Labor Day weekend we weren’t quite ready to give up traveling, so we headed out for some surfing. The water in Westport, Washington is a teensy bit warmer than the water in Oregon (despite being north of us…currents?), so we hit the road again.
There are sand dollars everywhere in Westport.
Also, jellyfish. I’ve been stung by one before, so I was a little annoyed to have them all around me everyday!
But they didn’t keep me out of the water.
I even did some body surfing.
It was NOT warm.
One day after lots of time in the water, I had clam chowder poutine for lunch. What? Normally poutine is fries, gravy, and cheese curds. This was fries, clam chowder, and shredded cheddar. Not as good, but cool nonetheless.
The final leg of our journey was a four-day, 45-mile backpacking trip in the Sawtooth Wilderness Area.
We visited and swam in a lot of beautiful alpine lakes. Most days we would stop by one lake for lunch and camp by another at the end of the day. Alice Lake:
The first night we camped at Toxaway Lake:
We stopped at Ardeth Lake for a swim and lunch:
The second night, we camped at Rock Slide Lake. It had an island:
Oatmeal, just before the rain:
The third day started out wet. Very wet. It poured on us most of the day:
The creeks were swollen, and we had a lot of creek crossings:
By the end of the day, the sun came out, and it turned into a beautiful day:
Our final night, we camped at Edith Lake. (No pictures of the lake, but it was another beautiful alpine lake with great swimming.) Our campsite:
After our hike, we headed to Redfish Lake for a day of canoeing and swimming:
On the way home, we found a great campsite along the South Fork of the Payette River. Here I am finishing up my fourth book for the trip:
There was a great swimming hole at the campsite:
On our way out of Idaho, we stopped at Kirkham Hot Springs along the Payette River:
We drove through Emmett, Idaho!
Back in Oregon, I cooked dinner on our final night of camping. Tuna Surprise:
We’re back home now but heading out tomorrow for an overnight rafting trip on the Deschutes River.
Up next, a visit to Sun Valley for some biking and hiking. We rode at Galena Lodge two days.
We also hiked to the top of Bald Mountain (the Sun Valley ski area),
and rode The Bigs favorite ride in Ketchum the Greenhorn Gulch to Imperial Gulch loop.
I also celebrated my birthday while we were there. I started the day off with a mountain bike ride and then got a “small” burrito from KB Burrito for lunch.
Next I “showered”…
All clean!
Yes, we were camping 100s of miles from home, but it was a special occasion and special occasions call for a bar! I toasted some nuts on the campfire…
and set up a pretty nice spread inside the camper.
You’ll notice I’ve elevated my bar game with custom cocktail napkins!
The Bigs let me choose dinner. I went with pasta bolognese.
And for dessert, I had a kombucha float. So good!
The day after my birthday, it was time to hit the rode again!
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.
