The Worst Ever Camping Trip in My Life !

The worst-ever camping trip that I remember was done in a tiny 1963 Rambler American. If you do not remember these, they were maybe the first economy car, and back in the day when gas was only 17 cents a gallon to begin with. 

This was not actually meant to be  a camping trip.

My  husband and I had only been married a year or two, so we were both in our early twenties (probably a good thing). It was fall, and we were going hunting. 

He had the deer rifle and I had my little .22 single shot rifle for hunting grouse. 

We were on a scraggly forest service trail way back (hours) into the woods up Grouse Creek (near Sandpoint), when we came to a good-sized creek across the road.

Naturally, he was sure that we could get that little car to drive through the creek, and somehow, after several tries, we actually made it across, and on up the hill on the other side. 

Not so easy that evening when we came back down again, and were tired and heading home. 

Of course, the poor little Rambler  got stuck, totally bogged down, in the middle of Grouse Creek.  We tried to jack it up and push it off of the jack to get it far enough out to drive. 

That didn't work

Next, we tried using a large dead branch that was laying on the ground and using that as a fulcrum to push the car ahead. 

That didn't work either. 

After a couple hours of this, we were soaked to the skin, cold, and tired.  And a long, long ways from civilization of any kind. 

We made a small campfire, ate whatever food we had left, dried the clothes as best as we could, and slept in the car over night.  The back seat would lay down flat, so it actually made a fairly good bed to sleep on, at least for short people like me. Not so good for him. 

The next morning, we were seriously starving; but had renewed our energy, and somehow (with much desperate praying on my part), we got that little car pushed far enough out of the creek that he could drive it out of the other side. 

Getting back home and taking a hot shower was such a wonderful thing ! However, I am not sure if we did that before or after we had something to eat. 

And neither one of us brought up the idea of camping for a long time after that...

Our little Rambler looked similar to this, but it was white.