Urban camping has spread its wings at the William W. Powers State Recreation Area.

The 580-acre park is the only State Park in the City of Chicago. The recreation area is at 130th Avenue O on the far southeast side of the city. The park’s jewel is the 419-acre Wolf Lake that borders Hammond, Ind., and although it has been described as a “hidden gem,” nearly half a million people visit annually.

Interim Site Superintendent Levi Bray said that at least 60 per cent are minority outdoors enthusiasts, which skews up from national camping demographics. There’s no camping at the park but there’s ample room for bird watching, boating, biking and picnicking. Fishing is a big draw as the lake is filled with bass, catfish, northern pike, hybrid muskie and walleye. Bird watchers can catch blue jays, finches, orioles,
mallards and cardinals.

And there’s Pee Wee the monk parakeet.

Local lore says a few South American parrots migrated roughly 30 miles from the Hyde Park neighborhood of late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington. Pee Wee now lives in the park’s business center.

“Someone said Harold Washington introduced these birds to Hyde Park,” Bray explained during a late August interview. Bray began his career with the Illinois Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) in 1990 as a Site Technican. “Back then we had hundreds of the parrots here,” he said. “They blew the transformers. (The monk parakeet likes to build nests adjacent to warm transformers.)  It killed them all, except for a couple.”

In January, Bray was assigned as the Interim Site Superintendent at William W. Powers. He had been Ranger at the I&M Canal State Park near Joliet. “When I came back I saw Pee Wee was still there,” he said with a laugh.

Mayor Washington lived in the Hampton House condo building, 53rd neat South Shore Drive, across the street from a small park that included a colony of monk parakeets. He called the birds a “good luck
tailsman.” After his death in 1987, the USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) tried to remove the parakeets. Hyde Park residents created a defense committee and threatened a lawsuit. The birds won.

Remember when conflict was so beautiful?

Abraham Lincoln visited the future William W. Powers park and Mary Todd Lincoln nearly drowned in Wolf Lake in a spot located near the visitors center.

The State of Illinois acquired an 160-acres parcel of the future park in 1947 and in 1965 the Illinois General Assembly named the area after 1920s Chicago alderman William W. Powers. He used the cottonwood and willow tree site for picnics to feed the needy during the Great Depression.

“There’s a lot of history here,” Bray said. “Actually until I came here for the job, I didn’t even know this existed. We draw a lot of Hispanics. African-Americans. Lots of Polish.”

Wolf Lake is a deep Chicago melting pot.

In 2014 the Coleman Company, Inc. and the Outdoor Foundation compiled the “2014 American Camper Report” through 19,240 online interviews. Their research found that eight per cent of American campers were Hispanic, six per cent were African-American and four per cent were black. (The average age of a camper was 32.)

New minority camping organizations are emerging such as Outdoor Afro, based in Oakland, Ca., Wild Indigo and the National African-American RVers Association (NAARVA), the fastest growing RV organization in the country. NAARVA was founded in 1993 and has nearly 2,000 members.

The North Carolina-based organization hosts annual rallies that includes seminars, fishing, cake walks, pot luck dinners and worship service.

“For the last three to four years, we’ve been growing four to five per cent a year,” said NAARVA president Carolyn Buford in a phone conversation from her Kansas City, Mo. home. “We’ve had a lot of young retirees who have moved to the southern region; Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Our members have motor homes, travel trailers and fifth wheels. The only requirement is that you have cooking and bathroom facilities in your RV.”

Buford’s father was an avid camper. Her husband Luther is a retired Kansas City law enforcement officer. She is retired from information management at AT&T. Carolyn and Luther bought their first unit in 1969. It was a Holiday Rambler travel trailer. They now own a motor home.

“One reason we joined NAARVA is that we had been to a lot of states and we had seen very few minorities,” she said. “It was interesting to hear about an organization comprised of 98 per cent minorities. Even as we travel today, we don’t see a lot of minorities on the road. NAARVA has local clubs and we see more minorities when we camp with our local clubs. We go away for the winter and even though we’ve been going to this particular park for six or seven years people still look at us like, ‘Where did you come from?’ ”
Supreme Court judge Clarence Thomas is an avid  camper who can be found setting up shop in Wal-Mart parking lots. “We contacted him we know he bought an RV,” Buford said. “As far as we know, he’s still camping in his RV (he once had  40-foot Prevost).” Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Gibson is a well known African-America RV enthusiast. The Bufords purchased their motor home from Bill Thomas Camper Sales in Wentzville, Mo., the same St. Louis area store that serves Gibson.

Bray said, “Lately I’ve been seeing more African-American people camping. But as a kid I never thought about camping. One of my wife’s friends, they’re big (African-American) family campers. He was in the
Army and I think that’s how he got into it. Every Labor Day my wife’s cousin and their family go to Starved Rock (outside of Chicago.) Its about 50 people.”

Bray, 60,  grew up on a farm between West Memphis and Little Rock, Ark. Bray was speaking the day after the park’s “Aquatic Pet Take Back” event. “This was for reptiles and goldfish,” he said. “No one showed up. I guess no one wanted to turn in anything. But in the past there’s been instances when people brought in alligators. Maybe an iguana is not quite what someone wanted, so they can turn them in here.”

The park is operated under the auspices of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. It is open year round. Bray said, “Starting in October we’ll have duck and geese hunting. This park is really a nice place. The (Cook) county actually just put a campground about 15, 20 minutes south of us.”
In the summer of 2015 the Forest Preserve of Cook County opened Camp Sullivan, 14630 S. Oak Park Ave. in Oak Forest. The park had been used for scouting activities but was turned over to families and groups  for the first time in 50 years. Camp Sullivan is part of the 612-acre Tinley Creek Woods and offers tent camping, bunkhouse rental and a vintage red barn with a climbing wall. Also, in 2015 Camp Shabbona Woods, 15810 S. Torrence Ave.  in South Holland opened with nature trails, mulch tent pads, three season cabins, and yes, even bathrooms and showers.

The Aug. 27 New York Times Travel section reported the explosion in camper culture. Writer Stephanie Rosenbloom said that about 13 million households in the United States planned to camp more this year than last year, according to research conducted  by Kampgrounds of America. More than a million new households have started camping since 2014.

Such massive growth has to embrace the diversity that gives America her wings.

WARSAW, Ind.—The meaningful solitude of driving reaches a higher level by taking a trip in a camper van. I don’t mean an RV where you bring along friends and family, or even hitching up with an Airstream trailer. I mean a small camper van: where you are alone as a question mark, one bed, a workspace, a fridge and Greg Brown music about backroads and broken hearts.

And that’s where I’m going.

While driving around America for the past 30 years I’ve learned how the real American pastime feeds the imagination. Reflections in the campground river are unfiltered. Driving puts dreams in motion.

Vicki Shepherd and her younger brother Scott Wiley are examples of this pursuit of happiness.

I connected with Vicki through her whimsical art work of camper vans and RVs on a dark January afternoon. As I was researching my next book I saw a stack of her prints in the corner of the gift shop of the RV Hall of Fame in Elkhart, Ind. 

I loved the bright colors and escapist nature of her self-taught work. Vicki draws on art paper with ink markers and sharpies. I bought a print of 16 campers on dual Ferris wheels. A carnival sign advertised “CAMPER RIDES.” I had to find out more about her. Like twinkling neon around a gloomy corner, I made an authentic discovery.

Vicki, Scott and Vicki’s husband Jeff Shepherd purchase old camper vans and trailers and restore them.

They call this “Camper Pickin’.”

This summer and fall I’ll be driving around America in my 20’ by 8’ Ford Transit conversion van. Ford did a similar job for the “American Pickers” television show from the new Ford plant in Kansas City, Mo.

Vicki will custom design the inside of any van, even mine. In the past, she has done baseball themes and Jimmy Buffett influenced campers.

Scott generally restores the exterior, although they also work separately on found vans. One of their jobs became a concession stand at the University of Notre Dame. Another restored camper is part of a Bed and Breakfast in Georgia. A Michigan photographer bought a reborn 1956 Vacationette to use as a studio.

Vicki has drawn 50 van/RV related pictures. She makes van drawings for friends, family and did one for Camping World. Vicki has restored about 55 camper vans and trailers. I’m asking her to do a subtle tiki motif for my van interior. Bamboo brings good luck.

During the late 1960s Vicki was a dancer (not a stripper) at the Cat’s Meow in Fort Wayne. Ind. In sort of a Hooserized version of the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, she danced in white go-go boots along side music greats like Fats Domino, Brasil 66 and Wayne Cochran and the CC Riders. Little Richard headlined the downtown Fort Wayne club from April 21-26, 1969.

The Cat’s Meow was an upscale club with catwalks and an illuminated dance floor. In her later years, Vicki was a hospice nurse, so I guess that’s go-go to gone-gone. From 1984 to 1985 her brother was team chaplain for the NBA’s Detroit Pistons. This is one remarkable family.

Their father Don Wiley was an industrial engineer who was plant manager at Magnavox electronics in Fort Wayne. He was best friends with Fort Wayne legend Philo Farnsworth, who invented the television system.

“The first thing I ever played with was a slide rule,” Vicki cracked during a March afternoon conversation at Scott’s log home in Warsaw. “I took it out of Dad’s pocket.”

Their mother Maxine Wiley was a Justice of the Peace in Auburn, Ind. who also owned the Carnaby Square Dance Club in Warsaw, about 38 miles east of Fort Wayne. During the 1960s the Chicago-based Buckinghams played Carnaby Square.

The kids lived large in Indiana’s wide open spaces.

“In 1995 there was a resort park down by Silver Lake,” Vicki said. “Friend of my husband’s. He had these old trailers, 1920s, 30s and 40s. Nobody wanted them. He couldn’t get lot rent. He said, ‘How bout if I give you the trailer, you fix it up, sell it, and that way I’ll get the rent.’ None of this was popular then. If I had known then what I know now, I would have bought every one of them.”

Vicki, Scott and Jeff restored them and sold them for $2,000 or $3,000.

She pointed out, “These weren’t canned hams (tiny trailers hitched to a truck.) They were things like Lucy and Ricky’s (1954 hit comedy) ‘Long, Long Trailer’.”

What is home? Where is sense of place? French psychoanalyst Oliver Marc spoke of how early man took possession of space. He wrote, “It is through self-expression that man sets out on the road back to unity. It is a road that passes through the exterior to reach interior unity.”

The quest is the most exciting part of Vicki and Scott’s self-expression.

“There’s a 1958 Mallard I’m trying to get,” Vicki said. “It’s a hoarder’s house. I mean it’s in ‘Deliverance’ down there by (rural) Laketon. I go up to the door. Jeff wouldn’t even get out of the car–he’s a chicken. Dogs are barking and there’s these great big geese. I didn’t know they stretched their necks way out like that. Garbage bags everywhere. They had their Venetian Blinds on the outside of their house! They didn’t answer. I left a note. I’ve been back there three times.”

Vicki is retired and Scott has a full time job as Director of Development at Lakeland Christian Academy. His wife Debra is a 2nd grade teacher at the school and their daughter Baylee is a 10th grader at the school.

Scott keeps a vintage 1963 Trailerorboat” on his back porch that overlooks a small river and wooded area where blue heron, deer and a bald eagle can be seen. “There were only 18 Trailerorboats made,” he said. “It’s a little camper with a boat molded into the top. You take the top off when you arrive at the campground and use it as a boat.”

Trailer-or-boat—get it?

Scott’ collection also included the Camp’OTel (“For people who like going, not towing”), which he found, restored and sold. “It went on the top of your car,” he said. “It folded out into a place to sleep, shower, it had a picnic table built in, a gas stove and a sink too. It even had a little front porch.” The Camp O’ Tel was manufactured in the mid-1960s in Fort Worth, Tx. An advertisement ensures, “Fits on 98 per cent of all cars…A woman can set it up.“

Vicki, 70,  recruited her brother who previously restored cars and motorcycles. 

Scott’s showcase item is a 1964 Ford Fairlane four door called “The Spaceliner,” where he removed the top and added sleek white bucket seat and dual bubble tops.

“Campers are fun and cute,” said Scott, 55. “When we started getting into it people had no idea they were collectibles. We’d knock on doors and people would say, ‘If you can get that hunk of junk out of here, you can have it.’ People would give them to us. Or, we would get a camper for $200, put another $100 into it, clean it up and sell it for $3,000. It was a great profit margin. Now, it’s becoming real popular. People are into tiny living.”

Vicki said that 90 percent of the 55 campers she has restored were made in the Elkhart area, an hour north of Warsaw.

Scott explained, “A lot of cars were made in Northern Indiana. (The Detroit Pistons began in 1941 as the Fort Wayne Zoller Pistons before moving to the Motor City in 1957.) Because of tax breaks it was cheaper to build stuff in Indiana.”

I learned that 85 per cent of America’s RVs are manufactured in the Elkhart area.

Scott Wiley attended Spring Arbor College in Jackson, Mich. where he majored in Business Administration and Sports Administration. During his senior year in 1984, he obtained an internship with the Pistons. Scott’s first job was editing highlight reels for halftime shows.

“I got to be friends with (Pistons center) Kent Benson,” he said. “Kent was a Christian, I was a Christian. When I was with the Pistons it was Kent, Isiah Thomas and Ray Tolbert–all Indiana graduates. Bill Laimbeer  and Kelly Tripucka were from Notre Dame. I felt at home and they were all my age. I got to know Larry Bird. His point guard at Indiana State was Steve Reed. They called him ‘The Bird Feeder’ and he was our neighbor here in Warsaw. But it was Kent who asked me to be chaplain.”

Sports lines run deep with Vicki and Scott. Their mother was a big Chicago Cubs fan. Their uncle Everett “Deacon” Scott  played in 1,307 consecutive major league games, a streak later broken by Lou Gehrig and Cal Ripken, Jr. Everett Scott broke into the major leagues in 1914 with the Boston Red Sox when Babe Ruth was a fellow rookie teammate. Everett’s brother Walter Scott played for the St. Louis Browns.

“Everett’s roommate was Babe Ruth,” Vicki said. “I have the rocker that Babe Ruth rocked my Mom in.” Jeff added, “We had two (1923 Yankee World Champion) baseballs a long time ago. One was lost and never found.”

Vicki added, “We had another ball and it went down the storm sewer in Auburn. Uncle Skippy was playing with it.”

Uncle Skippy lived for the moment, just as you do in a camper van.  

When Mom Wiley was seven years old the Bambino gave her a necklace during a visit to Auburn. Scott recalled, “When her brother Skippy began dating, he gave it to his girlfriend!”

With an sigh, Vicki continued, “Now Uncle Everett suffered from carbuncles. Of all the things to suffer from. Carbuncles are like cysts. We in the family don’t call them boils. He had a big zit on his ear.”

Everett Scott was also an accomplished bowler, racking up 50 perfect games. Scott pointed out, “With a two finger bowling ball.” After Everett retired from baseball he opened Scott’s Bowling Alley in Fort Wayne. He sold that bowling alley to build Northcrest Lanes, in Fort Wayne, which in the 1950s was the biggest bowling alley in Indiana.

Everett died in November, 1960 in Fort Wayne. He was 67 years old.

 “Now this may be interesting to you, Dave,” Vicki said. “He had a Sealy Posturepedic mattress in his casket. And a satin robe. It scared the tar out of me when I saw him.”

Scott said, “Evidently he wanted to be comfortable.”

Evidently interior design is also part of this family’s DNA.

The camping world calls interior van decorating “Glamping.” Vicki’s children Kip, Matt and Katrina also help out with camper design. Husband Jeff assists with woodwork. 

Vicki admitted, “Some glamping is so over done and tacky. I do things with Hawaiian lights. Bamboo on the counter tops. I don’t do wallpaper unless I have to. If it looks good I keep what’s inside. I don’t keep the campers. Everybody thinks I’m this huge camper.

“Well, I’ve never gone camping in my life.”