An into to camping an into to war

[Nighthiker]

I was first introduced to camping when I spent the summers with grandma and grandpa in the early 60's while living in Illinois. Their place, a small farm was not to far from the Rock River and a portion of a canal that went from Chicago to the Missippi. Grandpa and I would sent up camp along the bank of the canel and he would make a leanto from an old wagon tarp (perhaps this is why I prefer to camping under canvas). Sometimes we would fish and if the fishing was not good, grandma would bring us sandwichs. Grandpa would tell me the name of plants, trees etc. or would tell a story. One of his stories was of the ships that would travel down the canal and off to war and sometimes they would stop at the landing for lunch (grandma's home smoked ham, I bet) or repair. Recently I was reviewing an article about a class of ships called LCI's, Landing Craft Infantry. The aticle stated that some of these ships were built in Michigan. Once built they sailed across the Great Lakes to Chicago. From Chicago they would go down the canal to the Mississippi across the Gulf of Mexico to the Panama Canal (a little bigger than the one behind grandma and grandpa's place) and across the Pacific. Perhaps some of these ships may have given my dad a ride back from Tarawa, Pelilu, Saipan, Guam and Okinawa.