A New Old Birthday Camping Tradition

Posted on April 9, 2013 by admin

A few months have passed since I posted a blog about travel, or about anything not related to my recently released books (You’ve heard, right? Check out the links in the left sidebar.). A few things have changed in these months — I moved back to Texas, I got engaged, I got married, I became a step-mom, I moved again. Life is busy. Life is wonderful.

Last weekend was my first camping trip with my new family — my husband and four step-sons (ages 5, 7, 9, and 12). I’m so very outnumbered, but in general the boys do a good job of reminding each other to speak differently and keep the body noises to a minimum in the presence of a lady. We received lots of fun camping gear as wedding presents, and all six of us were excited to venture out on our first trip now that the weather is turning warmer.

Scoping out the best spot for our tents

In the past few years I’ve become accustomed to camping with a few friends or by myself, so it was a challenge to me to come up with all the food for six people for the weekend and make sure we didn’t forget anything important for meal preparation. I’m ok by myself winging it with peanut butter and honey sandwiches all weekend — I knew the boys, however, would not be satisfied with such little sustenance and variety. I planned and packed accordingly, and the boys ate like they were starving all weekend (heaven help us during the teen years). Of course, I had more than one cup of coffee from my trusty percolator during the weekend.

In the woods is the best place to drink coffee.

This was my third camping trip in a row on the first weekend of April. Two years ago my sister, brother-in-law, and I took my niece camping on spring break/Easter in the mountains of North Carolina. Last year my friend Jen and I went camping on Easter/my birthday in the Columbia River Gorge and the Oregon Coast. And this year, I decided that three years in a row means it’s now a tradition. From here out, our family will make every attempt to go camping on the first weekend of April/Easter/my birthday. It’s the beginning of a family tradition, and a very good tradition indeed.

Hiking through a nearby meadow

It was also our first trip with the boys where we used our new Texas State Parks annual pass. The past two years I’ve made good use of a National Parks annual pass. On our honeymoon Stephen and I phased out the National Parks pass a few days before it expired, and we purchased a State Parks pass to use over this year with the boys. So far we’ve visited (either as a couple or with the boys) Dinosaur Valley State Park, Monahans Sandhills, Davis Mountains, and now we’ve camped at Cleburne State Park. The boys enjoyed running around in the wilderness, climbing trees, playing in the dirt and the rocks — we didn’t even have time to take them to the lake this weekend at Cleburne, but they had a blast. With it being only 45 minutes from our house, I’m sure this will be a favorite camping spot for years to come.

Here’s to a new family tradition and the years to come!

A second round of Easter egg hunts — lots of great hiding places in the trees

We also hunted for bugs.

My fave part of camping — sitting and being still. For a moment.

Glow sticks after sundown

Wallowa Lake, at last

Posted on September 15, 2012 by admin

The second try was a charm for me and Wallowa Lake. After hearing extensively from my friend Marilyn about the state park in northeastern Oregon and the beauty of the Wallowa Mountains, Wallowa Lake, and the Wallowa River, I had attempted to drive over there and camp in June, but was turned back by snow (!!). Marilyn has given me excellent travel advice on Oregon in the past (she introduced me to Cannon Beach, for instance, and many great places in central Oregon, as I wrote about here), and the area is special to her and her family, so I was excited to be able to visit Wallowa Lake with Marilyn herself for an overnight trip this past week.

smoky skies in the Wallowa Mountains

the view along the opposite edge of the lake, the peaks of the “Little Alps” behind us

The weather was fine, but the skies around the Wallowa Mountains were hazy with smoke from the Cache Creek fire that continues to smolder after burning 73,000 acres. My photos of the mountains aren’t as nice as those you see with perfect blue skies and the crisp outlines of the 8,000+ foot peaks known as the “Little Alps,” but I was more concerned with capturing my memories of the area than perfect photos.

a great spot for drinking morning coffee — on the Wallowa River near the Wallowa Lake Lodge

We spent the afternoon wandering around in the forest near the West Fork of the Wallowa River looking for a waterfall Marilyn had visited years back with her family. Somehow we managed to spend three hours hiking around the area in search of a waterfall about twenty minutes’ walk from the road — we’re blaming it on bad directions from a well meaning local, when we should have gone with Marilyn’s gut instincts, which turned out to be correct three hours later.

three hours later…

Despite being lost, it was a gorgeous day for a walk, great weather, fall colors on the trees, and good conversation. The next morning we drank our coffee on chairs under some trees on our hotel lawn, with a sun-sparkling view of the river running into the lake and the peaceful sound of the water. More walking, more talking, more taking in the forest and river and mountains — it’s a wonderful area, and I wish I’d had more time to spend there earlier in the summer.

My plan in June had been to stay in a yurt at the state park — there are two yurts available amidst the tent sites, and when I saw the campgrounds I was even sadder that my camping trip was preempted. It’s a lovely location and would be a great place to camp.

This time around, Marilyn and I stayed in the Wallowa Lake Lodge, built as a hunting lodge in 1923. It’s the oldest hotel I’ve stayed in in recent years — a decade older than the Stone Village Tourist Camp I stayed at in Fort Davis, Texas, last March. The interior of the Wallowa Lake Lodge was recently refurbished, and the rooms have a charming antique appeal. The fixtures and the decor are so quaint and unique, yet everything worked well in the bathroom. No phones or televisions in the rooms, but they do have wi-fi.

the charming Wallowa Lake Lodge

There’s one telephone in a booth in the lobby — Marilyn told me it used to be the only phone available in the entire lake area, and when they first started camping here decades ago, she would have to come to the hotel if she needed to make a phone call.

I promise the Oregon State Parks don’t pay me, people, but once again I’d like to recommend this latest park I’ve visited, Wallowa Lake State Park. I truly have loved visiting each park I’ve been to in Oregon.

Junior Ranger at Mt Rainier

Posted on September 12, 2012 by admin

My niece kept forgetting where we were and saying how excited she was to be at Mt Everest, and she asked me once every seven minutes about s’mores — “Can we make s’mores now? Can I make a s’more to take back to my mom? How many s’mores can I eat tonight? Can we have s’mores for breakfast tomorrow?” This, my friends, is what it’s like to camp with a seven-year-old. This, in fact, is one of the best parts of being an aunt.

our campsite at Ohanapecosh

My sister has this ridiculously awesome job that sends her to cities around the U.S. to meet with research partners, including twice yearly trips to Seattle. Last September and this September, she’s also brought along my niece on her business trips, and I’ve driven over to the west side of the Cascades and hung out with Patience in the glorious fall sunshine of Seattle while her mother works. Last year we went to the Pike Place Market at least twice a day (my niece is such a hoot — she doesn’t ask for candy or toys, she begs for fresh fruit and flowers), hung out in various coffee shops (this kid really loves coffee shops, I think because she loves talking to new people and coffee shops are full of people), visited the children’s museum, stood at the bottom of the Space Needle and stared up (because this aunt is afraid of heights and wasn’t about to get on that elevator), took the ferry to Bainbridge Island (twice!), and walked the streets of downtown Seattle hand in hand while Patience sang at the top of her lungs and garnered applause from delighted strangers (no tips, people? come on!).

flowers from Pike Place Market, outside the original Starbucks

On this year’s visit I decided we should venture outside of the city and see Mt Rainier National Park as part of Patience’s trip. Her parents and I took her camping last Easter in North Carolina, the grandest adventure of her young life, and I figured she shouldn’t miss an opportunity to see the tallest mountain in the Cascades. The weather was fine, so in addition to driving out to play at the park, we also decided to camp for a night on the Ohanapecosh River. We pitched a tent, built a fire, cooked “the best mac and cheese ever in the world” (according to Patience, and who am I to argue?), and read library books by flashlight. It was wonderful.

hiking at Grove of the Patriarchs

The visitor centers at the park are open for a couple more weeks, until they close for the season at the first of October, so we also spent a little time talking to a park ranger and finding out what Patience would need to do to earn her Junior Ranger badge from the national park. The ranger gave her an activity book and instructions for which pages to complete for her age level in order to earn the badge. Over the next afternoon and morning, Patience completed a scavenger hunt, worked on sentence scrambles about wilderness safety, logged details about our hike through Grove of the Patriarchs, and told the story of our camping trip through her own artistic interpretation in colored pencil. She learned about the “10 essentials” to take along on a trip into the wilderness and insisted that I carry a bag of nuts and bottles of water on our 20 minute walk to a hot spring the second morning, just in case, because the book said you should always have extra food and water. I decided it would be easier to fill my pockets with nuts than to explain that if something happened to us that morning we were still close enough to the campsite that I could holler for help — better to reinforce the rules of the “10 essentials” at this stage.

junior ranger swearing-in ceremony

Thank you, Suzie, for bringing along Patience and allowing us to have a fantastic adventure at Mt Rainier.

Crater Lake

Posted on August 18, 2012 by admin

A couple of weeks ago I went with friends to camp at Crater Lake in Oregon — well, we actually camped at nearby Diamond Lake, but our purpose in driving down there was to see Crater Lake. I’ve wanted to post a blog with a few photos since I got back, but time gets away from me these days. I miss blogging regularly, but I also have enjoyed all the other things going on in my life (both creative and personal) that have been taking up my time and kept me from posting.

So here they are, a few photos from the beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, amazing, jaw-dropping, breath-taking corner of God’s creation known as Crater Lake.

Our first view of Crater Lake after entering the park from the north entrance

So much BLUE!

My favorite photo from a day of driving around the rim

View of the Phantom Ship volcanic rock formation

Laura, after our hike down to the lake’s surface that was supposed to be comparable to 65 flights of stairs — we decided it’s not nearly as bad as 65 flights of stairs sounds.

The water is warm after your feet have gone numb from the cold.

North of Bend

Posted on June 20, 2012 by admin

On the third evening of my stay at the yurt in Tumalo State Park, I was joined by a dear friend from the Tri-Cities, Marilyn. It turned out that she needed to pick up her grandson in Central Oregon the same week that I would be there camping, so she called and asked if she could come see me there and check out the yurt. Of course I welcomed the company and told her to bring a sleeping bag along and stay the night — the yurt sleeps five, so there was plenty of room.

Marilyn is originally from Portland but knows all of Oregon very well, and since the day I arrived in the Northwest, she has been my travel consultant — but this was the first chance we had to actually do some touring together. I was more than happy to let her take the driver’s seat and show me around. It’s easier to crane your neck and look at all the glory of Creation surrounding you if you don’t have to worry that you might run your car off the road over a cliff.

Our first stop was the Lava Lands Visitor Center in the Deschutes National Forest 15 miles south of Bend, but we learned upon arrival that they were closed until the next day. After my drive on the Cascade Lakes Byway the day before, I really wanted to stop and see a lava field up close, so I decided it would be worth it to drive out of my way to come back to Lava Lands when they opened again (look for that blog post tomorrow) — how on earth could I drive all the way back to Washington without seeing the lava fields and the fire lookout tower on Lava Butte up close and personal?

From there, Marilyn drove us back north of Bend to the Crooked River Gorge, 9 miles north of Redmond, not far from Smith Rock State Park outside Terrebonne. I happened to be looking down at something in the car when she pulled onto the bridge on Highway 97 that crosses the gorge, and when I looked up I saw we were 300 feet over the river at the bottom of the gorge. I gasped out loud — some of you may know that I’m afraid of heights and of bridges in particular (remember my Capilano Suspension Bridge story?), and I wasn’t quite prepared to find myself in that spot. Truly breath-taking. We stopped for a while to walk around on the old two-lane bridge. This photo is of the nearby railroad bridge over the gorge, and you can’t see it because of the angle of the sun and the color of the sky at that time of day, but the Three Sisters of the Cascade Range are sticking their heads up over the bridge.

the Crooked River Gorge

Next, we headed further north towards the town of Madras and the Cove Palisades State Park, where the Crooked River flows into Lake Billy Chinook, and you can stand on the edge of the cliffs and look down into the water hundreds of feet below, or miles and miles into the distance at Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, Three Fingered Jack, the Three Sisters, and Broken Top.

Broken Top and the Three Sisters from the Cove Palisades

By this time I was feeling like old friends with the peaks of the Cascades. Each time I saw them from a different vantage point was a reunion of sorts.

view of Mt Hood from the Cove Palisades

Thank you, Marilyn, for making my day.

another view of Mt Hood

Writing Retreat in Bend, Oregon

Posted on June 18, 2012 by admin

As I said in my previous post, I booked a yurt in Central Oregon for a little writing getaway and had to take the only reservation available between June and October. In my mind, June is late enough in the year to qualify as summer, but my mind still isn’t used to winters in the Northwest — winters that last longer than mid February, like I grew up knowing in Texas. So last week’s trip to Wallowa Lake got snowed out, and I regrouped for Bend this week.

Oregon, oh you wonderful, beautiful, amazing Oregon, I cannot begin to decide on a favorite spot in all the state. I have a deep fondness for the coast and for the Columbia River Gorge, but now Bend and Central Oregon are competing for my affections. I couldn’t have picked a better spot for a writing retreat, and thankfully the weather cooperated this time around. I spent four days camping in a yurt at Tumalo State Park on the Deschutes River just outside of Bend — it was a little more crowded and noisier than Ft Stevens was in early April, but it proved to be perfect nevertheless. Easy access to town, to gas and food, to the highways and byways leading to all the glorious wonders of our Creator’s creation nearby.

the Deschutes River at Tumalo State Park

I got to have dinner the first evening with friends I hadn’t seen in a few years, and they showered me with recommendations and maps and tour information for the remainder of my time. Look for a post on Cascade Lakes Byway soon, a spectacular driving tour I wouldn’t have taken if it weren’t for their suggestion. They also gave me a copy of a guide for a walking tour in historic downtown Bend — and unlike some towns that claim “historic” downtown areas, I felt Bend actually qualified, with its architecture dating to the early twentieth century and its ties to the Oregon lumber mill industry. (Random facts gleaned from the Heritage Walk info: Clark Gable once worked at the Brooks-Scanlon mill, and Amelia Earhart’s home with her husband G.P. Putnam is on the tour.)

Drake Park in Bend, Oregon

For a good 360-degree view of Bend, the desert and Blue Mountains to the east, and the snow covered peaks of the Cascades to the west, I walked up Pilot Butte one afternoon. Don’t make the mistake, like I did, of calling it a “mountain” to a local. I guess it’s bigger than a hill but doesn’t qualify as a mountain when you’re in sight of the Three Sisters, Mt Washington, Mt Bachelor, and the like. Whatever you call it, it’s a good way to get an overview of the surrounding areas, with great interpretive displays (and a restroom, for the record) at the summit.

And lest I be accused of just gallivanting around Oregon every chance I get, I actually did write each morning in my yurt. I kept my regular writing schedule, working breakfast to lunch time, and put more words on the page each day than I had been averaging the previous week. A productive and beneficial writing retreat, indeed.

Oregon Trail and a Change of Plans

Posted on June 8, 2012 by admin

After my friend Jen and I stayed in a yurt at Ft Stevens State Park in Oregon in April, I had the idea to try out another couple of state parks with yurts as a writing retreat while working on West Texas Interlude. Yurts are a perfect way to camp and write — they have locks on the door, so I feel safe camping by myself and being all solitary and writerly, and they have electricity, so I can plug in my laptop. Perfect.

They’re so perfect, they’re extremely popular and booked out months in advance. So, when I got around to looking for places to stay and write this summer, my options were limited. Very limited. I had two dates available in June at two parks, or I could wait until October. I quickly booked the June dates.

And so, on Tuesday morning I set out for Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon — Oregon’s “dry side,” the half of the state that, unlike Portland and the coast, gets lots of sun and little precipitation. Except when I set off, it was pouring rain in Kennewick — and it poured on me all the way to the Blue Mountains, where the rain changed to snow. Snow on June 5.

No worries, I thought, I’ll just make my first stop of the trip, and surely it will clear up and I’ll be able to enjoy the Wallowa Mountains and Wallowa Lake this afternoon and tomorrow in a less rainy/snowy/cloudy haze.

That first stop was the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center outside Baker City, a fantastic little visitor center that I highly recommend if you’re ever in northeastern Oregon. They accept the National Parks Annual Pass, which was the main reason I went out of my way to see it on this trip — why not drive a little further if you don’t have to pay the $8 entrance fee?

at the top of Flagstaff Hill

I do, however, recommend not going on a day with high winds and rain, so that you can walk the 2 mile path from the interpretive center on Flagstaff Hill down to the ruts from the Oregon Trail. Just standing at the top of the hill to take a couple of photos of covered wagons was miserable for me — the hood of my rain jacket alternately flew over my eyes and threatened to strangle me, or it violently jerked me backwards. As much as I wanted to make the walk, I was too chicken/lazy/reasonable to do it.

view of the location of old Oregon Trail ruts, from the top of Flagstaff Hill

A few facts I learned at the interpretive center: One out of every ten people who started the trail died along the way. That adds up to one grave for every 80 yards of the 2,000 mile trail. The “prairie schooner” style wagons had a wagon bed 4 feet by 10 feet in size — that’s the same size as one of the raised garden beds at Quinault Community Garden (pretty big for a garden bed, small for a vehicle that holds all your earthly possessions). Some single men skipped the wagon and oxen all together and just walked the trail to Oregon, pushing their belongings in a wheel barrow. For 2,000 miles. That is a heart bent on emigrating.

By the time I finished up at the Oregon Trail and made my way back to La Grande and the turn-off to Wallowa Lake, the forecast hadn’t cleared up like I’d so optimistically assumed it would. Thick clouds still surrounded the mountains, and the online reports still called for a flood watch on the Grande Ronde River until late that afternoon. Snow and rain showers would continue through the night — the snow would be at levels above 4,500 feet, and the campground where I’d booked my yurt was at 4,600 feet. So much for the dry side of Oregon.

As much as I would love to say I’d camped in the snow in June, I’d already had enough driving on slick roads with busily flip-flopping windshield wipers for one day, and I didn’t relish giving up the interstate for a 2-lane mountain road for the next hour and a half in those conditions. Not for an overnight trip where I wouldn’t even see the mountains because of all the clouds and fog surrounding me. I headed for home (back through the snow in the Blues) and will try again next week for a writing retreat at a yurt in Bend, Oregon.

Yurt Camping on Easter

Posted on April 18, 2012 by admin

When Jen and I first started talking about taking a little trip to Oregon this spring, we intended to backpack along the Pacific Crest Trail for a few days. Until we realized 1) it’s cold in Oregon in the spring and 2) we don’t have backpacking gear. I do, however, have friends in the Tri-Cities who are happy to loan me the gear for car camping, so we decided to switch tactics.

We further switched plans when the date for our trip got closer and it was still in the mid-30s overnight, raining, and windy in the Columbia River Gorge. Not the kind of weather I want for tent camping. The Oregon State Parks website, though, informed us that we had another option for camping on the coast: rustic yurts. These are sturdy shelters modeled after those used by nomads in Turkey and Mongolia, and they’re perfect for a camping trip where you (read: I) are feeling too lazy to put up a tent or too coddled to sleep in the cold. They’ve shown up in parks and campgrounds across the U.S., but Oregon in particular has been a popular place for yurts. I, for one, am now a huge fan of yurts.

Here are a few photos from our yurt at Ft Stevens State Park in Oregon:

Behold: the yurt.

one angle inside the yurt

another angle inside the yurt

making coffee outside the yurt

My Niece, the New Camper

Posted on April 28, 2011 by admin

When I visited North Carolina last spring (and blogged about my experience with GPS in a new town), my niece Patience said she wanted me to take her to Myrtle Beach so we could both wear bikinis and swim. We went to Carolina Beach instead, and since it was the first week of April, I opted to wear long pants and a sweater.

This year, for Patience’s first official spring break as a school-aged kid, she said she wanted to go to the mountains. So, my sister, brother-in-law, and I packed the car and drove from Raleigh to Lake James State Park in western North Carolina where we camped for two nights with a friend of mine. It was Patience’s first time to camp somewhere other than the back porch, and she approached the experience with the wonder and delight of an almost-6-year-old going on the greatest adventure of her life.

For several nights before the trip, she slept in her sleeping bag on the floor of her room. The real reason for this arrangement was so I could have a bed to sleep in — but Patience declared she was practicing with her sleeping bag for when we went camping.

As we ran errands before the trip, she let everyone know where we were going. When I took her to REI to buy a kid-sized headlamp with a bright pink strap for her to use after dark at the lake, she told the guy at the check-out that we were camping for spring break. Same when we went to the grocery store to stock up for our snacks and meals. The grocery store cashier replied, “That sounds like more fun than working. Will you stay here and work for me so I can go camping?”

Patience sighed and told him, “Oh, I just wish we had 500 seats in the car, and then you could go with us!”

Packing the car on the morning of our departure, she asked, “Is it time for smores yet?”

“Not yet. We have to get to the campsite first, and then we have to build a fire.”

Once the fire was built, the marshmallows roasted, and the chocolate melted, Patience climbed up on the ledge, sidled up next to my friend, and said with conviction, “This is the best night ever!”

When you’re almost 6, holding marshmallows over a fire in the woods really is the best night of your short life. When you’re 35, it’s still pretty great.

Patience and I shared a snug two-man tent. All her practice paid off, and she slept well in her sleeping bag. She enjoyed the tent so much that she zipped herself in it a few times when the grown-up conversation around the campsite bored her. During one extended stay in the tent, we heard her shuffling and grunting like she was quite busy at a task. I discovered later that she had rearranged our two sleeping bags, head to foot and side to side.

“You were busy in here. What else did you do?” I asked her.

“Oh, I was doing a few flips.”

Of course. What else are you going to do on a lazy afternoon around the campsite, but do flips inside the tent?

Camping Observations from West Texas

Posted on October 28, 2010 by admin

our campsite at Guadalupe Mountains

The final entry from the road trip series “The West Texas Idea”

I thought it would be fun to end this series of blogs on my road trip in West Texas by listing some observations about camping that Janel, Jen, and I made over the course of our trip. I don’t think I’ve ever included a bullet-pointed list in my blog before. Enjoy this “first” for me; it may also be a last.

You see lots of different types of campers at national park campgrounds, especially if you plant yourself and observe the comings and goings for several days at one campsite. Here are some of the people we saw at Big Bend and Guadalupe Mountains:

The Block Party Family—They camped in a tent, not an RV, but otherwise they had pretty much the same amenities you would find in a suburban home. Mom covered the wooden picnic table with a tablecloth at each meal, and she set up a clothesline from the table to the grill. Their site was lit up with several lanterns at night, and at first glance I thought maybe they had strung twinkle lights in the trees for what appeared to be a party to which all the other campers in our campground had been invited. Nope, that’s just all their lanterns.

The Bikers—On our first night at Big Bend, the site nearest to us was occupied by three middle-aged men on Harleys. Unlike other bikers we saw on this trip (and we saw a lot of bikers), these guys weren’t pulling their bikes on trailers behind an SUV from place to place and then riding through the scenic parts of the park. All of their camping gear fit with them on their bikes. I was impressed. Early that first morning, I waited for the coffee to boil in our percolator and watched them pack up their site, fighting off the covetousness in my heart over one bright red retro bike in particular. When they were ready to go, one of the guys announced to the other two, “Time to wake up the camp,” and they started their engines and were off with a roar. “Well, girls,” I said to Jen and Janel, “we just missed our chance to see the park on the back of those bikes.”

The Germans in a Van—I also had a problem coveting the van of a German couple we ran into a couple of times at Guadalupe Mountains. I keep threatening to buy a van to live out of instead of finding a house to rent, and this German set-up would be perfect. They actually brought the van over from Germany, and who knows where all they have already gone in the States—probably more places than I’ve been. They parked near our tent site and planned to stay the night, and by craning our necks as inconspicuously as possible we were able to see in the side door as they were getting stuff out to cook dinner. Surprisingly, the van was very organized inside. A place for everything, and everything in its place—made me want that van even more. Jen got a better view of the interior when our lighter gave out while trying to get the burner on our camp stove lit for dinner, and she went over to borrow some matches. Sadly, when the campground host made her rounds that evening, she declared the van to belong in the RV category, and the Germans had to move from the tent section to the RV section, which is much less picturesque.

The Americans in a Minivan—On our last night at Big Bend, we observed a couple camping in a minivan in the tent site directly between us and the toilet. With three girls in our group, there was a lot of walking back and forth from our tent to the toilet, so we made quite a few observations of this couple. It didn’t take us long to figure out that they hadn’t really planned their trip. I’m not sure how one ends up this far south on the Mexican border without planning, but somehow they did. They slept in the minivan that night, and the next morning we were quite intrigued by the items we saw outside the minivan at their picnic table: approximately 15 bags of chips, a ladder, and a brand new electric coffee maker that I’m guessing came from a WalMart in Midland. Janel said she saw the lady walking back from the bathroom holding the empty coffee maker in one hand and its box in the other. It never occurred to me to bring an electric coffee maker to the park and try to plug it in in the bathroom—but who am I to judge?

In addition to our observations about the people around us, we also noted a few lessons we learned over the course of our trip. First, and props to my dad for this one, it’s good to organize all your miscellaneous gear and cooking utensils in an action packer-type box that you can take in and out of the back of your vehicle easily when you’re car camping. I use the word organize loosely—our stuff started out organized in the box, but by the end of the week we were throwing it back in the box however we could make it fit and still get the lid to shut. But at least it made it much easier to get stuff in and out of the car than if we were throwing it directly into the backseat instead.

Second, car camping with just girls is OK, but if you’re going to do any backcountry camping, it’s probably better to have a boyfriend along. I don’t mean a friend who’s a boy, because chances are he isn’t going to feel obligated to carry any of your junk for you. But from personal experience, and observation of a couple we met who camped near the top of Guadalupe Peak, when backpacks and boyfriends are involved, I know who’s going to end up carrying 50 pounds of gear for bragging rights and who’s going to have a daypack with a change of clothes and a toothbrush.

I loved camping and hiking with Jen and Janel, but they never would carry my stuff for me.

And lastly, even though they might make you move your uber cool German van to the RV section, we learned it’s good to make friends with the campground hosts. Partly because they might loan you a lighter when you accidentally break the matches from your new German friends and still can’t get your camp stove lit for dinner. Partly because they have lots of stories to tell from all the places they’ve been since retiring. And partly because they get lonely and bored living in these remote parks, and it’s a nice gesture to talk to lonely, bored people.

Rebecca Henderson

writing, reading, living

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