartoon!) provide safe camping, activities, and nostalgia. They are oh so still around and I just found out that there is one in Gatlinburg. I was not aware of this when we lived in Knoxville! Another reason I'm glad to be moving back home! Majestic scenery and wildlife is one thing, miniature golf and a Yogi Bear golf cart is another. 


Was going to wrap this up nicely, with a little bow even, but am now so full of ideas and plans and excitement for our trip tomorrow to Clam Gulch (no Jellystone Gatlinburg, as you can see below, but it will do - and yes I am implying a wink), that I'm just going to sign off. So goodnight!

Photo by Hal Gage


Hope you have a majestic, campy Memorial Day. xoxo


PS! This, and this and this and this and this and this.
 Good night!
Oh, and this. 

Artist Worship

I don't typically bow down too much in supine position to worship celebrity ground. I don't even look at TMZ or Perez Hilton anymore, or flip through People magazine in waiting rooms. I guess I just went into sugar coma over all the high fructose corn syrup false pleasure I received from it. I follow a few working actors and writers on twitter, but it's mainly those that share interesting links and stuff. I think they're the bees knees still, of course (I'm looking at YOU, David Lynch), but I try not to allow such activities to take up too much of my limited time. I'd rather be pretend-shopping on etsy or World Market or something. 


But there are some. Some beauties that just entrance me. Like the Sigur Rós Official Site, Eighteen Seconds Before Sunrise.  I don't know what it is with me and Iceland, but ever since we moved up in latitude I am flat out obsessed. I even discovered a story in my brain about some kids in 1940's Iceland. It was turning into a young adult novel until it tumbled back down the well of my imagination. Here that is if you're interested. Anyway, Sigur Ros' site is totally beautiful, mesmerizing, and well designed. I can't read a lot of it. I love Sigur Rós, but if I didn't? This site might be just another boring something that I barely glanced at. 

Another love, as I've said above, is David Lynch. I've been circling around his site for years, contemplating joining to get all of the dark, eerie, and sometimes epiphanic photography and video inside. But I usually forget about it and watch his weather report.

I just really love his brain, you know?


Another well designed site with good layout is Augusten Burroughs'. If you're a fan of his work (and God knows I am), please do yourself a favor and play around here a bit. Especially his photo galleries. Especially, ESPECIALLY the Dry: In Pictures section.  Broke my heart and put it back again, it did. Follow him on Twitter and you'll sometimes get little Augusten-sized chunks of insight. You know what's weird? I totally thought I saw him at the Bear Tooth the other week. I know it wasn't him. Because why? Why on earth would he be way up here? Maybe as a tourist. Maybe he was doing an Alaskan adventure trip or something.



And I have time for one more tonight. The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights  is a Jack White-agasm for me. Although (sorry Meg), I wish he had some sort of central location where I could sometimes just see stuff about Jack and Jack only.  A central place where all things Dead Weather, Raconteurs, It Might Get Loud, and White Stripes are joined in harmony, so I don't have to take five minutes to google search and click them all.  But I'll take what I can get, central location or no. And this site is pleasing in so many ways. Here's an interesting interview with Jack on Relevant magazine: Relevant - Jack White's Many Sides. I just really, really am enamored with him, too.



So celebrity worship and celebrity sites. I guess I could justify by saying that these folks are all serious artists, that I enjoy keeping up with their body of work. Or I could simply label myself an obsessed type person who has what I feel is good taste in music, film, and literature. Maybe part of me is still a twelve year old girl with Johnny Depp posters on the wall. 

Ranger Rick and I know I've been gone a while...

I've found something else so totally amazing that I'm just busting at the seams to share it. Not sure if I've mentioned it but my husband is a nature photographer/videographer. I stumbled across this today on the ALA's Great Sites for Kids. It's National Geographic's Wildlife Filmmaker, and since my son wants to be just like Daddy I'm so so excited to have him experiment on it! We obviously love National Geographic, as have generations of folks before us. Remember that bit in It's a Wonderful Life where little girl Mary and little boy George are at the soda fountain? And little Mary says, "A new magazine! I never saw it before!" and little George says, "Of course you never! Only us explorers can get it, I've just been nominated for membership in the National Geographic society."
Oh, love love love. 

Anyway, enjoy it! I'll share more soon. Have been working an awful lot on some other projects. 
PS - Have you noticed Ranger Rick lately? He's blissfully still around, albeit modernized. I love the old Ranger Rick images. Here's that site and the first I mentioned: 
NWF Kids/Ranger Rick (the magazine is still really good)


National Geographic Animal Wildlife Filmmaker

When I cleaned houses in my very early twenties my favorite job was a mansion in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio. Built in 1850 or so it was a four floor wonder, and the original and subsequent owners LOVED children and incorporated little bits and bobs for their kids all over. There were little play trap doors, secret passages, a swing in the upstairs hall between the children's bedrooms, and a staircase that turned into a slide. In the back nursery closet door (and there were pocket doors in almost every room! Swoon!) there was still a fading, peeling off Ranger Rick Membership sticker - probably from the thirties. Super charming. Found out recently from a friend in the neighborhood they've subdivided the mansion and made it into condos. No! But it had a ballroom! And an inner mahogany octagon shaped study with inlay of stars on ceiling. Progress is not always a good thing. But oh, well! Ranger Rick is still cool and I have my memories!

I haven't been here in a while. I promise to come back soon.