Same Place, Next Year

Camping was a big part of my life growing up.  My father and uncle would take the boys in our family (myself and 2 brothers) on an annual camping and fishing trip in Michigan, and we always had a great time.  When we got older, my parents sent us to a canoeing camp in Ontario, which was an awesome experience.  Young boys in the wilderness; getting into as much trouble as we could!

Canoe camp

Portage

My brothers dropped out after a year or two, but I continued going into my college years as a counselor.  After the age of 16, the camp would send a select group of 10 young men on a 2 month long trip into the wildest parts of northern Ontario and Quebec.  These are my fondest memories, where we would paddle for weeks without seeing another human being.  A true wilderness experience!

Typical campsite in Canada

After college, I got busy with work and marriage, and got away from camping except for occasional backpack hikes when I could arrange it.  I still enjoyed it, but the rest of my family was not as enthusiastic as I was. 

The Unhappy Camping Family

Then when my son Shane was about 12, he and I started going on our own camping weekend at least once every year.  This was when we lived in Colorado.  We continued to try to do this when we moved to Washington State as well, and he seemed to enjoy it as much as I did when I was his age.

Then our kids graduated from college, and went their own ways, and the annual camping trips faded away.  I moved around to places like Calgary and Arizona, and internationally, while the kids stayed in the Seattle area making their own lives.  Then about 15 years ago during one of the times we were living in Washington again, I decided to revive the annual camping trip with Shane.  This time, our daughter Amy decided she wanted to join us, so it became a real family affair.  Since that time, we have tried to go each summer, but haven’t always made it.  We have a great time when we do, and we have settled on one particular area on the Teanaway River near Cle Elem, WA.

Along the Teanaway

Since my background is wilderness camping, I have a pre-conditioned prejudice against established campgrounds with running water and toilets.  I like the solitude of being away from other people.  After trying several different “remote” sites, we have settled on a beautiful campsite near the junction of Beverly Creek and the Teanaway River where we can avoid having any neighbors nearby, and we try to get this spot every year.  This year Shane, Alex, and I went up on Thursday to ensure we could claim our favorite spot before the regular weekend rush on Friday.  Success – no one was there, and in fact there were no other campers at all at a number of sites we passed on the way up there, so we grabbed it and setup camp.  Our daughter, Amy and husband Mike, had to work on Thursday and part of Friday, so joined us around dinner on Friday.

Campsite 2015

 

The weekend included lots of good cooking, some nice walks through the woods and up forest service roads, and plenty of relaxing.  We all like to camp close to the creek so we can listen to the soothing sound of running water, and small waterfalls.  It’s magic for relaxation!  Because of the high fire danger in Washington forests this year, there was a complete burn ban in effect, except for propane stoves, etc.  This put a damper on the night time ambiance, but otherwise was not a big issue.  We understand the reason.  In fact while we were camped there were a number of large, out-of-control fires burning in other parts of Washington.  The smoke from these fires was quite heavy at times, obscuring the views of nearby hills, etc.

The main entertainment this year was watching two Border Collie puppies that Shane and Alex just got (they were 9 weeks old).  They were very skilled at keeping each other entertained, as well as entertaining us.  They would chase each other, biting and rolling around, and everything was new to them – sticks, stones, yellow jackets, old dog poop, etc.  They would be hyper for 15-20 minutes, then crash and sleep for about 15 minutes.  From the time they got up in the morning until dark the pattern was the same.  During our camping weekend, the pups were introduced to collars for the first time, and leashes.  They tolerated the collars OK, but the leashes were a big problem.  We let them just drag them around behind them from time to time, which seemed to help, but there is more work to do to get them used to leashes.

Puppies

Our true wilderness experience has been tempered in recent years by Shane’s tendency to enjoy “comfort”.  Last year he brought a very serious infrared heater fired by a 5-gallon propane bottle.  We teased him at first, but by the end of the weekend we were all huddled around the heater (it was chilly), saying how great it was (except it sounded like a jet engine).  This year he brought a large 3-burner camp stove also powered by a 5-gal propane bottle.  Again it turned out to be very handy and could heat a large pot of water to boiling in about 3 minutes.  He has also spoiled us with a huge 12’ X 12’ open-sided shelter for the “kitchen”.  One final luxury was a propane patio heater with a flame inside a glass tube, which we used to simulate a campfire in lieu of a real wood fire.  Cool idea, but it wasn’t quite the same.

Kitchen

On Sunday morning, after a leisurely breakfast, we all broke camp and headed back to our respective homes and our normal lives.  But we left relaxed, refreshed, and ready to face daily life with better attitudes after a fun weekend together.  We all agreed that we would plan on doing it again at the same place next year.  Why change a good thing?

The Family, Puppies, & Miss Daisy