I am hooked on camping! I don’t mean the sort where you lug everything on your back and you have to hike out with everything you bring in, but more like the subdivision variety -- where you may get noisy neighbors from time to time, but a hot shower is never more than a short walk away. Maybe later I can graduate to the wilderness for more than an overnight stay.
Paul and I recently got back from a camping trip down the Oregon coast. We had a blast together – we rode our bikes, explored small coast cities (although not as much as I would have liked), played cards by the campfire and made camp coffee every morning. I think the thing Paul and I enjoyed the most was setting up and tearing down camp. By the end of our trip we had it down to a science – each with our own tasks to perform. Our campsite served as our home away from home. 
Each night we played cards until the sun went down; I was victorious at Gin Rummy but Paul snaked me at Speed & Yhatzee (don’t tell him but I let him win). Paul usually retired to bed early and I read by the light of my headlamp until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. If I woke up in the middle of the night, I hoped it was almost time to get up so we could make coffee. Something about coffee made in a French Press over a camp stove makes my heart go pitter patter (especially with Cinnamon Bun creamer – yum!) As the end of the week approached, I was dreading having to return to a routine work week; I did NOT want to go home. When we returned home Friday we didn’t quite jump back to our normal routines and we had a short stay from Mike and Lori until Monday. The rest of the weekend we attended a triathlon, a luncheon, a rocket party (quite amazing) and hiked at Lost Lake – I also enlisted Lori’s green thumb for some gardening advice. As I was still in the camping spirit I fell in love with Lost Lake, a small lake 20 miles from my doorstep complete with lake view campsites. If only we had discovered it earlier…we could have been camping there all summer. I guess there’s always next year!
Below is a slideshow of our vacation; if you click on it you will be able to see it larger and you can read the captions.
