Elf, The Full Package.
Don't believe the photograph. Those pants make everything look bigger.
We forgot so many things. We forgot bicycle pumps! The camera tripod, spare shoes, towels, the toasting grill. Contraceptives, not that we could have used them with our bruised and battered adult bits. We remembered food, shelter, bedding, medicines.
The campsite is full of RVs sporting satellite antennaes and other wealthy people pretending to commune with nature. Scattered among them, though, are some ordinary families, with tents and sleeping bags and campfires required for heat and cooking. Lots of kids on bicycles out here, too. I saw one group go by and wondered what kind of example Dad was setting because he made the kids wear helmets but he didn't have one on himself. The creek that runs through the campsite looks groomed, too tame to be natural, with little step-down dams of larger rocks at regular intervals as it makes its way down to the Hood Canal. There are way too many crows in the campsite, and the trash bins aren't animal safe so I guess they're not worried about predators here.
Omaha and I packed up and drove out to Spillman Camp (actually, the Oak Patch intersection, as Spillman Camp proper requires a reservation), which is a popular ORV (Off Road Vehicle) attraction. While we were unpacking, we saw a lot of 4-wheel ATV's (All Terrain Vehicls) puttering about, including one brood with three children-- everyone had their own ATV, and "Mama" was just about the white trashiest thing I've seen or heard in a long time. Her little boy, about ten or so, had his own gas-powered ATV and was cruising through the woods, and she was telling him that she'd ride with him later but right now "Mama's just smoking a cigarette." I mean, she had the trailer-park accent down. Straight out of central casting, that one.
We rode down Howell Lake Trail for a while until we reached the fork with something called "Randy's Water Spot Trail," which we took for a short distance, then turned off onto a trail with only an identifier: UB14. There's a trail on the map called UB Lost; this wasn't that trail, but we surely felt like it. This trail was technical, with lots of crap, lots of falls, and that momentum-robbing gravel. Parts of it were fun; I like mud, and roots (Omaha hates roots; I think she'd rather do gravel), and vicious downhill bombs. We were getting worried that we'd have to walk this trail back when, finally, it met back up with Howell Lake Trail. We decided to ride back to the intersection where we'd first seen Randy's Water Spot Trail.
Having done this half-mile of trail before, I bombed it and reached the trail marker with, I had thought, Omaha right behind me. It was a pretty easy chunk of trail-- lots of mud, but mostly downhill and no gravel or roots to speak of.
I waited for Omaha to show up. And waited. And started to get worried. I was just about to head back up the trail when I heard her coming through the trees. She stopped right next to me. "What took you so long? That was a pretty easy stretch back there."
She looked at me blankly and said, "I, that is, what I said, I mean, uh, it was..."
Oh, shit. "Did you have a seziure?"
"Little one," she said.
"Come sit down."
Omaha, recovering.
We turned back, headed over to a road, and found another trail called "Paul's Grade." That was better, although about halfway in we found "CAUTION: DO NOT ENTER" yellow barrier tape had once been across the trail, but had also been cut recently. Omaha said the tape was down, we should go on, so we did.
This ride was fun. Not so much gravel, lots of bumps. Quite a few places to dump the bicycle, but we made it okay into the high "meadow" (actually, a clear-cut that had just started to grow back) and around the ridge, meeting up with the Randy's Water Spot Trail three-quarters down. After briefly getting lost and hitting a dead-ended trail (oh, did I mention that the batteries on my GPS had died? Yeah. Lost, we were) we finally dropped down onto the Tahuya River Trail, which took us back to the Twin Lakes sandpit, and it was a mile's ride on forest service roads back to Oak Patch. By then, I was in pain. My right shoulder had taken a hit from a fall, my calves were scratched to hell and back, and my ass was numb from all the brutality. My knee had been complaining about some vector and I was afraid I would have trouble walking, but actually no... it was better walking than riding by that point. We made it back to the car just in time for our water to run out. It was nice to sit down on a soft cushiony surface.
We refilled from the five gallon jug we'd brought, did ibuprofen and trail mix, and headed out for the ferry. The ride was fine; Omaha slept in the car most of the way. We got home and had dinner; wisely, Omaha had pre-cooked some brisket in the slow cooker two nights before and put it in the 'fridge, so we had dinner ready when we got there. A shower made me feel almost human. We went to bed at 8:45, how grown-up is that?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}