It tells me that he is finding a connection to the great outdoors that I had as a child.  Growing up we didn’t have Facebook, Twitter, iPhones, and tablets.  We had streets to rule, trees to climb, and bikes to ride.My phone died only halfway through the first day.  I was spending so much time trying to capture the moment by snapping pictures with my phone and putting them up on Instagram that it didn’t take long for the battery to run out. I was thankful this happened.

It forced me to spend the time with my son and wife.  There was no checking work emails.  There was no responding to a funny tweet saying that our water was getting scarce.  I was challenged to spend the time exploring the places around the lake.  Forgetting about what was going on in the world.  Just what camping is supposed to do for you.

As a teenager, I spent many weekends on camp-outs with my local Boy Scouts troop.  This time it was different.  This time there was no staying up late telling scary stories around the campfire.  Playing a late night game of capture the flag was out of the question.

Instead, we roasted marshmallows and told the Kid stories about when mommy and daddy did different things as kids.  I taught him how to skip rocks and the importance of being patient while you were fishing. It was a learning experience for him and for me.

Camping played such an important role in my life growing up that this is a tradition that I want to pass along to my son as well.  It is so easy to do, just load up the car (unless you have a Toyota Prius then it gets difficult getting everything into the car) and head out to the nearest lake.