Yellowstone!

To make up for a loooooong day of driving yesterday, today we made no Eastward progress on our trip and explored a sliver of Yellowstone National Park. We could have spent a week here, there is so much to see and do!

My mom has a Senior's Park Pass that got us into the park for free! Though we were greeted by this flashing Bison sign, unfortunately the amazing natural resources we saw did not include much wild life. We are hoping our morning trip through the park tomorrow will be more fruitful. 

Even without animals we saw so much! We started our day with a dip in the Madison River at a fly fishing spot at the side of the road. The water was clear and not as cold as you expect a mountain river to be (I guess all those hot springs and geysers heat the rivers and streams) We waded in one stream that was as warm as a toasty bath 

Crystal clear!

Wishing we'd worn shorts!

The road from the west entrance of the park to Old Faithful was peppered with mind-blowing sites. We stopped at several geyser attractions, a path through the woods that led to a meadow by the river and a historical marker that talked a out the Nez Perce war. We arrived at Old Faithful just after an eruption so we got some lunch at the 100 year old Yellowstone Lodge (that had a variety of gluten-free dishes and accommodations listed!) and explored the Visitors Center. Here are some shots of the day:

Lobby of Yellowstone Lodge

Old Faithful!

Visitors Center photobomb 

New National Park Passports, complements of Grandma Judy 

Spotted while eating dinner. 

That's the best description they could come up with?

There is not much going on in this part of Idaho!

I love these windmills. They are so futuristic in such desolate surroundings that I feel like we've stumbled onto the set of some Mad Max-esque dystopian movie set.

Day one: Farewell Bend State Park

We have arrived and are safely ensconced in the pop- up (which needs a name - any suggestions?). The park is just at the Eastern end of Oregon but crossed over into Mountain Time so it is pretty late here. 

Getting packed up was a little hectic and a couple of non-essential but nice to have things were forgotten but we'll be fine. 

Before setting off, we did a brief traveling ritual. We poured an offering of Mountain Dew on the tires to honor Asphaltia, modern American Goddess of the roadways. 

Then we all made wishes for our journey and left the pennies on the top of the pop-up. (Sorry no pics of that) They were all scattered before we were on the freeway! 

In the spirit of spontaneity, we stopped at the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Wasco County Museum at lunchtime. I hope that we'll maintain a spirit of adventure on this trip and this was a great way to start that intention. The museum had all kinds of cool exhibits about the geology and natural history of the gorge and the native and Oregon Trail history of the region. There were a bunch of interesting and hands on exhibits. 

On the Oregon Trail!

The exhibits of native life & art really caught their attention!

We spent an  hour and could have stayed for twice that! We'll be back!

We're developing ways to entertain and manage the hours in the car. Today was a healthy combination of kindle/iPad game time with some more engaging and creative choices. 

Ainsley latch-hooking

Duncan doing some sort of drawing project

We also saw some beautiful scenery and this weird tree farm:

We were surprised to discover that it was  over 100* when we got to Farewell Bend so we opted not to cook over a campfire and used the camper's stove and spent the time saved playing in the sprinklers and showering. Now the kids are crashed out and I should join them as we have a 450 mile journey ahead of us tomorrow!

Preparations for the road

I predict that my phone-based blog posts are going to be largely visual. That is not my usual mode of expression but there are limitations with a phone-sized keyboard!

I have been quite focused on prep this week and have done a ton of it but it is still hard to imagine that we are leaving tomorrow morning!

I have done a lot of "kid entertainment" prep. That will be its own post soon but here is most of the fruits of that labor:

Most of the food has been assembled:

(Plus some fridge thing and some shopping along the way)

The camper is ready to get loaded and hitched!

I have a disturbing to do list for the day so I need to get cracking!

Test post

This is a post from my iPhone! Getting all the tech onboard for the trip! We're leaving on Tuesday. Lots to do before then...

In the meantime, here's a photo, just cuz I can!

Weekday camping trip

School just ended and already our lives are getting sneakily too busy for some of the unscripted fun I was hoping to accomplish this summer and we're needing the weekends to take care of some necessary home-centric things. Before the busy-ness takes hold, I decided to take the kids camping this week. It gave them a chance to do something other than sit around and ask when they could watch TV again and it gave me a chance to take the pop-up out on my own and see if I could really handle it (I can!).

We opted for a nearby state park that is about 45 minutes away. The park is pretty new and has miles of hiking trails, a playground, an amazing 18 hole frisbee golf course and horse camping & trails. Right behind our campsite, in between the East and West loops was a small 3 hole frisbee golf course that was very entertaining for the get up and go set I was camping with.

Despite some damp, cool weather and leaving all the non-chocolate ingredients for Trail Mix and S'mores at home, the trip was a great success. The camper really earned its keep as an easy, comfortable place to entertain ourselves during occasional downpours. Since we are raising Oregonians, the kids were less disturbed by the sporadic enthusiastic rainstorms than I would have been at their ages. Our luck turned with the emergence of sunshine in the afternoon and we explored 10 of the 18 holes of frisbee golf (insider tip - there is no basket for hole #7!). We'll be going back to finish the course, that's for sure!

Because I have a penchant for over-preparing for camping meals, I was able to redeem my campfire cred with some wickedly wonderful banana boats (forget the marshmallows, use peanut butter cups and M&Ms!). We also attempted 2 fire-cooked meals - bacon & eggs in paper bag and chicken & veggies in foil pouches. The lack of cured wood and an impatient chef (*ahem*)  meant we were cooking bacon over flame instead of coals which went about as well as you'd expect (we broke down and cooked some bacon in a pan). I'm still left with 2 campfire meals that we didn't get to on this trip!

Before we left, Ainsley & I made fire starters out of egg cartons, dryer lint and paraffin wax. I also finally remembered to buy a hatchet so was able to split wood. Because of these important prep steps, the fires were easy to light and fantastic! Making fires and cooking over them is my favorite part of camping.

Unfortunately, my camera battery is dead so pictures will be forthcoming in a post of their own.

First pop up trip

Look! I can compose blog posts in the woods! Of course I can't *post* blog posts from the woods so by the time you see this, our first camping trip with the pop up will be completed but this is a nice way to spend a few minutes in the morning as the sun starts to creep up over the trees.

We are in Lotus, California at a campground by the south fork of the American river, not far from where the Gold Rush started. The campground is a haven for river rafters. Yesterday morning there were dozens of groups coming through the camp, donning life jackets and listening to safety tutorials before heading out onto the temporarily risen waters of the American river (Tim & the kids saw the river rise as they were out throwing rocks and in the afternoon when we went back out to go swimming, the rocks at low portions of the river were visible)

This has been a nice first run with the pop up. Two nights, not far enough from civilization to worry about forgetting things, learning a lot about how we'd like to manage the organization of the minimal storage area in the camper. For not having practiced backing up *at all*, we did a pretty good job getting the camper positioned, even with a pretty awkwardly positioned site. 

It is nearly 8am and we have a loooooong drive back to Portland today so I should get started with my day. Before I go, here's a shot of our camper fulfilling its destiny...

Final note: It is a little past midnight on Sunday night/Monday morning. We just drove 14 hours home from Lotus, CA and put a bit over 1,300 miles on the new car/pop-up combo this weekend. The trip was a success. More later. Sleep now.