Early Saturday morning, it’s quiet on Aquidneck Island. A bit of light rain. Some gusts of wind. No signs of what might have been if Hurricane Lee had passed closer to shore.
While some folks pulled their boats from the water, others pulled their rigs into the parking lot at Sachuest Beach in Middletown and set up camp for a weekend of festivities.
It’s the 60th anniversary of Camp-O-Rama, an annual gathering of a group of campers–families and friends–who have been getting together from around New England for generations.
The impending storm wasn’t an issue for most of the campers. They’ve weathered worse. And they weren’t going to let a little rain and wind get in the way of a good time.
Diane Gauthier, from Leominster, Massachusetts, is sporting a bright orange rain jacket and hot pink rubber boots as she picks up her breakfast of French toast and sausage.
“I don’t have to cook,” she says. “What’s better than that?”
She balances a big black-and-white umbrella in her left hand, tucks her plate of foil-wrapped food against her stomach, clutching the top a plastic cup of orange juice in her right and starts walking to her camper.
Diane and her husband, Eddie, had been coming for more than 20 years.
“This year I lost my husband at the beginning of the summer,” Gauthier says. “We had a big fifth wheel. He had a big Dodge truck. So I traded it in and got myself a small motorhome, class C, and decided I was going to keep going.”
A big gust of wind inside-outs Gauthier’s umbrella. She pauses, tucks it under her arm and keeps going.
“We went camping everywhere. Started in April right through October. So I wasn’t going to stop.”
A month after her husband died, her father died.
“It’s hard,” Gauthier says. “That’s why just coming down here, being with friends, makes it better. You surround yourself with friends and you get through it.”
There are about 80 rigs in the parking lot this year. In years past, they usually have 200 campers, and a waiting list of at least 200 campers, says Mary Jean McGibbon, of Portsmouth, who is a leader of the Quahaug chapter of the North American Family Campers Association.
More than concern over the weather, COVID and time have taken a toll.
“As people get older and have passed on, the list slowly dwindles,” McGibbon says. “And a lot of people don’t group camp anymore. They’d like to go up on their own, but we’re group camping and basically a family.”
Hurricane Lee and its potential high winds and floods didn’t trouble her.
“We’re not fairweather campers, by any means,” MacGibbon says. “We camp even in rain, snow. We’ve camped in everything. It’s like, unless the town tells us no, we’re gonna come and do it.”
MacGibbon says it’s a family tradition. Some people have been coming for 20, 30, 40 years–generations. Her parents started it. Now her granddaughter joins her.
“My son and daughter-in-law come with us. They met here camping,” she says.
Food is a large part of the draw of gathering under the big white tent.
“Last night we had chowder and hot dogs for the guests,” says Joanna Falkof, of Stoughton, Massachusetts. “We did movie night under the tent last night. This afternoon we’ll do meatball subs. Later tonight we have Becky’s [barbeque].”
In the afternoon, they also hold a raffle, where campers set up chairs under the tent and sit swapping stories while they wait to hear if they are winners of any of the many prizes spread out over several long tables. And in the evening, they’ll dance to the music of DJ Bill Kelly. It truly is a family affair. Pete Kelly, who runs the Pete’s Ice Cream truck, where the younger generation sometimes hangs out, is DJ Bill’s brother.
Emily Thiboutot, 21, of Fall River, Massachusetts, enjoys a watermelon slushie with ice cream. She’s been coming to Camp-O-Rama since she was 12 or 13.
She’s an environmental science and management major at University of Rhode Island, with a geological oceanography minor.
“And it’s really cool. I want to do something with either weather or just environmental research in general.”
This year she admits she had a bit of hesitation.
“Because I’m taking an extreme weather class,” she says. “I was looking at Lee; and, I was like, wow, look at him. But it’s not as bad as it could be. We’ve definitely seen it worse here before.”
By the afternoon, the rain stopped and the winds quieted. The sun managed to filter through the low clouds.
Hurricane Lee turned away from the Rhode Island shore and Aquidneck Island. The worst didn’t happen.
