Busy Until He Comes: More "pleasant things"

I meant to post these pictures a week ago, but somehow, it always takes longer to recover from a vacation than it does to go on one. For now, I'll just let you look at the pictures, but it was a harrowing week.

Perhaps harrowing week is a bit of a exagerration. Still, it does not behoove one to camp in Oregon in June. Oh sure, the flowers are blooming, the strawberries are ripe and the raspberries are ripening, the grass is still green, and the clouds are picturesque. But all of that will be spoiled by the fact that it's still raining. Summer doesn't come to Northwest Oregon (or anywhere north of it) until July. That's convenient for the Independence Day travel, but it left us out in the cold.

We had decided to grab one of Seth's five day weekends to have a little family getaway before the company sends him back to the Netherlands for three months, so we packed up all our rarely used camping equipment and headed up to Silver Falls State Parks, one of the most beautiful natural places on the planet (not that I'm biased or anything).

Silver Creek, Silver Falls State Park

In the 1800s, Silver Falls was a logging town in the foothills of the Cascades, logging being the principle industry in those parts at that time. After logging died down, it turned to tourism. A big portion was set aside as a state park in the early 1930s and done up in style by Roosevelt and the New Deal. The park consists of a lodge, a conference center, a camp ground and horse camp, and ten beautiful waterfalls.

The South Falls

The Willamette Valley, as seen from the Park Gate

We had a wonderful "weekend" planned. We were going to hike the falls and relax by the campfire. We even brought our swimsuits, though we weren't quite naive enough to expect that the mountain water would be warm enough for a swim. We just wanted to be prepared. We invited all the inlaws up for a brat roast on Tuesday night, and we were looking forward to a lot of fun. But Nature had other plans. You see those clouds? They are sitting directly over the park. (The sunshine is on the other side of the valley.) They sat over the park for all of Monday and Tuesday until after dinner when the stars were coming out. And they dumped buckets, buildings, resevoirs of rain on us.
We set up our tent and rigged up a tarp in the rain, but the trees were too far apart to support the tarp conveniently. We didn't have anything to prop up the tarp in the middle, so Seth ran down to the local hardware store to find some wood, while the Boo and I tried to put the camp in order. Notice what's holding our tarp up in the meantime.

Our first tarp pole, est. height 4'

We got a brief break in the clouds, just long enough to remind us why we were out there, and Seth took us on a long walk to nowhere (Sorry, Love, but you did.). He wanted to take us to see another entrance to the park, and he kept saying, "It's just around the next curve." It was not around the next curve or the curve after that or that or that. You get the picture. Still, it was beautiful and invigorating.

The road to Nowhere, i.e. the park entrance. This road does actually connect several towns with the Park, but it isn't very busy.

Walking to Nowhere

Seth and the Boogaloo, halfway to nowhere

Getting tired of walking to Nowhere.

Then the rain came back, so we spent a lot of the first evening cuddling in the tent. Boo curled up in her sleeping bag with Curious George and ignored the outside for a while. The more snuggling she gets the better. She even woke us up the next morning with "I would like a snuggle please."

Boogaloo buried in blankets and sleeping bags

The Boo, not being fully potty trained, soaked through her only two pairs of long pants in the first evening. I rinsed them out in the hope that they would dry by the following day, but it rained all night. We ended up drying them in the Jeep.

Our impromptu dryer

Not to mention, it was cold. When the rain was falling or threatening to fall, there were times when I could see my breath. I hadn't brought a coat, just Seth's Navy sweatshirt. For a whole day, the Boo had no dry long pants. We shivered and chattered and snuggled and laughed at ourselves and made it until Tuesday night, but it's fair to say that we were pretty miserable under our gung-ho faces. Boo spent a lot of time in the tent. Seth and I spent a lot of time wondering whether we should pack it up. But, doggonnit, we've only been on six camping trips since we were married, and only two of them had lasted longer than one night. We decided to stick it out.

A portrait of family togetherness

And then the sun came out again. Pake and Beppe came up to have dinner with us (Mom and Dad A took a look at the clouds and decided that we had already headed for home. There's no cell phone reception up there, so we couldn't call and tell them to come anyway.) We went for a lovely walk above the South Falls. We grilled brats over the fire and fed Pake and Beppe their first smores.

Walking to South Falls in the blessed sunshine

Pake and Beppe in the Lodge

Salmon Berries, just coming ripe

Boogaloo teaches Max about the river

Sometime during the night the stars came out, and the next morning the sun was shining like it had never seen a cloud. We ate breakfast and packed up in the midst of glorious sunshine and singing birds. If Seth hadn't been expected back at work on Thursday, we would have stayed.