With me gone at camp, The Bigs ate all kinds of things I don’t really care for.
First they had Corn Chowder with White Fish (I would have liked this one):
Leek, mushroom, and kale subji (mushrooms, blech):
Asparagus salad (asparagus, ick):
Toast farro pilaf with mushrooms (you know my thoughts on mushrooms):
Sri Lankan beet curry with green bean mallum (where do I start?):
They also went out for dinner (treat themselves pretty good when they ship me off!). They went for Moroccan at Papillion. They started with zaalouk (smoked eggplant, almond gremolata, olives, and warm pita).
Dad had the braised lamb shank (berber spices, prunes, apricots, brown butter farro, braised fennel, and almonds), and
Mom had the Tanjia Marrakesh (slow-cooked, ras el hanout, coulette beef with roasted potatoes, preserved lemon, and couscous).
It wasn’t all fun for The Bigs. They also picked and processed 100 pounds of cherries. Yes, 100 pounds. They didn’t even pick all the cherries in the tree – they couldn’t reach them. They froze cherries, made cherry jam,
air-fryed cherries,
dried cherries, and more!
On Friday, The Bigs picked me up from camp. They were pretty worried. They didn’t need to be. I had a blast. Unprompted I said, ‘It was awesome. You were right’. You were right, magic to all parents’ ears!
The Bigs had planned quite a welcome home day for me. We headed straight to Smith Rock to rock climb. First we had lunch. They made me Momofuku noodles with a fried egg and kippered herring (now, that is my kind of meal).
Then we did some fun climbs in Northpoint.
After that, we headed to the Yacht Club for dinner. I got pizza from Pizza, Peace, Love, Pepperoni. I had a pie with red sauce, pesto, burrata, fresh basil, and balsamic glaze. Pop, next time you make pizza, I want this!
The Bigs rented The Martian to watch after dinner (don’t worry, we already read the book). It was the best day ever!
The Bigs had planned a short bike packing trip for the weekend, but when they saw how tired I was and the weather forecast (90+ all weekend)…they pivoted. We decided to go check out some new lakes. First up? Lake Simtustus. It’s a dammed portion of the Deschutes River. It was beautiful.
We spent about four hours on the river paddling and swimming. We discovered the hard way that we did not put enough sunblock :(.
Sunday was just as hot, so we headed to Crescent Lake.
It was beautiful and clear.
Why do we have shirts on if it is 95? Oh right, the sunburn…
We think this is Diamond Peak.
It was another great day. Up next, a week of rock climbing camp!
This week, Jameson and I went to Naturalist + Survival Camp. We made carvings, did archery and shot blow guns, foraged and made tea from what we found, and flinted arrowheads. After camp, we went to the river to cool off.
We jumped in over and over.
On Friday, we celebrated the 4th by going rock climbing at Smith Rock.
The rope was red and white and my clothing blue…so sort of festive!
For dinner we had bison burgers with duck fat fries. The Mother found it amusing that our 4th of July feast was bison burgers with American cheese on English muffins with a side of French fries :).
I was in charge of dessert. I made fruit and yogurt cups,
topped with appropriately colored whipped cream.
On Saturday Jameson and I went mountain biking. We snacked frequently.
We also tried very hard to evade The Mother’s bothersome picture taking, but she always caught us.
14 miles later, we hadn’t had enough, so we headed to the skills park to jump things.
When we got home, it was time to start the cherry harvest. Our tree is positively bursting with fruit.
So far, we’ve picked 13 of these buckets. About 39 pounds of cherries. There are still many, many more to pick.
On Sunday, we hiked Iron Mountain. About 20 years ago, The Bigs hiked it with Nana.
It was a gorgeous hike with amazing wild flowers (which you can’t really see in this picture)
and terrific views.
After that, it was time to go to Camp Tamarack for the week. Here is the swimming area.
The fire pit and stage. Each cabin has to put on a skit.
The mess hall.
The ‘tree’ cabins.
I am in the Douglas Fir cabin.
This is what I will do each day.
This is what I look like when The Bigs promise my best friend will go to camp with me, but his mom doesn’t get him signed up in time and I am alone.
On Friday, we headed to the Ochocos for a bikepacking trip near Big Summit Prairie. Here I am just before heading out:
We had beautiful weather and a beautiful ride. I was an animal, as usual, and powered through 50 miles and 4k feet of climbing no problem.
We saw a bunch of cool old cars braving the washboards on the gravel roads.
We found a nice campsite next to a creek.
On our second day of riding, we saw a lot of wildflowers.
When we finished our ride, we found a great campsite for our camper.
On Sunday, we went for a hike on Lookout Mountain, where we saw the Motherlode cinnabar mine:
The hike was great, though the expected 7 miles turned out to be more like 10 (to be expected when you’re dealing with The Bigs), and there were loads of wildflowers.
They don’t show up well in the photo, but we could see ten Cascade volcanoes from the top.
On Tuesday we went to the High Desert Museum and saw the ‘Raptors of the Desert Sky Show’ which was amazing.
The next day we went mini golfing. Pop won, but I got my revenge.
On their last day we went to a Mexican restaurant for lunch and then to the go-karts. The go-karts were closed, so we played another round of mini golf which I won!
Another mural for Bend visitors to find.
While they were here, Nan and Pop cooked, cleaned, and helped us get caught up on some much needed gardening.
I made shrimp scampi for dinner, yum! You’ll notice Nan and Pop took the warm weather with them. It was 50 degrees F at dinner!
On Saturday, I helped Dad with a tire rack project
This week, I have outdoor climbing camp, but it doesn’t start until Tuesday. The weather warmed up Sunday, so we packed up the camper and headed to Trout Creek for some fishing.
Nan and Pop are in the house! We have been busy. Pop and I built a raised bed. We planted gold nugget cherry tomatoes.
On Saturday, we celebrated Pop’s birthday at the Sisters Rodeo. Nan and Pop tried out a few saddles but decided not to participate in any of the rodeo events.
Afterwards we celebrated with the traditional birthday steak and pesto pasta and then finished up with homemade ice cream sandwiches.
Costco sells $100 gift cards to a local Thai restaurant for $75. We got them on sale for $60, so we went to Noi Thai this week. I had the clay pot shrimp with glass noodles:
Mom had the spicy eggplant:
and Dad had the tamarind duck:
I built a speaker out of paper this week.
It works!
Jay was in Portland for a conference last week, so we met up in Hood River. Dad and I both got two days of windsurfing in.
Here I am working on getting into the footstraps:
Mom and I went to Ferment to drink Kombucha and beer while Dad was out sailing:
We stayed right down the street from Merle, the spurred African tortoise:
We also got to see Ben Webster at his son Max’s high school graduation party:
Only new food this week was flourless banana pancakes:
I won two gift certificates to Mountain Burger in the Pole Pedal Paddle, so we went and used them this week.
When the weekend came, we loaded up the camper and headed out east to Spray, OR (pop. 145) for the Spray Rodeo.
We camped on the John Day River.
I did some fishing,
and some swimming,
and some marshmallow roasting.
I slept well in my new bunk:
On Sunday, we went for a bike ride. It was beautiful, though a bit tough.
The last climb kept going and going. I took some breaks:
On Monday, we stopped at the Painted Hills National Monument on the way home for a short walk. Papa should remember this view:
We made it home just in time for my riding lesson. I rode Jack this week, and we did a lot of loping.
This week, Dad made a recipe from The Mother’s new cookbook. Porchetta chops ( pork chops wrapped in pancetta and seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic, orange zest, fennel fronds, sage, and rosemary)
and he served them with a fennel salad and green beans.
