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Evelyn Grohs: Anywhere She Wanders

It was well traveled; it was well loved; and now, it is…well, gone. It is the yellow Cox camper that Evelyn and Don Grohs and their family adventured in for 50 years. The camper toured every state but Hawaii (to which the Grohs have also traveled, camperless); stayed in innumerable national and state parks; and recovered from a sideswipe that left it in a ditch in eastern Washington, but in the end it wasn’t an accident that did the Groh’s yellow camper in. It was ants.

When Don took the camper out from its storage spot behind the Grohs’ home in Deep River this year and opened it up, according to Lyn, “there were just millions of ants, chewing up the canvas.”

And so, the yellow Cox camper went to its final resting place: Calimari Recycling.

“It was a sad day,” Lynn says. “I say we had to put it down, though I know ‘put down’ is a phrase you use for animals,” she says.

“The camper wasn’t alive, but it was really part of our family,” she notes.

Lyn even wrote a book telling the story of the family’s summer travels, from the point of view of the camper, Me, the Little Yellow Camper…The Grohs and their Travels, a Memoir by Lyn Grohs. Lyn has the first 39 years in printed form and after updated every summer’s adventures on the computer.

According to Lyn, she and Don, who taught for many years at Valley Regional High School before his retirement in 1991, started camping well before they bought the Cox. At first, they slept in pup tents, but that meant Don had to blow up air mattresses for the two of them and then, as their family grew, for their three children every night. The Cox, a pop up camper with expandable canvas sides and built-in mattresses, was the solution.

“When it was up, it looked like a covered wagon,’ Lyn recalls.

The first trip the family took in the camper was to Expo ‘67 in Montreal. They stayed for a week; one day there was a fierce wind and rainstorm.

When the Grohs family returned from their day at Expo, there was a welcome sight: “All the tents were blown over, but ours were still standing strong,” Lyn says.

As the years passed, and campers became large luxury vehicles, Lyn got used to answering questions about the modest yellow camper with the canvas roof.

“Young people used to say, ‘Hey, my parents had one like that.’”

After 50 years of touring, Lyn has some special memories. She loved Banff and Jasper national parks in Canada.

“So scenic, absolutely gorgeous,” she says.

She recalls an outdoor amphitheater in Palo Duro Canyon State Park near Amarillo, Texas where she saw a musical program on the history of the area.

“So interesting, I always tell people to go there,” she says.

She and Don love country music, so in their eight-day stay at country music’s big draw, Branson, Missouri, they managed to squeeze in 14 shows.

Rainy days could be a challenge in the camper—no cooking over a campfire, instead peanut butter sandwiches for all. To keep occupied, the family played cards. Often their choice was Hearts, a game that Lyn says worked well for five people.

The Grohs family was not restricted to the yellow camper. They have visited 40 countries in all, touring all continents but Antarctica. They went through Europe, camping both in pup tents and in a Volkswagen bus. When their children were grown, Lyn and Don visited Thailand as part of Friendship Force International, an organization in which President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalyn were involved for many years. They rode in an air balloon over temples and pagodas in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma and do-si-doed on the Great Wall of China when they visited with a square dancing group. They have also gone to square dancing conventions as far afield as New Zealand and Australia. “You square dance from eleven in the morning until eleven at night, as long as your legs hold out,” Lyn says. A wall in their home has what Lyn describes as little souvenirs of the countries they visited, some 40 in all. “Hardly any space there now,” she says.

Lyn and Don have now shared their love of travel not only with their children, but also with their five grandchildren, taking them on multi-generational trips through Road Scholar (formerly known as Elder Hostel) to England, Iceland, Denmark, and Costa Rica.

Lyn and Don, who went to high school together in the Litchfield County town of Morris, both grew up on farms. Lyn recalls tending chickens as a girl. Their first home as a young married couple was a motor home on the campus of the University of Connecticut at Storrs while Don finished his studies. They have now lived in their home in Deep River for some 60 years.

For 26 years, Lyn was an elementary school aide in both Chester and Deep River. She worked in different grades, but says kindergarten was her favorite.

“I always tell people that I started in 6th grade and worked my way down,” she says.

She has long been active in the Deep River Congregational Church. For 10 years, from 1991 to 2001, she wrote a column, Senior Spotlight, in the church newsletter, regularly interviewing older members of the church.

“I wanted the younger people to learn about the older people’s lives,” she says.

The column involved more than just the interview; Lyn also did the photography in the days before digital picture.

“With a camera, buying the film,” she says.

Now she heads the church’s caring card ministry, responsible for sending monthly notes to members of the congregation who are ill, hospitalized, or in need of a bit of good cheer.

This summer, as in many past summers, Lyn and Don went to one of their favorite spots, Lake Sebago Maine, where children and grandchildren usually join them. But this year they did not stay in the camper; they had a cabin.

Lyn misses the yellow Cox, but her nostalgia is tempered by realism. She and Don are now in their mid-80s.

“Camping isn’t as easy as it used to be,” she says. “It was time, it was time.”