Last week I hooked up the boat, loaded the truck, and took my family to Pueblo Reservoir for our first real camping trip. Just me, my wife Allie, and my four-year-old, Tayden. It was pushing the upper 90s. One afternoon the wind came up hard enough that we thought we might lose the tent. And camping with a four-year-old is about as chaotic as it sounds — random tantrums, endless energy, and a hundred little reasons to be stressed out.
It was one of the best trips of my life.
The Little Things Kids Remind You Of
I’ll be honest: Allie is not a camper. She’ll tell you that herself. But she loaded up and came anyway, because she knew it mattered for our boy. That’s what you do for family.
And Tayden? He could barely contain himself. Watching a four-year-old experience all of this for the first time will reset your whole perspective. The tent wasn’t a tent to him — it was a fort. His little cotton sleeping bag, tucked right between his mom and dad, might as well have been a throne. He got to see the lake for the first time knowing we were about to go fishing. The campfire. Roasting marshmallows. Stuff I’ve done a thousand times and stopped noticing — he treated every bit of it like Christmas morning.
We caught a few walleye, and I let him reel them in. But his favorite job was being my net man, scooping the fish out of the water like it was the most important task on earth. When it was time to pack up and head home, he did not want to leave. If it were up to Tayden, we’d still be out there living in that tent.
Nature Is Medicine
Here’s why I do this, and why I’ll keep doing it.
The outdoors is important to me — more important than most things. When I’m out in the wild, I get something I can’t get anywhere else. It’s an escape from the everyday to-do list. An escape from backing out of the driveway into traffic, from standing in a line surrounded by a hundred people who’d all rather be somewhere else.
There’s a cleansing that happens out there. I truly believe immersing yourself in nature heals your soul and clears your mind. It strips away all the little things you’ve convinced yourself are problems — and shows you they were never really problems at all.
I don’t say this lightly: nature is medicine. And I want my family to know that medicine early, to understand what the outdoors can do for a person, so they can reach for it their whole lives.
It Gets Passed Down
I didn’t come up with any of this on my own. My family took me hunting and fishing when I was young. We camped a little. It was instilled in me before I even understood what was happening, and I was flat-out ate up with it as a kid.
I was the boy who’d ride his bike miles out to the local farm pond just to throw a bass lure until dark. The kid in the woods next to his dad who always wanted to go deeper — one more ridge, one more bend in the creek — just for the adventure and the exploration of it. Nobody had to talk me into the outdoors. Somebody just opened the door for me, and I ran through it.
That’s all we’re really doing as parents. Opening the door.
Open the Door for Your Kids
So here’s what I’ll leave you with. It doesn’t have to be a perfect trip. Ours wasn’t — it was hot, it was windy, there were tantrums, and my wife would rather have been in her own bed. Do it anyway. Load up the truck, take your kid to the water or the woods, and let them be bored and amazed and covered in dirt. They’ll carry that a whole lot longer than another weekend on the couch. A tent and a nearby lake is the perfect place to start.
Because on that trip — sunburned, worn out, and not wanting to go home — my four-year-old looked up at me and said, “Dad, when I grow up, I want to be a hunter and fisherman like you.”
That right there is the whole thing. That’s the obsession, getting handed to the next set of hands.
Hunting is not a hobby. It’s an obsession — and it’s the best thing I’ll ever pass down.
