Camping, Day 6: Quiet and Calm

Girls with Tadpoles

We woke late. Every day has been absolutely gorgeous: we wake with the sun, with a cool morning, that turns into a hot afternoon and a perfect night. It's really cold at night, down in the 40s (F), but Omaha and I snuggle through it all and enjoy each other's company. The girls seem really comfortable in their new thermal sleeping bags, and they have their own tent.

Breakfast was cold cereal. Omaha and I did the dishes and made tea & coffee, and later I went down to the river and pumped a gallon through our water filter. We made lunch out of whatever we had.

Vulture

Our first expedition was to Placid Lake. The drive there was fairly short, but on the way we spotted a vulture watching us from the trees. There were beautiful views of the backside of Mt. St. Helens.

Man, the lakes around here are really boringly named. It was a short hike, but nice. The girls were thrilled by the tadpoles swimming through the water, and the fish leaping out of the water to snap at bugs. We met another group with their own kids on the way, and exchanged what we knew. We pressed on to Chenamus Lake. The mosquitos there were bad, but we stopped for lunch anyway.

We walked back. The tadpoles had disappeared, taking shelter against the noonday sun.

Meditation Rock at Langfield Falls

Our second stop was Langfield Falls, which was a very short hike to a beautiful, secluded den. Many people had stopped and made meditation stacks out of the smooth, rounded rocks in the area, and Omaha made her own while I waded into the plunge pool and let the mist wash over me. It was peaceful and beautiful, despite the loud rush of water, and our reverie was broken only by Kouryou-chan's urgent need to find a bathroom.

We stopped at a parking lot that had a toilet, only to discover the lot was for snow mobilers. We briefly explored the warming hut, a wooden structure with a wood-powered space heater to help winter sportsmen thaw out, then back to the campsite.

Dinner was foil chicken, which is basically a chicken breast, frozen vegetables, and mushroom soup mix put into an aluminum foil packet, which you then seal and allow to self-steam over the fire. It was delicious.

We went straight to bed. Omaha and I played a couple rounds of cards, but I was too tired to play much or well.

Late in the night, I awoke with the need to pee. I didn't bring my flashlight, and I didn't need it. Even with a full moon, the stars were visible. I still regret not bringing my camera out and getting snaps of the Milky Way; the meadow across from the campsite was perfect for long-exposure pics like that. The camera has been flaky recently-- it's old, and its actuators are failing, but I bet it would still do that well.

Day 7: Spidergirl, and Going Home...

Morning theif

In the morning, Omaha baked biscuits in a reflector oven, and for the first time since we bought the thing the reflector oven seemed to work decently well. We cooked the last of the bacon and the eggs, dug some cheese out of the freezer, and made breakfast sandwiches.

The birds have discovered that breakfast is when the most food is around. They assault the campsite in squads.

The girls were amazing when it came to breaking down the campsite. It took less than two hours.

When the girls and I had visited the Ice Caves, Omaha hadn't been feeling well and decided to stay back at the camp. Since we were going to be passing it on the way out, now she wanted the opportunity to see and experience it herself. The girls had seen it, and decided to stay in the car and read instead.

Omaha crawls along the cave wall.

Omaha also decided that she wanted to see the ice gallery at the back of the cave. Now, the last time I tried that, the girls and I had discovered that a foot-deep, twelve-foot wide pond of icy slush lay between the entrance and the gallery. Rather than get her shoes wet, Omaha spotted a "shelf" about eight feet above the pond, and basically played spiderwoman to crawl all the way to the gallery opening. The photo is pretty amazing for the low-light feature.

There was another couple there, delightful people, all hipsterish. They were both amused and pleased when they realized that I was spelunking in a kilt.

We also did the Natural Bridges, and had more fun crawling down into the fallen lava tube. There was a cave at the end of it, too, but we didn't bring flashlights.

We drove into the little town, filled the car with gas and ourselves with coffee and smoothies, and drove home.

Omaha wants to buy a barn and put "THOR!" on its side to counter all the "Jesus!" barns we passed on the way through the rural vallies of southwestern Washington. We passed innumerable signs, and apparently the most popular now is "Prepare To Meet Thy God!", a message that is more than a little intimidating.

Obama hatred is ripe in the countryside. We passed one barn with "America's #1 Enemy: Change," which put me in mind of Virginia Postrel's observation that since the 1970 most elections have been a battle between the future and it's enemies. As we drove into civilizations, my phone suddenly woke up and tweeted like mad as messages poured in. The virtual world had returned.

Desperate Communications

The girls have been obsessing about Soul Eater, and Omaha and I were well and truly sick of it by the time the trip was over. We were little more than an hour out of Seattle when Omaha put her foot down and told the girls to shut up and be absolutely silent for 30 minutes. They made it 14 the first time. And then Kouryou-chan passed us this message on the second try.

We got into Seattle and drove to The Keg. They were out of prime rib! Nooooooooo!

We got home, took hot showers, and poured ourselves into bed. I was grateful to be home-- and grateful I'd changed the sheets before I left, so when I got home it was a clean body in a clean bed. That was a fun trip, but now it was time to get back to life.

Lifestyle changes...

It seems odd, but the most major lifestyle change of the past month has been this: I've changed the ink color of my pens.

I've been using the Uniball Signo line for years now. It's my ink of preference, and the line has always been high quality. People who've read my handwriting (poor, poor people) know that it's teeny-tiny, and the 0.5mm line of the Signo Micro has always suited my style. It's one of the reasons my musing fit so nicely into a moleskin pocket notebook.

And I've always used blue ink.

Now it turns out that the three office supply stores in my area have stopped carrying the blue in micro; at best, you can get it in medium. Worse, there's now the "Ultra Micro" 0.3mm pens-- in black only.

So I've been using those. And it just feels weird; I haven't voluntarily used black ink in years. It just doesn't look right. It doesn't look like me.

I see that I can buy blue ultra micros from Office Max for $20, but only through mail order. Sigh. Maybe I will anyway.