The 50's Camping and Fishing Trips

When I was a little girl, we used to go on fishing trips on the weekend when Daddy didn't have to be on call with Northern Lights. 

The Baileys lived next door to us, and  "Grandpa Bailey" always went on the fishing trips with us. The two families had lived across from each other in Paradise Valley, gone through the Great Depression together, and they were just like family to us.

My mom would fry chicken, make a huge bowl of potato salad, and then we packed whatever else she wanted along for meals.

There was always a large can of pork and beans; which we always called "Fishin'Beans", since that was the only time we ever usually ate them. 

Sleeping bags, air mattresses, and my mom's hammack all went in the back of the car somewhere. 

She would pack little plastic toy sets (boats, cars, etc) for me to play with at the water's edge, and often my swimming suit if she felt it was safe enough for me to actually be IN the water. 

Grandpa Bailey had an old wooden rowboat, and it  pretty much spent the summer months strapped to the top of his car, a 51 Ford.  Our car was a 1953 Buick Special; so neither car was especially suited for off-road travel to the lakes where we went fishing.

Brush Lake (north of Bonners Ferry), and Solomon Lake,  were two of their favorite spots, but we also went other places sometimes.

 The roads getting back into the lake were not much more than two dirt tracks in the grass back then; and if you made a wrong turn or missed the right road, you just had to keep on going until you got to the end. 

One such trip, we missed the turn for the lake (Solomon, I think), and hours later finally ended up at the lookout up on top of the mountain. No one wanted to drive back down that road in the dark, so we made a hasty camp, and spent the night there.

 After having a big black bear nosing around camp the next morning, we didn't waste any time packing up and once again heading down to the lake.

Mom always slept in her sleeping bag in her hammock, but the rest of us were on the ground on the airmattresses. I well remember waking Mom up at nite because some critter (packrat?) went scurrying across my legs and feet.

 I KNEW it was actually a bear, about to eat me up; but she would assure me that she could see my sleeping bag , and there were no bears on it !  (I still slept with my head buried into the sleeping bag).

When we had caught some fish, Mom would cook those for us to eat. Pancakes and fresh trout (cooked over a campfire) is to this day, one of my most favorite breakfast memories ! !