Camping NOW vs. Traveling THEN...

[aircooled4]

What stuff did you suppose they took then compared to now? NOW, we take cheap cook ware, plastic/paper plates, 'slummin' clothes.... I was thinking about this the other day, did they take china tableware? Nicer clothes? (people did tend to dress better THEN.) Cheap stainless flatware? Anyone have any insight on this? maybe some pics?

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by aircooled4

What stuff did you suppose they took then compared to now? NOW, we take cheap cook ware, plastic/paper plates, 'slummin' clothes.... I was thinking about this the other day, did they take china tableware? Nicer clothes? (people did tend to dress better THEN.) Cheap stainless flatware? Anyone have any insight on this? maybe some pics?

Most people stocked the trailer galley, with stuff from their kitchen at home.

Packed them differently, but still used the same stuff.

Clothes were the same.

Paper plates and the like, perhaps adds a little more convenience.

But, how a person can enjoy a well cooked steak, with "ALL" the trimmings, on a paper plate, seems sort of far out where a ton of imagination would have to be used.

Everyone knows that the way food is presented, has a considerable effect on the way it tastes.

Andy

[mojo]

I remember that the manual for my 2004 Bambi explained how the full length closet was perfect for suits and evening gowns. Yeah right!

I ripped that closet bar out and installed shelves for jeans and T-shirts.

I think that travel lifestyle went away in the early 60's when air travel was deregulated and sweatpants became the norm for travel.

[aircooled4]

oh yeah...that was the time men wore hats and ties to baseball games! Im just wondering what they may have taken 'on the road'..since tupperware and Walmart werent readily available!

[moparjohn]

I definatly travel in style in my Airstream and it's accessories. I have nice pots, pans, flatware etc, wine glasses and ect. I dress for outdoor activities, cargo shorts, hiking boots, tees and flannels. ( I never liked sweatpants, and have a hard time accepting people wearing them in resturants (not Mcd's) and other public palces-Too sloppy for me-OR I'm just too uptight!) I tend to keep my trailer VERY neat- so it looks like an ad from Airstream, but thats how my home is, neat and uncluttered. For me I need that to relax. Now where is that perfect spot in the woods I'm looking for......

[eubank]

We wore Levi's 501s back then and still wear them today. Not a whole lot of difference.

Lynn

[vswingfield]

Well, there's this group:

Vagabonds: Henry Ford and Friends Camping (19??) - YouTube

Henry Ford's 1922 Lincoln Kitchen Truck Vagabond camping trip Thomas Edison Harvey Firestone Fair Lane Garage

[RangerJay]

Neat question - this gave us a lot of enjoyment thinking back to our earliest family camping trips - the "then" was 30 sum years ago - the "now" is still a typical family camping trip when the "kids" come ......


Then - 2 adults, 2 children (one an infant):

• 1 3-person tent,
• 1 9X12 tarp,
• naptha stove and lantern (Coleman),
• aluminum "camp" utensils.
• 1 axe
• 1 picnic table (park supplied)

Now - 5 adults, 1 border collie:

• 1 19' Bambi & 1 Coleman pop-up,
• 1 dining shelter,
• 1 Colemen Kitchen,
• 1 5-burner propone BBQ,
• 1 propane deep-fryer,
• 1 2-burner propane stove,
• corel cookware,
• multiple camp chairs
• 1 axe and chain saw
• 2 picnic tables (park supplied)

Quite a change ......



Jay

[Inland RV Center, In]

Originally Posted by RangerJay

Neat question - this gave us a lot of enjoyment thinking back to our earliest family camping trips - the "then" was 30 sum years ago - the "now" is still a typical family camping trip when the "kids" come ......


Then - 2 adults, 2 children (one an infant):

• 1 3-person tent,
• 1 9X12 tarp,
• naptha stove and lantern (Coleman),
• aluminum "camp" utensils.
• 1 axe
• 1 picnic table (park supplied)

Now - 5 adults, 1 border collie:

• 1 19' Bambi & 1 Coleman pop-up,
• 1 dining shelter,
• 1 Colemen Kitchen,
• 1 5-burner propone BBQ,
• 1 propane deep-fryer,
• 1 2-burner propane stove,
• corel cookware,
• multiple camp chairs
• 1 axe and chain saw
• 2 picnic tables (park supplied)

Quite a change ......



Jay

Jay.

A chain saw and axe???

I was not aware that steaks were that tough in Canada.

Andy

[RangerJay]

Originally Posted by Inland RV Center, In

Jay.

A chain saw and axe???

I was not aware that steaks were that tough in Canada.

Andy

..... guess that's one difference between Northwestern Ontario and California ...... the campfire is more than just good looks!!

..... but I gotta tell you - we have developed a new family favourite category for BBQ steak - "crispy-rare" ......


Jay

[aircooled4]

Ive been looking in thrift stores for vintage stuff for my '58...just trying to figure out what they may have had in there...good china or REALLY nice china? glassware? and with the radio antenna on the front...may they have had a Zenith TransOceanic? THAT would a fun radio to place in there!

[RickDavis]

back then most did not carry dress clothes and fancy dinnerware. A few did and still do.
They are known as WBCCI officers

[oh2bcarefree]

Oh, I think they had Melmac/Melamine dishes! We found this set in an antique shop. Definitely hit vintage stores - we have one here in St. Louis called TFA - The Future Antiques (link: TFA50's The Future Antiques) which has all 50s, 60s, and some 70s items - some great mid-century modern.

I also found a great tube radio clock on etsy.com that is RCA and it lights up! Etsy has great vintage items too.

Tina

[Fly at Night]

Originally Posted by mojo

I remember that the manual for my 2004 Bambi explained how the full length closet was perfect for suits and evening gowns. Yeah right!

I ripped that closet bar out and installed shelves for jeans and T-shirts.

I think that travel lifestyle went away in the early 60's when air travel was deregulated and sweatpants became the norm for travel.

Actually, the airlines were deregulated in 1978. Suits, hats and gloves were still de rigueur for airline passengers in the early 1960s.

Like just about everything else, we did not have the selection then.
I can remember one type of outdoor furniture; the aluminum tubing/nylon webbing type that fat Aunt Fanny eventually fell through.

For some reason, camping or not, most cars had a "car blanket" rolled up and stored on the spot between the back seat and the window.
These blankets looked the same; were red/green or blue plaid with a fringe. The family photos show them being used as picnic blankets/picnic-table covers.

Don't remember many camping trips, but we went on many picnics. I don't think there were as many ice chests/coolers then; people were either not as uptight about proper food storage, or were not as informed. Come to think of it, my mother never packed the picnic in an ice chest. It was always packed in a cardboard box; my aunt utilized a bit more class - she had a big wicker basket. It's a miracle we survived the potato salad and ham w/o keeling over with food poisoning.

[Del Gurney]

The biggest difference now would be the Propane fridge/freezer. Back then and before it was can's, pickled goodies, cheeses and air dried/smoked meats. If you wanted fresh it came in with ya "on the hoof or talon"....or you hunted.
If you were WAY out there, you left supplies behind for the next folk in case they got in trouble. Still do above the arctic circle.
We always fished local.
Another big change is there were a LOT fewer people in the world.....and most were not into camping as the modern age took hold as they'd basically been camping in houses with wood heat, candles/ oil lamps, ice boxes and layers of clothes in winter.
I also remember that there was no GPS/cell phone to save you if you did something dumb.....so we moved with more consideration of consequences of poor planning with regards to food- Which always tastes 5x better in nature.

[Foiled Again]

We had "good silver and good crystal" that were used on high holy days and festivals - Christmas, Easter, and a few other times a year.

For daily use china, we had "Melmac" - plastic that will fry and explode in a microwave and will take a heavy coffee stain in half a dozen uses. For those vintage fans who still have it, use baking soda to remove stains - dampen slightly, rub on stains with hands or a cloth.

Crystal was (A) jelly jars with a pry off lid that became glasses when empty or (B) aluminum tumblers - color coated in red, yellow, blue, etc.

We had stainless steel silverware. In our house it had fake wooden handles because my brother had a thing for outlets and metal objects. He could demonstrate fire making techniques involving christmas tinsel or alcoa foil - that gave mother fits. (She never found out about the three pounds of gunpowder that he set off in the basement.... I orchastrated a great coverup that left Bro' in my debt for about a week until he caught me trying to use his Erector Set (never could build an erection with the darned thing!))

Mother did wear a hat and white gloves and a dress to go shopping in. We girls had little hats, purses and white gloves for church.

We too had the Coleman stove and boy scout camping cookware, but generally when we camped the food went in picnic baskets on day trips, and was stuff that didn't require refrigeration for overnighters.

Saran Wrap was BRAND NEW and ooooooh so nifty. I do not bemoan the passing of waxed paper that always unwrapped itself or let liquids soak through.

And permanent press was just starting to show up. In the 50's many women ironed their husbands boxers, the sheets, pillow cases, table cloths, cotton bras and slips, and I remember wearing jeans with creases ironed into them.

Even those who still iron have no idea what it was like to wash and starch a whole load of shirts, let them dry, then redampen shortly before ironing with a heavy "dry" iron. The difference between burned and well ironed was determined almost solely by the speed at which one moved the iron!

I used a "press cloth" of heavy cotton canvas to iron anything delicate like rayon, nylon, silk, etc. because the older irons just didn't keep a good temperature that well and you could melt a garment so fast it wasn't funny. Since we sewed, I always had test scraps to make sure the iron was cool enough to use.

Then we got a steam iron that actually kept an accurate temperature... about the time ironing started to go out of style.

Ah memory lane...

Real improvements in daily life:

1. squeezable ketchup bottles
2. the evolution of "ketchup" from "catsup"
3. paper milk cartons - which were preceded by a plastic handle on the old glass half gallon bottles that would slip through your fingers in a heartbeat on a hot day
4. self defrosting refrigerators
5. the passing of the wringer washer - the wringer was also called a "mangle" for what it could do to a hand or arm, or God help you if you got your hair caught in it! (My mom let me wring clothes, but my braids were pinned up and I wore a cap, and I had to use two wooden spoons to feed the wringer instead of my bare hands. I did lose a spoon or two while learning!)
6. Dad and the power mower - some were deathtraps, but try mowing a 50 x 100 lot with a hand mower once.
7. OOOH... then the neighbor with the riding mower got a snowplow attachment. He did the whole block for the first year.
8. The birth control pill in the early 60's Even one of the neighborhood's most sincere Catholics said, "When the pope pays my grocery bill, he can tell me to have more kids."

Paula

[overlander63]

When we went camping, we used paper plates and Dixie cups with the heavy duty plastic silverware. You could also get Dixie coffee cups, which you would put into a plastic frame to keep your hand from getting burned. A white gas Coleman catalytic heater kept us warm until time to get into our sleeping bags, and a honeybucket kept things we couldn't wait until morning to dispose of.
We each had shower sandals and soap boxes on a rope to walk down to the campground shower facilities, a steel percolator, and a toaster that sat over the fire to make toast for breakfast. Citronella oil filled tiki torches kept the mosquitoes at bay. I decided to get cute one Summer and brought along a "portable" television to supplement the 9 volt battery powered AM transistor radio. The thing weighed nearly a hundred pounds, and would (sort of) pick up one station. I had to unplug it and put it in the back seat of the car every night so it wouldn't get wet with dew. I did not repeat that experiment the following Summer...
If the weather was too bad, we'd wind up sleeping in the car, with the bath towels hung inside the windows to afford the illusion of privacy. A small fan blowing over a block of ice (you could buy 10 pound blocks) was the air conditioning.
I thought we were really cool when we finally got a "real" trailer. I actually got plastic dishes and plastic glasses, but still used the plastic silverware. Television still wasn't taken along again until 1982. I never did have the urge to dine in eveningwear.

[jdalrymple]

At the risk of being labeled...

We mostly travel in state. Our trailer has it's own kitchen stock. We have given in to plastic dishes, but I still keep a cocktail GLASS and ceramic coffee mug. If I am missing clothes, they are in the trailer from our trips.

I carry a charcoal grill and Coleman stove always.

No need to be un-civilized, after all, it is an Airstream.....


ha


Regards,

[crispyboy]

I can understand why older trailers had good closet space. My grandpa never owned a pair of blue jeans. He always had a pair of cotton slacks - thats always what he wore and they were always hung up on a hanger along with his shirts and all of grandma's dresses she would wear. They always looked presentable - even working in the yard.
I have changed some of my ways when traveling to be somewhat like my grandpa and I hang by blue jeans, tee shirts and jackets in the closet. My wife is getting better at hanging her clothes though she prefers to have shelves.
They did use the regular silverware and Melmac dishes in their trailer though.

[Silverwanabe]

In the 70's my parents used Melmac dinner plates, ect.

I have always heard, you do not pack glass or china dishes for RV's. They will break.

In regards to clothes, I dress better today than when I was young in the 70's. If you want to see how the older folks dressed, just watch the old WBCCI Caravan movies.

They were wearing the blue berets touring the sites as late as the 70's.

Hardly anyone in my unit wants to wear one today.