Bobbers

We're back from our trip to Mayfield Lake this past week. Before I go on, I want to thank the many of you who have left such sweet comments on the Blogiversary post. As I've mentioned before, I think of blog posts as letters to friends, and so it's wonderful to hear from so many of you. Thank you. And if you missed that post, hurry on back to that link I've given you because today's the last day to get in on the draw.

Okay, so back to our little va-cay...our capacity for boredom is nothing short of astonishing. We pretty much planted our butts in one chair or another and didn't move for most of the past five days. Yeah...lay-zee. That's what we were. And no shame about it either. Honestly, it's appalling, but there you go. I blame it on the cats.

We had a very nice site with a view of the lake. Because it was situated at the end of a point, it was a large site, and very private.

It was overcast when we arrived.

We were expecting better weather ahead, but even as the sun was setting, there was still significant cloud cover.

Not to worry because the next day was bright and sunny, and it stayed that way until we left. It was quite warm as well...always a gift in the Pacific Northwest, even in July.

Our site was especially nice because of the tree cover, which had us in the shade for most of the day.

The kitties were freaked upon arrival, just as they were last year. (You can read their blog post about last year's trip right here.) It's too bad, but the only safe way to travel with them in the truck camper is to crate them up and have them ride on the bed. Because the truck camper slides close together tightly like a puzzle, it's not safe to allow them to wander around inside while we're getting ready to go down the road. Their noses were understandably out of joint when we let them out on the other side.

Also, we put Sadie's collar back on her. It has her microchip number, and a phone number to call should she make a break for her former life in the wild. She did really well this trip. In fact, they both did. Once they got over their initial panic at strange surroundings, they settled down and gave us no trouble the rest of the week.

Smitty considered holding a grudge for the remainder of the trip, and he gave me the evil eye from the bed during the first evening.

Getting the boat launched turned into something of a challenge. This RV park allows us to rent a slip, which is very nice. Also, they will launch the boat using their tractor. It worked great last year, but the tractor was out of commission this time around, and so we had to launch from the public launch. And this doesn't sound so bad except that it meant I had to drive the truck with the boat trailer attached and the camper loaded on. I haven't driven the semi-new dually truck before, and it would have been preferable to have my maiden voyage sans camper and boat trailer. Nevertheless, I persisted, and we got 'er done.

Mike drove us to the public launch, and then backed the boat into the water. Then, I moved into the driver's seat while he backed the boat off the trailer. Then he drove the boat across the lake to the RV park while I drove the truck and boat trailer around on the road. When we met up on the other side, he took over again. Phew! No dents. And then we headed back down to the dock secure the boat a little better, and called it a day.

Of course, I took pictures of every blooming thing...and every berry thing too. I think I said in my post from last year that these are currants. In fact, they are red huckleberries, or vaccinium parvifolium, if you must know their snotty botanical name. They're quite bitterly tart, but they are edible.

These are thimbleberries, or rubus parviflorus. They're a lot like a raspberry, except that they have about a zillion little seeds inside. 

As for the rest of these...I don't know, but you probably do.

This here below though...this is probably the most beautiful clematis I've ever seen.

And then there was this little purply thing.

Oh yes...and watch your step because you could die out here.

So for the first night of dinner, I cooked, but after that, Mike was itching to get out his new portable Traeger grill. This is an engineer's dream. It has buttons to push and a digital readout and a probe, and I don't know what all, but he was in pig heaven with this..."pig" being the operative word there because that's how we ate.

It started out innocently enough with these grilled Fava beans from our CSA share.

But then we descended into the pit of dessert, um, hell (not really, but I'm trying to sound as if someone forced us, even though we did it voluntarily). I discovered this recipe for 6-Minute Berry Cobbler Mugs in the Washington Post. And since we were in Washington, it only makes sense, right? Oh. My. Gosh. Well. Nothing would do except to stop on the way out of town to pick up some blueberries, and we hopped on those right away after dinner. I had the dry ingredients mixed up, and so I just had to kind of stir them in with the berries and stick them in the microwave...camping, you know...and they were so good.

Something was missing though....hmmmmmm...what could it be? Maybe some vanilla ice cream because we just happened to have some in the freezer...yeah...camping, you know.

And then we ate 'em. Here's the view from where I sat.

The next morning, Smitty was ready to get out for a walk. He doesn't usually ask so soon, and so we were a little surprised by that. He was a little tentative at first.

But shortly, he was a cat on a mission.

And he's a pretty handsome hunka cat manmeat, if you ask me. (I imagine Molly will agree.)

He did pretty well for his first walkabout. With the warm weather, both kitties were looking like tiger butter a good part of each day.

They perked up in the evening after the sun went down.

Dontcha think I'm cute?

What about me? Dontcha think I'm cute too?

All they really need on a trip like this are their kitty treats, their catio, and their potty box, and they do just fine. At one point, I noticed Sadie lying on the ledge in front of their catio window, and so I put a quilt there for her to lie on.

It made a soft place for Smitty to rest his tail too.

I left the cubby above the bed open for them, but we were several days into the trip before they decided to use it. Eventually, I took the quilt out.

It seemed as though just that little bit of padding made it a tight squeeze for Smitty. He liked it better without.

The morning of the second day, we headed out on the lake. You can see the dock where we tied up the boat a little above the center of the image below.

Because we were there mid-week, we mostly had the lake to ourselves, and it was lovely.

We headed out to the middle and just bobbed and jumped off and swam a little...just enough to stay cool. The sun was brutal, but the lake was perfect.

As we headed back in, we could barely see our camper through the trees there.

The next day, we headed up the Cowlitz River, which is just one of the two rivers that flow into the lake. We saw the water temperature in the lake as high as 79°F, but as we headed up the river, we saw it as cold as 58°F. It's not surprising since this river is runoff from Mt. Rainier.

The river started getting shallow, and so we turned around when we saw where the highway crossed over. You can see the tall bridge in the image below.

And we weren't finished with our oink-fest, because I'd baked a Blue-Cherry Pie for Two from some pie filling I made last year. When we're camping, I stick with Pillsbury crusts, and this one was pieced together to form what I laughingly called a lattice top.

It looked even worse after we ate it.

Oh yes, and I took this picture to show you one of my favorite camping scenes. This is the skylight over our bed. I love looking up there and seeing trees. At night, when there aren't trees obscuring the view, I can see stars.

We spent some time on the lake each day, and I managed a little embroidery most days. When I'd taken it this far, I decided to move the hoop.

Now I've started stitching the daisies on the right side.

When I finished up with it yesterday, it looked like this:

I'll have some time to get back to it this morning.

When we got home, we had a very thirsty garden. The hanging petunias were fried, and so I watered right away. I'm not sure the petunias will recover. In my wanderings, I noticed one of the sunflowers had bloomed. This is the one that scared me by uprooting itself a couple of weeks ago. It's no worse for wear, and the bees are loving it. It's about shoulder high and big as a dinner plate.

This morning there's plenty of unpacking to do. Around noon, I'm heading out to see my orthotist. Yes, I have an orthotist who makes custom orthotics for me. That's how old I am. Pitiful, isn't it? Anyway...I've worn them through to the hard core at the bottom, and so they need resoling. When that's done, I'll make a quick trip to the grocery store to pick up something for tonight's dinner. Tomorrow is our CSA pick-up day, and so I'll save the heavy grocery store lifting until I see what's in our share. If I can get back to sewing today, it's time to start on the July OMG, which is to quilt and bind the Working for Peanuts quilt. I have some ideas about this one. If not today, then tomorrow.

So, hey...I'm glad to see you again! I missed you guys!