It’s 4^th of July weekend — my favorite summer holiday! Not only is it America’s 239^th birthday, it’s time to hit the road for a weekend of camping out, cooking out and setting off fireworks.

Camping on the holiday was a family tradition when I was a kid. The whole extended family would converge at a campground with tents, fishing poles, tons of food and boxes and boxes of fireworks. It was the one holiday where I’d get to hang out with my distant cousins without having to get all dressed up and sit at a holiday “kids table” trying not to fidget or spill anything on my good clothes.

Instead, my cousins and I were pretty much allowed to run wild. We could get as dirty and as sunburned and as worn out as we wanted. Nobody cared if we wore the same cutoff shorts for the whole weekend or didn’t comb our hair. And there was no kids table. We just plopped down on the ground to gobble down dogs and burgers while the adults sat at the picnic tables making jokes and getting ready for the fireworks display.

I guess I’ve always thought of Independence Day as a kids’ holiday because of those camping trips. Inner tubing, making s’mores, blowing up fireworks…to us it seemed (almost) better than Christmas.

Somehow, we’ve managed to kept the tradition going all these years. The family still gathers at the very same campground on the 4^th of July. And even though we’re the ones sitting at the picnic tables instead of on the ground these days, my cousins and I feel far from grown up when we’re out there camping, fishing and celebrating America’s birthday.