No, this is not a post about an ill-feeling creature who bolted from an interminably abominable situation. Although, now that I think of it, after a bit of a rest, I probably could weave a baling twine ball of a tale about a disgruntled and desperate creature who fled, complete with salacious and attention-grabbing, dopamine-producing fodder. Ooh, my mini-escape definitely did my creative synapses some good!
Anyway, now that I have finished dreamily diverging, on with the show, er, camping tale. In blog posts past I have mentioned that my friends have a big chunk of land on the Pack River, bordering the national forest. It truly is one of my favorite places on earth. The setting is sublime, the company is amiable and non-demanding, and when I am there time both slows and speeds up. It's hard to describe. When I am at F Camp, my awareness of every blissful minute is on full alert while at the same time my oft overworked carcass settles into complete and utter existential mode. It's a wonderful thing.
This weekend we all were feeling the late spring strain, so we kept it simple and had zero plans for to-dos. Rather, we all wandered out of our trailers whenever we felt like it, wandered down to the beach whenever we felt like it, and collectively ate dinner whenever we felt like it.
The only pre-planning we did, other than decide to camp from Friday through Monday the last weekend in May, was to have pizza night, Mexican night, and Asian night. I think one of the many reasons I love my friends is that we are all pretty serious about food, yet the menu is allowed to evolve as we see fit. One family picked up Pizza Hut on the way. The teenagers in attendance weren't sad about that development. Me, I crafted a deep dish meat lovers pizza that was baked in my cornmeal dusted cast iron skillet. For the kids I made stuffed crust pizzas. There were 10 pizzas lining our camping tables, and let's just say the kids demolished the pies with admirable growing adolescent flourish.
When at F Camp on the Pack, the kids often abandon us parents and all congregate in the yurt that is on my friend's property. You can tell I am really upset about them going and doing their own thing. Like completely triggered and devastated to an exponential degree. Also, sarcasm is fun. Anyway, they always show back up for food, so it's not like they are gone for long. Plus, if I was their age I would much rather play Throw Throw Burrito and eat junk food than sit with a bunch of adults who have a predilection for reading under a trailer awning in companionable silence.
Every afternoon we did walk down to the beach, and this weekend we had absolutely smashing weather. More than a couple of us turned a lovely shade of red. Even I got a bit rosy on my bicep which is a thing almost unheard of. Kat's rarely burn, it's a known scientific fact, but then again, I am getting oldish.
There was no way I was getting in the barely beyond ice water, as the Pack is basically just melted snow runoff at this time of year. A couple of the kids dove in, my corgi also couldn't help herself and went for multiple dips in the frigid river. Woof.
One night I went into the barn where the kids had a badminton net set up. Per the usual, even though they had all the right equipment to play the game, many of them improvised their chosen racquets. One youth was using a piece of 2X6. I didn't like the aerodynamics of the improvised device, it was rather clunky. My teammate though, he was using an autographed dustpan. Why the cleaning utensil was autographed three times was a mystery to me, but that dust pan dominated. In fact, I christened our team The Dust Pan Dominators. We crushed The Bad Mittoneers most soundly.
Of course, we abandoned our fun when the words Dessert's Ready rang out through the air. One of our friends baked a peach cobbler in a Dutch oven. A simple recipe really, just canned peaches in syrup, yellow cake mixes, and butter, but holy insulin shock and awe, did that cobbler taste good. The vanilla Tillamook ice cream only added to its awesomeness.
Asian night was fun, eating spicy tofu soup, sesame chicken, egg rolls, and sticky rice by the fire was super excellent, and then we had a contest of sorts of who could come up with the most creative s'more. I performed okay I feel with my Reese's peanut butter cup, chocolate stuffed marshmallow creation. Okay, I am being a bit silly I suppose, but I am going to blame it on an excess of popsicle consumption.
So, after three days of serenity, partaking in excellent comestibles, and achieving maximum relaxation status, I have now returned to the farm refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of spring's mad dash of chores. In fact, after I cleaned out the trailer, I went out and transplanted 30 tomato plants and planted the pumpkins and zucchinis. It's amazing how motivating and rejuvenating a little bit of rest and fun can have on a person:)
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's still highly s'mores and campfire smoke residue covered iPhone.
