Yes, the solstice has come and gone (Irene is pleased because it will be getting darker earlier, and hence less torturous for her to go to sleep at a decent hour). School has let out. The college student is retrieved from the dorms. But mostly, we went on a camping trip, here:
We got a late start looking into Forest Service cabin rentals (apparently the informed traveler starts in January, even before booking summer camps for the kids, which I have previously regarded as the most inappropriate late winter ritual), but luck shined upon us and we happened on what had to be a cancellation for this past weekend at the qu
aintly named Musick Guard Station, a few hours southeast of Portland in the Umpqua National Forest. Amazingly, it sleeps 10, the precise number of the combined Martin-Wickwire-Sackinger-Joughin-Andrews menagerie. And welcomes dogs.
Both
Kay and
Corinna have already blogged about the trip, so I am in the curious position of having to consider whether my memory has been coloured* by their recollections. I shall endeavour* to keep myself honest and only steal ideas that I would have had on my own anyway.
*For some reason my spellcheck is British, and I am helpless to resist it!
Camping, even in a cabin, always leaves me feeling more than a little untethered. Perhaps it is the cramped sleep, the over-abundance of fresh air, the wild pendulum of too-hot and too-cold temperatures both indoors and out. This feeling was magnified by the constant fog and drizzle which for a brief time on our last morning even turned to snow, and by the great hairy sheaths of Old Man's Beard on the tall trees surrounding us. The Dickensian piles of kids and dogs left sprawled about between forays into the woods (unaccompanied except by other kids or other dogs and possibly a walkie talkie if they remembered to turn it on and had the opposable thumbs to do so) completed the experience. When we were unceremoniously deposited from the Hollywood freeway exit onto Halsey Street on Sunday afternoon (it is always alarming to drive I-5 for hours only to exit essentially in the midst of our neighborhood, with only the 65 to 35 mph slowing of the offramp to ease the transition), it was hard to believe we hadn't been on another planet entirely.
The highlight of the weekend was following the kids out as a group to survey the wonders of their prior unchaperoned adventures (Open Mine Shaft! Wrecked Car!) We were pleasantly surprised to find that they had indeed discovered an old mine, and that the dangerousness of its disposition had been greatly exaggerated. It was closed, but the tailings were full of interesting mineral detritus. The hike immediately became a rock hounding pursuit, with folks looking con
stantly at the ground, comparing finds, and making lots of impressed "ooh"s and "oh yeah"s at each other. The kids quickly zeroed in on what to look for and found many good drusy quartz caves within the large, rusty rocks strewn about. Breaking them open by dropping an even bigger rock on top of them was obviously a big hit.
Of course there was much reading, card playing (and comparisons of which card games were played whilst camping in our youth), a round of bb gun shooting, roasting marshmallows in the wood stove (not recommended), drinking of Barenjager* with various mixers (recommended), and continuous eating, preparing food, stoking the fire to make food, heating water
for tea/food/barenjager mixers, fending children off of food, dispensing appropriate snacks, fending dogs off of food, and of course negotiating over flavors of instant oatmeal and their relative availabilities. You know, camping stuff.
*Barenjager is a honey liqueur that seems made for drinking in the out-of-doors. However, the logo is not representative of our camping activities.
While I was charmed by the Musick Guard Station in the fog, I would love to return in July when there is a chance of sunbreaks as well. (I suspect it is never perfectly hot and clear up there at 5000 ft.) The site can accommodate a few tents, and there is a great old barn that Edward nearly slept in one night (always hard to keep him from sleeping outside with a dog or two.) With any luck we can arrange for an extended stay next summer and invite a few more folks to share the space, as it is defintely a more=merrier kind of spot, I think. I will mark my calendar in January...
There was a bit of a funny story regarding our drive up to the Musick Guard Station, but I haven't quite figured out how to make a real tale of it. Suffice to say that we had the written directions in our car, and they had the 
pamphlet with the map on it in their car. So we came at the last winding maze of forest service and private access 
roads from two very different states of understanding. After several stops in the middle of the road to palaver, and more than one doubling back (and tripling forward, if there is in fact such a thing), we did arrive at the intended location, but not until after a mile or so detouring up a secondary road which we later discovered was labeled not only "unmaintained road" but also "not fit for passenger vehicles". Needless to say, on the way out Edward insisted on driving a ways back up this road to see what we could see.
l mine (the Umpqua is riddled with claims by apparent hobbyist miners, who are shockingly! politically incorrect in their appellations).
g fungi while the dogs frolicked in what was a canine heaven (except for the one large truck which trundled slowly by, yet petrified Mabel to the point of inaction. Like, deer-in-the-headlight inaction. Or, my dumb dog stopped in the middle of the road until I physically drag her out of the way of the kindly hobby miner inaction.)
