Happy Campers quilt

I'm a fabric hoarder, like most of us.  I've had this fabric for a few years (gulp) and I am now finally making myself a camping lap quilt!  I'm back into the sewing mode....WOOT WOOT.

I have a vacation this summer that is going to involve some cooler weather, bonfires and chilly nights.  this quilt is a MUST.  (if only i could find flannel sheets right now for the backing....shucks)

I'm not doing anything toooo special for the design.   just some simple charm pack squares and a panel section.  I don't want to take away from the fabric and cut it up, because its my childhood.  :)
with this long glorious weekend, I'm hoping i can finish it or at least get the top and back done. 

when i was a kid growing up on the border of ND/MN, we spent MANY MANY weekends camping.  this fabric truly brings me back.  we had a pop-up camper and always camped on a beautiful Minnesota lake.  it seriously is the land of 10,000 lakes.  i remember my parents getting home from work on friday nights and patiently waiting for them to load everything up so we could head out for our weekend getaway.  the drive seemed to take HOURS, but it was only 45minutes.  LOL

This isn't "our" camper, but it looks just like it.  i think this weekend ill have to dig through my moms pictures and see if she has any from camping.

we frequented a place called "Campers Point" on Pelican Lake, Minnesota.  we spent a lot of weekends there, and now being a parent I cant imagine how much work that was for my mom.  LOL
(kudos to you mom!)

you would come up over a hill then down into the campground.  my sister and i couldnt wait to jump out of our 1970's mustard color Pontiac Bonneville and run around to find all the kids we had grown up with camping.  there was a cute little campground store where mom/dad would give us a few pennies to go buy some candy.  upstairs in the store was the church that we went to on Sunday mornings.  there was even an abandoned haunted house on the property full of bats.  (of course we all had haunted stories about it and dared each other to go in)

recently, my parents commented to my sister and I that they felt bad for not doing a lot of things with us when we were kids because they didn't have the money.  we looked at each other.....mouths wide open....and said O M gosh are you KIDDING ME?  Camping was a child's DREAM!!!  digging for worms, fishing off the dock, swimming all day in a beautiful Minnesota lake, playing in the sand, s'mores on the campfire at night, sleeping in the outdoors.  it was a kids 1970's heaven!!!  freeze tag, red rover, hopscotch. 

those memories for me are priceless.  i have a date with the pool today, but tonight im going to FINISH this darn quilt.....because its the 1970s all over again for me and those were happy times.  *sigh*