More camping trips

We got back from backpacking and visiting people in CA, dove into a kitchen project for a few weeks (more on that later), then went car camping in 2 places. These camping trips were back to back. There was only a 19 hour stop at home between trips. Normally I would not have done that but two big reasons lead to this decision. One-all the camping stuff was already out, I just had to do some wash, restock the ice chest (I planned the same meals for both trips simplifying the shopping, meal prep and packing) and load up the kayaks for the second trip. Two-we wanted to do something with the family before school started up again and this was the time that worked for everyone. So off we went.

The first trip was to Cape Lookout. I booked this trip about 2 months before we went. I was surprised to get a spot under the trees in this campground. We took grandkids, their mom (dad was on a hunting trip), and Jack, their dog. We had rain/drizzle the first night but thereafter was great weather. The kids had fun on the beach, running in the waves, playing in the sand. We explored caves and creatures that lived on the rocks at the southern end of the beach. We followed the park's nature trail, discovering different trees and plants that grow in the area. The kids enjoyed roasting marshmallows. Jack is an older dog and enjoyed laying around. All in all a good trip.

     

      



The second trip was to Trillium Lake in the Mt Hood Wilderness. Just Mr WAU and I went on this trip. The views of Mt Hood were fabulous, the mountain looked different depending on the time of day or the weather. I took way too many pictures of that mountain. They had just restocked the lake before we got there so we took our fishing poles in addition to the kayaks. We forgot our fishing net so we lost some of the fish that we caught. Have to remember that next time. All in all we hooked 11 fish but only came back with 5. So now we have plenty of "the one that got away" stories. There is a nice trail around the lake, it is 2 miles and pretty easy to do. Each morning we could watch an eagle scope out the lake on a tall dead tree next to the shore, take to flight, swoop down to catch a meal and fly off to eat it. It was a relaxing trip. It did drizzle one night but not so bad that things were damp. The next night the wind came up, it was nice to go to sleep with the sound of the wind blowing thru the pine trees. And the stars at night were dazzling. It is a trip that we will do again.