Sunday Obligation

Our family attended church regularly, whether we headed to church from our house, as we would on ordinary weeks, or we headed to church from the campground, as we did while we were vacationing. We kids were raised that being on vacation didn't mean we were on vacation from our obligation to attend church on Sunday morning.

So, we'd go to bed each Saturday night of camp knowing that we'd all be quietly & constructively assembling ourselves to get up & get showered once the morning rolled around, & get ourselves in the "Sunday Best" outfit that we'd brought along for said cause in order to pile into the family minivan in a timely manner & drive off to the local church for whatever the time was that the church had posted.

Oftentimes the camp store would have pamphlets or information on what time the different religions had their church services; after all, this was pre-smartphone/Google-your-local-church-to-get-their-services-times-era. And some campgrounds would have one "coverall" service for those who wanted to just attend "a church service" for the weekend & whatever the camp provided was sufficient for their needs.

In this we'd have each packed the pair of shoes which matched the rest of the outfit we'd designated to wear to church. At this point in my life I didn't have a lot of outfits "acceptable" as church wear. Whatever I had on hand is whatever I'd have brought - probably a simple skirt & top along with a random pair of basic, plain slip-ons for my shoes. And probably not a pair like this or this. After all, we were at camp & still took into consideration that we'd likely be walking in some amount of dirt/mulch/not pavement to get ourselves from the camper to the church's parking lot without messing these up/breaking them in, much more than preferred. Then there's a pair like these, where they'd be considered "camp acceptable", so if I'd have a specific outfit that would ideally match them (& I'd be trying to make sure that I did 😁), I'd at least have Mom "signed off" on my packing them specifically to wear for Sunday morning "at camp" church.

Dad's never believed in shorts for church, so no one in the family would've been wearing shorts, even if they came back afterward & immediately changed into a pair of shorts for the rest of the day, shorts were not worn to attend church. Ever. Period (And this is still the drum to which Dad marches. 🥁) Khaki pants most likely, but black, navy, brown, gray, whatever, was just as well.

Afterward we'd all head together to the local grocery store for breakfast, if we didn't break our fast at a local breakfast joint over a hot meal of eggs, potatoes, toast, pork fat product of choice, pancakes, etc., before heading to the grocery store, we'd pick up a continental breakfast & week's groceries if just getting started at camp. We'd only pick up the continental breakfast, for our Sunday breakfast, had we not been served at a restaurant instead. Or, if Sunday was the kick off of our camping trip & we'd (read: Mom) not necessarily planned for another breakfast to begin our week. Essentially a hot breakfast of protein (read: eggs) would be prepared, or a continental breakfast of fried dough with processed sugar icing glazed about the top portion would've been purchased during this grocery shopping trip 😂.

We'd then head back to the campsite to figure out how to enjoy a super short amount of time that was completely ambiguous & then de-pop-up the camper & hitch it back onto the backside of the family minivan to head back to the house where we'd give the neighbors the "show" of backing in the pop-up camper into its made-for-it slot at the back side of our driveway.

The neighbors would frequently, out of being tired, or maybe actually respect, head inside once this "process" began. After all, they had watched Dad back-up the camper many times before.

These links are affiliate links to Amazon as well as the image link in the top left.