A little backpacking trip

When we told the kids mid-June that we had a week of vacation coming up with no plans for a few days, the kid's first question was, "Can we go camping?" 

Ummm... YES. 

Let's go camping. 

Garrett did the John Muir trail last Autumn with my brother and brother's in law, so the girls have talked about backpacking all winter long, and been quite desperate to have a try at it. Meanwhile Garrett has been building our backpacking gear collection steadily for a few years.

We decided to backpack into a campsite at a local park that has backpacking specific campsites, hoping this would be the best of all our favorite things... and it pretty much was. It was an added bonus that we did it during the work week, so for the first night we were the only ones there. 

Unfortunately I lost half my pictures from this trip when I was transferring them from my phone, and I deleted them from my phone before I realized it. Of course. For the most part, I'm okay with it. There was just one pic of Keira and Daria that I am super bummed to have lost.  

The flooded St. Croix River.

 Starting out. We had Keira carry Daria so that I could carry our gear with Garrett. I think she might have gotten the poo end of the stick out of all of us with regards to weight carried to body weight ratio, but she carried her like a champ. It was particularly precious to hear their little conversations.  Also the fact that Daria matched her breathing to Keira's the whole way was pretty much awesome. When Keira was out of breath, so was Daria. Which both amused and offended Keira. Haha! So funny. Both Keira and Brie did awesome with the packs and weights they had though, so it will be really fun to add more backpacking trips in to our adventure excursions as we can.

The view from our tent.

Since my pack was only thirty-one pounds, and it was a short hike, I brought my hexie quilt top to hand stitch. I'm so glad I did! It was fun to have. I'm probably the only person in the history of ever who's brought something like that along on a backpacking trip, but I can live with that.

Waiting for breakfast.

The child who has NEVER willingly slept in our arms took two naps snuggled up with her parents. 

Sister snuggles.

My morning wake up call.
"Mom! Mom! Up! Up!"

We had an amazing time. I can't even describe how badly it was needed for us. It was SO SO good to just get out and camp. And, it was fun to appreciate the deciduous forest... which is something that is so weird to us. The mosquitoes we could all do without, of course, and my super paranoid tick checks 30 times a day, but it was worth it.

Packing up.

She objected to the breaking down of the tents.

These two set up their own tent, and broke it down again. They did awesome!

Leaving camp.

 Our adventures included a very healthy, large, bold raccoon that would not take a hint and leave us alone. We think it probably gets voluntarily fed a lot, or just marches into camp after people go to bed and takes what he wants. Thankfully Garrett had packed all our food in the bear canister simply to keep in organized and so it wouldn't get smooshed.  For the record, bear canisters are also raccoon proof. Daria thought it was adorable and kept trying to go to it. "Dog?! Dog?! Hi Dog! Dog so tyoot!" (cute)

It was technically Daria's first camping trip, although she's gotten the opportunity to sleep in a tent a few times. She had so much fun, and we are all looking forward to introducing her to more and more camping as time goes by.

Going Losting-- Mini exploration of the Olympic Rain Forest

During Garrett's week off we wanted to camp since our children felt extremely robbed of their camping season last year due to moving, and remind us of their camping deprivation constantly. We originally had planned on heading east of the mountains and camping somewhere near Bank's Lake, but the closer we got to the time to go, the more we decided that we wanted to go someplace new, and explore something we hadn't seen before, even if it meant cutting our camping trip short because of rain.  

A few facts about this trip:

1. I discovered I'm not nearly as mobile as I thought I was. I am getting lazy about moving, apparently. The lack of mobility is cutting down on my multi-tasking skills.

2. Therefore, I took hardly any pictures. 

3. This is bugging the crap out of obsessive, focused, driven me very,VERY, very much. Like, A LOT. I will regret that until something else comes along for me to regret and fills up my brain's current regret RAM space. But, probably in some tiny portion of my head I will always regret the photos I did not take on this camping trip. Because, as previously mentioned, I am a bit obsessive. Also, there were some really cool shots that I was just too lazy to go get the camera for.

4. So, this camping post will be slightly less picture-y and slightly more word-y, because it was full of great fun and memories, and I didn't take enough pictures!! Dang it. 

5. It is very hard to sit on the ground and put boots on your feet when you have a baby belly.

I don't think that was actually a proper orderly list, but whatever. 

So, Thursday morning dawned lovely and gorgeous here, and we had my sister Clare with us, YAY! and we headed out and down around to the Peninsula to see what we could see. 

 We started out planning on just finding a camping area to set up and then explore from there, because a lot of checking had indicated to us that there weren't really any trails/off-road camping to be had. When we got to the campsite we had planned on camping at however, it looked a little too RV-ish for our liking, it was right next to the freeway, and the utter HORROR voiced from our little Brianna in the backseat at the thought of camping next to a road with cars and people on it convinced us that maybe we could just head down the road a ways and see what we could see before setting up camp. So, we did. 

 We followed Hood Canal quite a ways... it was absolutely beautiful. We just wandered along looking for camping sites, Forest Service Roads to explore, whatever we could see. And, we finally turned in towards a rural campsite sign at the Duckabush River. It turned into a Forest Service Road that headed up a valley, and dumped us into the Olympic National Park eventually.

 We went on for quite some time... it was spectacular. If either Garrett or I have been in this forest before we don't remember it--we both would have been kids. And, we certainly wouldn't have gone in this deeply with our parents, so it was very new territory for both of us. Since we wanted to find a campsite before dark we didn't stop to get out and take pictures. It was crazy steep on either side of the trail, and there wasn't really the usual plethora of rustic campsites that Forest Service Roads usually have--the rustic authorized campsite closer to the beginning of the road was gated. We drove up to the snowline before turning around, and we finally turned down a little road and found a few flat-ish areas with fire rings, so we picked the biggest driest one, and set up camp there.

 This forest is WET. Like, wetter than anything I've ever seen. Wetter than the Lolo Trail in the Bitterroot Mountains, FOR SURE! Which is crazy,  because I thought that was pretty wet and non-flammable. I think that might be why it's called a rainforest? Haha! After we set up camp Garrett and I took a little mini-hike to see if we could find firewood. I tried picking up a small, (but not that small!) fallen tree, and it literally fell apart in my hands. Wet, wet, wet. Next time we camp here we will FOR SURE bring our own firewood. We finally found the driest wood we could, and headed back to camp. Thankfully Garrett had packed the Coleman two-burner stove instead of just our little backpacking burner, so he split-up the wood and we tried drying it on the Coleman stove to get it to a point where it would burn. I did not take a picture because my camera was 15 feet away in the Rover and that would have required moving and multi-tasking since this was going on while I was making dinner. Kicking self. This wood-drying business was successful only with some flammable additives to the fire. You could hear the water boiling and steaming out of the wood while it burned. Crazy.  

 Rovey in his natural environment. :-)

 My view when my oldest child is sitting on my lap. She's so big. It makes my heart ache. I just love sitting around a campfire with my kids. I love hanging out with them at home too, but there's just something about a campfire. They fully relax, and just live in the bliss of the moment--you can tell that they're perfectly at home and content there, and I'm so thankful for that family time with them--nothing but campfire, babies, chairs, and their bottled root beer/our bottled beer. It is contented bliss--moments that a parent writes on their heart and treasures forever.

So, we went all night without it raining. It was a cold night, although we were all able to stay pretty warm. Brie ended up climbing in Clare's bag in their tent, but that's somewhat normal for her. I was uncomfortable, but not entirely because of being pregnant. I was uncomfortable first of all because my nose was so stuffed for some reason I couldn't breathe.  Of course it would clear up completely every time I sat up. That is just obnoxious, I tell you. Why do noses do that?! Then, a little later the pregnancy woes hit--and I had forgotten my heartburn medicine... Oops. So, I had heartburn with acid clear up in my mouth, regardless of the fact that our tent was on a slope and my head was at the top, HA! Doesn't it seem like that should have helped? and then the leg cramps hit. I don't know if you've ever been in a mummy bag in 30-some-odd degree weather with leg cramps, but it is just plain irritating. Oddly enough Garrett got leg cramps too that night--we were a pathetic pair. I like to think he got sympathy leg cramps. He's pretty sure they were just plain old leg cramps. :-) 


Finally I fell asleep, and slept pretty good. But, it was hit and miss there for a while. It's lovely to fall asleep to the sound of a forest.


The next morning we got up pretty late and did breakfast. As we were sitting around, pretending to have a fire with our coffee and hot chocolate, it started to rain.


And it rained harder. 


And harder.


And much, much, harder.


So, we agreed to wait it out for just a bit, and if it didn't clear up we'd head home. We all took our coffee and hot chocolate to our respective tents, and settled in. I wished, yet again that I'd had my camera with me. I'm thankful that memories live in our heads too though. I loved this time because I've never been in a tent when it's raining before so it was fun. 


...The sound of my kids and Clare in the other tent, giggling and laughing like crazy loons, mixed with the sound of heavy rain...


...My husband meticulously cleaning up every drop of water on his side of the tent with his handy microfiber backpacking towel and then hanging the towel right over the top of my pillow... I don't know why but this just cracks me up every time I think about it... it doesn't drip or anything since it's microfiber, so it was fine, just a really funny move that made me laugh...


...Being so impressed with our tent... remembering that when we bought it we read reviews on it from someone who'd lived on the west coast of Ireland for 3 months in these tents and stayed completely dry. Talking about how wet we would have been if we'd been camping in our cheap tent that we had before we bought our better tents. SO thankful for all our good gear...


...Watching the water puddle at the top of our tent. Pushing up on the puddle, and being amazed at the sound of the waterfall that crashed to the ground. Doing that over, and over, and over again...


...Having it rain so incredibly hard that all we could hear was the sound of the rain on our tent, not even the kids yelling in the tent right next to us...


Watching the rain fall on the top of our tent... on the star-viewing window especially, which I just love. Wishing I had my camera. Looking at my boots and rain jacket and thinking that I didn't want to put them on just to go get the camera, knowing I'm going to regret it, and still being lazy... 


...Saying my feet were just the slightest bit cold, and my husband tucking my SmartWool stockinged feet between his SmartWool stockinged feet... we really really love our SmartWools... And, I really love that man...


Yelling between tents over the sound of the rain indicates that Brie has to go to the bathroom. This is, of course, my job. Wrangling my boots and rain jacket on. Getting the shovel. Squeezing between a wet muddy Rover, and the wettest tree branches you ever did see, picking our way through the rivulets of water that are pouring through our campsite on the ground...


...Hiking a ways, and digging a hole in the weirdest dirt ever, more like moss and rock, and holding Brie over it so she can do her business. Normally this is not a big deal, but I am still super sensitive to the smell of bathroom activities, and so I begin gagging and nearly threw up while trying to hold my 50 pound kid out in front of me over the hole with zero balance and limited control over my currently-feeling-like-jello-hips to begin with. Gagging, hanging on, gagging, she feels terrible, but what can you do?! Me assuring her it's okay sweetie, just finish up. And, wouldn't you know it, after all that it is the SMALLEST, TINIEST little turd you ever did see. This, for some stupid reason makes me unreasonably mad. I mean, if you're going to put me through all that, you better at least have a respectable sized turd at the end of it. We finish up, bury the goods, and my poor Brie with the rain dripping of her hood and her tiny little face buried in there, and her big dark eyes looking at me feels terrible for it all, I apologize for getting mad over something so incredibly ridiculous, as if she could do anything about it!?! and begin to see the humor in it all, and it makes me laugh, possibly slightly hysterically... thankfully she's very forgiving...


...and as we're walking back the rain is easing up...


...You have to really pay attention though--the rain from the sky is easing up, but all the trees around us are still dripping and raining, so it sounds like it's still raining, even though it's not. The forest is just lovely in all it's mossy wetness...


...we check the sky and decide this weather isn't going anywhere. Surprise! It's a rain forest in April! We look around, decide that our campsite isn't going to be salvageable for the enjoyment of another night, and use the break in the weather to work together all of us, and pack up all our crazy wet stuff as quickly as possible...


...And, we head down the mountain. The trees look like a giant's pick-up-sticks--perhaps several ice storms have ravaged through? Moss is SO thick. Over the trees and branches everywhere. I'd say 4 inches thick in some places. There are glorious waterfalls pouring down the steep hillsides everywhere, and I want to get out and take some landscape pictures of all this gloriousness, but it's raining again, and I love our camera...


And, as we emerge from the valley road out onto Highway 101 the blue skies and sun are shining there, and it is just beautiful. We look back up the Duckabush River Valley from whence we came, and the clouds are low and dark. It's raining up there, without question, and snowing even higher than where we were.


So we slowly meander home. 


I'd say we went into this camping trip with the right attitude... have fun, don't hesitate to go home if it gets uncomfortable, and just enjoy exploring something new. That being said, I could definitely tell that we are used to camping in very dry Eastern WA, as opposed to the west side. Our gear was weather appropriate, thankfully, it was just a matter of what we're used to. It's easy to forget how deep the wet permeates over here--when it's done raining on the other side your stuff dries out really fast. Even a really heavy rain storm will usually be drying up in a matter of minutes. I've forgotten how over here if it rains the ground can be wet for up to a couple days after it stops raining... and that is especially exaggerated in the location and conditions we camped in this trip. So, we tuck it in our "camping information" mental file, and enjoy the memory of it, both the good and bad. :-) 


I CANNOT WAIT to go back and explore that area more. In August, or something. It is beautiful, and I'm SO glad we found a Forest Service Road with a few not-official-campsites off of it, instead of staying in the campsite by the highway. 


And, so ends my wordy, not very picture-ey reconstruction of our first camping trip of 2012. 

Central Oregon Vacation--Derrick Cave Edition

The one other MUST SEE on our list for this trip was Derrick Cave. Derrick Cave is part of the the huge Devil's Garden Lava Flow, and it was really really cool to see.

First off, this is the parking lot for Derrick Cave. Now, you would think that it would be marked. It is not. In fact, later on this day we decided to round out our Tour of Oregon's Privates, as this trip came to be known rather quickly... (and how could you call it anything else, with names like Crack-in-the-Ground, and Hole-in-the-Ground?!) and visit Hole-in-the-Ground. We never did find Hole-in-the-Ground, although I'm betting good money in retrospect we drove right past the parking lot for it before heading off on a rabbit trail of Forest Service Roads. I'd advise using GPS coordinates with wild abandon if you're planning on exploring Oregon's privates. Oregon, if I could impart two bits of wisdom for you: First off, please label your landmarks. That would be handy. Secondly, you've got the worst washboard I've EVER in my whole entire life seen/felt/been rattled nigh to oblivion by. So, perhaps if the State/Managing Department could put signs up, and the local errant teenagers/hillbillies/what-have-you could resist the urge to destroy the signage, people could actually find the cool stuff they're looking for when they visit from places unknown. Not sure what you're going to do about the washboard. Just thought I'd tell you. Because I've driven on a lot of washboard, and that was hands-down, the worst washboard EVER. Thank you.

Also, in case any of my readers ever decide to see these places, I will say that everything we did could be accessed by car.  The road to Derrick Cave was the worst one, and as we were driving on it, we decided that a car could come up to Derrick Cave if they wanted to. And actually, I know it can be done, because when I was searching for information on it I happened upon a blog post by someone who did it in a Honda Civic. I will not link to it due to language, which tells you how they felt about it, haha, but it can be done. :-) It would most likely take a lot of steely nerve, but it could be done.

Anyway. Back to the story at hand. Derrick Cave. This is the unmarked parking lot for Derrick Cave.

 This is the short, but possibly longer-than-one-might-think trail for Derrick Cave, that comes after an unmarked parking lot, which means if you're scouting in an effort to find Derrick Cave, you might walk about halfway on this here trail, and then decide to give up, because you could walk through the whole of Devil's Garden, and never find Derrick Cave, for all you know.

 At last! After all that, Derrick Cave. It has two sections. We all brilliantly forgot our headlamps in our tents. But, we were able to explore about as much as we wanted to, so that's good enough. The north section of Derrick Cave was used as a bomb shelter in times past. This was pretty cool. Also, pretty stinky. Not going to lie, if I had the choice between this disgusting, creepy, horrifying bomb shelter and running through the woods Red Dawn style, I would SO totally choose Red Dawn.

Disclaimer: I am a bit claustrophobic. Also, I am not a huge fan of caves. So, only by maintaining a very strict stubborn hold on my nerves was I able to explore this without freaking out. Also, it was pretty cool, so that helped me maintain my dignity. I may have been praying the entire time we were standing underneath these huge-appears-to-be-barely-hanging-on boulders on the ceiling.

 The kids thought it was awesome.

 It WAS pretty awesome, actually.

 It got dark pretty fast, which was cool.

 There are two different holes in the ground above the main part of the cave which give this really cool effect.

 We had great fun for a long time throwing dust into the sunbeams, and then posing in the resulting glow.

 The colors are BEAUTIFUL.

 After that, we checked out Fort Rock, Oregon.

Interjection for Gear Review:

These are our Snow Peak Cast Iron Stakes, with hammer. These were the one thing we purchased at and  walked away from the Overland Rally with. They are COOL. Anyone who does any camping knows how very irritating tent stakes can be. The ground is really rocky at a lot of places we camp, so that's an added irritant. And, no matter how expensive/high quality your tent is, they still usually come with cheap stakes. These were expensive--it ended up being $90.00 for 10 stakes and the hammer and bag to hold them all. (I should say that we might have gotten a bit of a discount on them too. Can't remember for sure.) At first I was slightly horrified. $90.00 for tent stakes?! Are you kidding me? But, I am a firm believer in and huge fan of them now. The fact is these will outlive us. Provided we never lose them, our great-grandchildren could use them some day. And, we've already tested them on rocky ground, and they are a piece of cake to hammer all the way in, and get out. The fact that I'm not worried about stubbing my flip-flopped toes on halfway sticking up tent stakes first thing in the morning is worth the price alone, I tell you what. They could even save your marriage, if your spouse is the one who usually halfway nails the tent stakes that you end up tripping upon and stubbing your toe upon. Not to mention that we can use them with any tent we ever purchase. So, we highly recommend. These are Sanitarium Approved. Saving your sanity, and your marriage, and in a windstorm, your tent too. Very cool.

Table Rock, Oregon

 On the way home, we decided to travel roads we'd never traveled before. And, we didn't take any pictures, unfortunately, because it was SO spectacularly beautiful. But, it was an 11 hour drive, and Frank was winding up all the way home for a crazy week at work, and I was winding up for an epic to-do list. I'm so very glad we did it, and got to enjoy it before the craziness that has been our home this last month. We drove from Christmas Valley, up through Burns, OR, alongside the Blue Mountains, and then through John Day, OR and up through the Tri-Cities area to home. It was absolutely beautiful. So very hard to not pop off the highway and explore. I can't wait to go back and take pictures and explore side roads.

In Burns we ended up stopping for lunch, and I fell in love with our new ARB Fridge all over again when we were able to stop at a park instead of a restaurant, and eat out of our food supply instead of spending $20-ish on yucky fast food. It was blissful.

Have you ever eaten cantelope out of your husband's boot?

 I love this fridge. In the future I'll plan better and have lunch ready to go in the top of the fridge so we don't have to pull the whole back apart to get to our food. Since we didn't want to rip into the Pelican Case with our bread in it, we did lettuce wraps with ham and cheese, and it was delish. Garrett has worked really hard on setting up the back of our Rover this year for camping, and it is SO SO NICE.

 Relaxing and Playing before hitting the road again....

Thanks for joining us on our trip!

Central Oregon Vacation-Duncan Lake Reservoir Edition

After we were done in Sunriver we headed off to extend our vacation a little bit longer and explore parts of Oregon we'd never seen before.  We headed off to the Christmas Valley area.  Due to it's crazy high income tax the State of Oregon is not one of my favorite places in the world. I realize it's unfair to write a whole state off because of idiotic political things, but well, I never claimed to be reasonable. I will say that Oregon went up several notches on Naomi's personal scorecard after this trip. I LOVED everything we saw, and I can't wait to go back and explore more.

Garrett has spent a lot of time this summer working in the Land Rover, and making it more packing-friendly for all the camping/overland travel we do, and also making it so our new sweet blessed refrigerator of joy fits back there. (More on that sweet thing later.) So, I assumed while he was busy gleefully loading stuff into the back of the Rover that he would naturally grab all the stuff we needed and put it in there. He assumed that since I always get everything ready and put it by the door he didn't need to pack anything that wasn't by the door. (I will grudgingly admit his point of view makes sense. My point of view only makes sense to me because I may occasionally forget that he can't read my mind.) Anyway, I should also state that when we packed for this, I was NOT in my right frame of mind. It's so hard to pack for two different vacations, and keep the bulk down. The more things that go into my bags, the grumpier I get, so I under packed us by a just a leeeetle bit. I also pretty spacey because I'd jumped straight from household projects into packing, and I couldn't get any sort of groove for myself.  Now that I've made far more excuses than I need, we were about 2 1/2 hours down the road when I said with this great dread in the pit of my stomach... "Did you pack the sleeping bags?

So, we took a side trip to REI in Bend, and got some new bags. Turns out this was a bit of a blessing in disguise, because our other bags are 15 degree bags, and that's pretty hot for most of the summer camping we do. Except--in the area of Oregon we were camping, of course--it is high desert, and it gets REALLY REALLY cold at night, even in the summer. Thankfully, the 27 degree night was when we were in the house, and it warmed up just enough for all the other nights. I was nervous about the kids being cold all night long. They were, of course, just fine. And, it all ended up ok. We keep a fleece blanket in the Land Rover at all times, so we had that, and our camping kitchen kit is always packed and ready to go, so we did very well with a little making do considering how spacey I was when we started the trip. The fridge has transformed my camping (and errand running) life already--I am SO thankful for that thing. 

We headed off down to the Christmas Valley area to set up camp and explore. And we hit our next little snafu when we discovered that the BLM website had their internal website links messed up when we got directions, and when you clicked on the campsite we wanted to camp at, it gave us directions to another campsite... by the time we figured this out, we didn't care anymore. So, we set up camp at the Duncan Reservoir. It's not really something to complain about--it was a proper campsite, but it was very nice.

 Dashboards make good sock dryers. :-)

 Lake front property.

 Clint fishing with two little tag-alongs.

 Sara taking pictures. It was fun to take pictures all weekend with someone else--neat to see what the same stuff looks like through someone else's lens.

 It really was beautiful and relaxing. The hawks were busy busy birds.

 As the evening wore on, I headed off to find firewood. I found firewood, and this amazing little spot that was one of those magical places in the forest when the light hits it just right, and everything is so perfect it wouldn't be the slightest bit weird if there were fairies slipping in and out of the trees, and the lovely evening glow strikes just right so all the textures and colors are illuminated perfectly. So, I went back and got my Brie, and my camera.

 Ah. I loved this spot.

 You had to clamber down this steep sandy/rocky hill and go over this lava creek bed to get to it. This creek bed was a bit other-worldly. Very cool.

After this trip I think it's safe to say we have some Canyoneering/Bouldering fans in the making.

 A lot of the trees in this area were Cedar. Wow, did they ever make an AMAZING smelling campfire. Next time we come down here, we are eating salmon over the campfire every night. Not only because we have a fridge, and we could keep it cold, (Sorry, but that's not going to get old for me anytime soon.) but because it would taste amazing cooked in the cedar smoke.

 And, our friendly fire-side lizard who made several appearances during our stay.

So, that was our campsite... I'll be back soon with another Oregon post! Hopefully I'll get these all up before a whole month goes by!