Nick and I were married and already had Benjo. Ralph had divorced Marcia, and Dawnna Lynn had become a fast friend to all four of us (Ralph, Nick, Baby Benjo, and myself.) We had moved in together with intent to save funds, and used to talk about how much we loved the family, how much we loved the picnic, and how the time allotment for the picnic wasn’t enough. We started visualizing a longer event; anything with more than “hello – good-by” time.
We were all quite young back then, and though life was expensive, we managed to get in a decent amount of camping and water-skiing. Camping seemed a natural way to do what we did at the picnic, but extend the time limitation. We got excited about it and figured we would just start it. We knew that some would come, many would not, but it would definitely grow in popularity when word of mouth got around. How could the fun and excitement not catch on?! That’s exactly how it went. Some came the first year, mostly Ralph’s family and mine, but we spread the word, and the fliers, and eventually more and more joined us. When you are making a great thing happen, you know it. We knew it. We knew we needed to be patient too. We had a good handful of years enjoying a smaller group, and then, in the way that overnight success happens, it caught on. Now, it’s more of an institution in our children’s lives than The Picnic.
The campout is more than blood relations it also includes those who have become ‘family.’ At the ‘Family Campout’ we have each other for several days! We have campfire reminiscences, shared meals - that's multiple meals- including the big, big, big spaghetti feast that we share ...tons of garlic bread, volumes of fresh, magnificent salads, bottles of wine dotting the massive line of linked tables, and the feature that caused the spaghetti night to become the event that it is.... Nickadad's 25 gallon pot loaded with noodles being drained to host Uncle (Cousin) Ralph's sumptuous spaghetti sauce. Campout is an event done Family style.
Its funny; the generation we created knows the Picnic grandfathered the whole Family Campout idea in, yet they who were raised with the Picnic as the year’s most important and most sacred family tradition see it as something they will do if they can, but they never miss THE CAMPOUT.
Campout at the Lake, 1991-1996
In 1991 Linda and Chris along with Keith and Ruth began a "3rd Generation, Cousin's Campout." They would gather at the river to play with their “water toys”; jet skis, ski doos, and a boat; there was also water skiing, wake boarding, knee boarding, tubing and just hanging out on a floaty in the water. It started at Lake Sonoma, where all the campsites were only accessible by boat, as the group quickly grew it was very hard to boat everyone in to the campsite as with only one boat. It then moved to Lake Mendocino and ended up at Lake Camanche the last couple of years. This campout at the lake only lasted until 1996.
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