i kinda miss that beaver state

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my summer in a pop up

i always think i will come back to something that i missed writing about, but i never actually do. like i thought i would go back and write about our fourth of july, which we spent hiking the waterfalls that pour into the columbia river from the oregon side. but i never did. and now it’s like august already. and i thought i would write more about being on the oregon coast, because i spent my writing time there on shakespeare. but of course i haven’t. and then i missed writing about our weekend visiting dear friends before heading back to canada, and now, sadly, oregon seems oh sooo far away. and i have had a minor adventure or two this week-mostly in various berry fields, being back on my own with the four chinos. but somehow it is hard to be motivated to come back to those things which seem to have happened so long ago, especially when there are new moments holding my attention. even if they are not as interesting. right now i am totally preoccupied with the fact that it is rainy and cold. we are back in our long johns and icebreakers, huddling up in the pop up or traipsing off to find warm bookstores and coffee shops. which is not terribly fascinating, but nevertheless, it is where we are. it feels a lot like we are back at the beginning of our pacific northwest adventures. beautiful green campgrounds. cold and damp to the bones.

but before you begin to feel sorry for me, let me tell you that in two days we will be checking into a condo in whistler, b.c. a gift from my mother-in-law, who, thank the Lord, is spoiling me rotten. perhaps, after a week in a real bed, i will be ready for the final countdown. we will camp one more week near vancouver b.c. before we begin the long drive home.

maybe we will have wi-fi for our week in whistler and i will tell you all about those berries.

trader joe’s camping menu

Tags

camping menus, my summer in a pop up, trader joe's

If you are going camping this weekend or sometime soon and you happen to be near a Trader Joe’s, as I happily happen to find myself again, then you might like to discover, as I have, that you can get several days’ worth of relatively easy and healthy camping meals in one quick stop. Cooking on a camp stove is of course different from being in my kitchen, which I love and miss, but I think I have finally settled into sort of a happy compromise between what I am used to and what is possible for a summer of camping. Still, Trader Joe’s has made some of those compromises much easier. For example, letting the children roast hot dogs over the fire once a week is much easier to do when I am buying all beef nitrate free Trader Joe’s hot dogs, Trader Joe’s whole wheat hot dog buns and Trader Joe’s organic ketchup.
So the routine is that I usually roll up to a Trader Joe’s after we’ve set up in a new town and have pretty much used up all our groceries. It seems like it is usually in the afternoon. And the kids have to help or wait in the car. For their trouble, we usually get a box of dark chocolate ice cream bars or ice cream sandwiches made with two chocolate chip cookies. Both of these novelties come in boxes of four and are a deal at $1.99 when you consider that everyone is begging to go to the Cold Stone next door which would cost us our dinner.

So after the ice cream, we have…

Dinner:
2 packages frozen gyoza (they come in pork, chicken, shrimp and vegetable)
1 bottle gyoza dipping sauce
2 packages prepared sushi

1 box organic ginger snaps

I fry the gyoza in a couple of tablespoons of oil in my cast iron skillet on the camp stove. Dinner is served.

Breakfast:
Coffee
1 package whole wheat bagels, sliced and toasted on the griddle
Organic cream cheese
Angelcots (a rare apricot in season right now that my kids are gobbling)
Apple Cereal Bars
Greek Style Yogurt (We LOVE this stuff. It is so creamy. And we love all the flavors, which include honey, fig, strawberry, apricot-mango, pomegranate and blueberry.)

Lunch:
Baguette
Cheese (goat cheese brie and sharp cheddar)
Raspberries
Fuji Apples
Sesame Pita Chips and Dip (We alternate between hummus and cilantro-yogurt dip)

Snacks:
Bananas
Cherry tomatoes
Organic animal crackers

Dinner:
Whole Wheat Organic Penne Pasta
Organic Marinara Pasta Sauce
1 package fully cooked meatballs
Packaged Caesar Salad or Spinach Salad
Charles Shaw Shiraz

Breakfast:
Coffee
Whole Wheat Buttermilk Pancakes with Chocolate Chips
Maple Syrup

Lunch:
Whole Wheat Crackers
Blueberries and Cherries
Cheese
Whole wheat pita pockets with Tuna Salad (made with white chunk tuna, organic mayonnaise and hard boiled eggs)

Snacks:
Flax seed tortilla chips and salsa
Roasted almonds
Any number of trail mixes

Dinner:
Various Canned Soups for the kids: the boys pick chicken noodle, Mary Polly picks an Udon Noodle bowl
Instant Indian Food (curried lentils) and whole wheat tandoori for Taido and me

OR
Hot Dogs for the kids and Cilantro Chicken Sausages for Taido and me, which I save half of for my eggs in the morning.

Random red table wine

Dark Chocolate, Cinnamon Graham Crackers and Homemade Style Marshmallows

Breakfast:
Eggs, Bacon (nitrate free) and Skillet Potatoes

Eat lunch out (Baja Fresh, anyone?) and then go back to Trader Joe’s again….everything listed is Trader Joe’s own brand right down to the marshmallows. You cannot beat this place.

shakespeare festival (part 3 of 3)

Tags

ashland, midsummer night's dream, oregon shakespeare festival, othello

After our dinner at home on Saturday, it was off to Othello. Three girls were seeing The Clay Cart which is an ancient Indian play, which they enjoyed, but I cannot imagine having missed Othello. It was the only play of the weekend that was pure Shakespeare, in full Elizabethan garb, not a word of the script changed.  We were all apprehensive, having read the play.  I read all three plays back at Viento State Park, and I had cried the day I read Othello, falling into a deep funk over how dark our hearts can be.  So I thought I knew what I was in for as the darkness covered the stage and the grim Iago filled the night air with a dread that rose from his sinister soliloquies.  Seeing Othello may very well be one of the most powerful experiences of my entire life.  I am prone to gross exaggeration I know and to extremes as far as descriptions go, which makes my recommendation of a thing hold perhaps less weight than if I measured my words of compliment more carefully.  But put that aside and just know that this play, this night, this cast and this experience will be something I will still be speaking of when I am (very) old and (more) gray.  If I could play Desdemona with so much eloquence or Emilia with such wry timing, I would perhaps do nothing else in life.  I sat on the very edge of my seat for the entire three hours.  I was sad that we had to stop for intermission…not wanting the momentum to be broken even for a minute.  I might have distracted those around me with my sighs or had the noise of hope from my heart been audible it would have shaken the stage with my longing for the action not to go as I already knew that it would, and as it must of course, go.  If it did not move to its inevitable tragic end then of course, Shakespeare would not be the playwright that he is.  Timeless and brilliant.  He did not shy away from the darkest places in man’s heart.  The most powerful moments of the play were when words were uttered that I could have believed, or worse, that I could have said.  At the beginning when Desdemona’s father basically disowns her, his words to her and Othello completely devastated me.  To purposely admit such bitterness into a relationship with one so dear to you is so sad, and yet it was the tip of the iceberg as far as the grief that would pass over that stage that night.  So much  brokenness and devastating consequences.  It was only after we discussed long into the night the scary Iago, the duped Othello, the beautiful Desdemona and many words and scenes from the play that I begin to also remember how I had been completely taken in by the exquisite costumes, the well placed  bits of color and the powerful use of light or lack thereof.  Every detail down to the last blackout with the loud thunder of a drum served its purpose in stringing me along, hanging on every word.  I read in my journal that is littered with quotes on traveling the following morning that sometimes you just have to go to know.  This trite remark could be applied to so many experiences in life, but if you have the opportunity in life to see Othello, played in Ashland, and especially this particular season, do not let it pass you by.

When we finally settled down and went to our beds, of course I could never fall asleep after such a night, my roommate and I talked for hours.  After we realized that we both grew up in Young Life families, we had many comparisons to make.  It is wonderful to discover someone with whom you have a lot in common and it turns out that we share much more than our mutual love for Laura.  Funny things like that we both like Tom’s toothpaste.  And when we finally stopped chattering and I grew sleepy enough to stop seeing Desdemona’s flowing white dressing gown in my mind’s eye, I drifted into sleep hardly being able to believe that the next day I would actually get to see another play.  It is like a buffet of entirely too much good food, so that you must continue to eat even after you are full because you will be sad at the treats you did not yet get to taste.  The delights of Sunday would be like candy after the full palette of Othello, but really nice candy.  Dark chocolate from a specialty chocolatier.

Yes, I am glad our tragedy is being sandwiched  between two comedies, remarked one of the gals present.  After our aforementioned glorious Sunday morning brunch at the Winchester, several of our company had to begin to make their way back to California, which left four of us to attend the final play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Could our time in Ashland have been more perfectly planned?  To end with such a fun play, and one of my favorites to boot.  And if it were not enough to end on such a note, this season’s version of Midsummer Night was set in the 60s and 70s.  Yes, the mechanicals arrived in a volkswagon bus painted with multi-colored flowers and Bottom had long wavy hair, red velvet bell bottoms and sunglasses.  Friends, he was beyond hysterical.  Just the memory of him is eliciting a giggle even at this very moment.  Add in a Duke that could have hailed from South Chicago, cross dressing fairies, Shakespeare’s eye for the foolishness in all of us and a happy ending…then you have a well spent final afternoon in the fairyland that is Ashland.  Even better, one of our company knew of and arranged our invitation to a talk that a Westmont Shakespeare professor was giving (in a park!) before the play.  He was leading a group from Westmont through the same series of plays we had been attending and he was leading a post-Othello discussion and giving a pre-Midsummer Night lecture.  So great.  I appreciated all that he had to say and he prepared us well for our afternoon, even stating that the fool says in his heart…there are no such thing as fairies.  It was a precious and perfect addition, fitting in beautifully with the magical flow of our weekend.

After the play, we grabbed more fish tacos (of course) and then drove the four hours back (talking nonstop) to where my friend lives and where our husbands and children were enjoying one another’s company, the pop up welcoming me in their driveway.  My kids were super sad to be leaving early the next morning after just meeting up with their long lost friends, but we would all be together again the next weekend when we would be passing back through on our way back to Vancouver.   I feel like Viola when she says to Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love,

This is not real life.  It is a stolen season.

Tis absolutely true of my life right now and most especially of the three glorious days I had the fortune to spend in Ashland.

shakespeare festival (part 2 of 3)

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ashland, lithia park, oregon shakespeare festival

Thankfully for me, my roommate in Ashland was an early morning runner, which of course I am not. So when she left to run I took over the entire bed and slept luxuriously until I just like sitting up and reading my book in bed. I pulled back the curtain to let in the sun and the lovely view of the surrounding hills and just sank back onto my pillow to enjoy the quiet morning. The novelty of no one needing anything from me. When I finally showered and descended, lots of the girls had already left to walk into town for coffee and breakfast, so I walked in with two who were going to a 10am tour of the theaters, an event which must be booked ahead or I would have joined them. (Something for next time!) I got a cup of coffee and a blueberry scone and walked down to Lithia Park, wherein I got lost for the next two hours. This park begins at the edge of the staircase that leads you to the courtyard where all the theaters converge and extends about two miles up Ashland Creek. It is an absolute jewel of a park and I had tears in my eyes almost immediately as I walked in and around its trees, over its romantic bridges, up the steps of a Florentine fountain, around duck ponds and a Japanese garden and through the sycamore grove where a wedding was to be held that afternoon. I sat for a while on one of the hundreds of perfectly placed benches in the park. Each one is tucked into a little cranny where you can lose yourself for an hour or an entire day if you wish. I sat and wrote in my journal with the music of the running creek drowning out the whole world. I thought about how if I lived in this place that I would resolve to spend a spell of time upon each of the park’s benches in order to take in each spot’s different advantages, and maybe I would only come out of the park when the horn blows and the flag is raised signaling the next play’s start. Or maybe I would venture out to Agave for one of the most delicious tacos I have ever tasted, made on a corn tortilla so fresh it is still soft and warm. But alas, I do not live in Ashland and I wasn’t sure when I would return so I tried to soak up as much of that park as I could on Saturday morning and put aside my imagination’s efforts to plan return trips. Just enjoy the moment. It is a long recurring fault of mine that I have been known to wither away precious hours in a place for all the thinking of what might be. Who else must see this? How can I get in touch with Taido and tell him that he MUST take the kids to Agave for a fish taco? If only my sister could see this food. If only Sarabeth could sit in this theater. If only every one in the whole world could walk the lanes in this park, surely world peace would prevail. It’s a family fault. My brother is currently in Kenya with a group of people with whom he works because he wanted so much to share with others what he himself had already seen. The beautiful spirit of the Kenyan people, the Lord’s glory rising in the Kenyan church and the abject poverty in the land could only be understood fully by going and seeing and touching. Certainly wanting to give the whole world a ticket to Comedy of Errors and a picnic in Lithia Park isn’t quite as noble as a desire that they experience Kenya but both wishes root from the same core desire. To bless another with an experience that moved us.

As the morn melted away and the afternoon sun lingered high, I took my sign that it was time to meet some of the others for a picnic lunch in the park. We took our tacos and chips and sat on and around a rock wall, spilling onto the grass and visiting all the afternoon. I got to visit extensively with my sweet friend, with whom everyone present wanted to be of course, but she graciously managed to move and flow about all weekend, giving each girl in her turn a longer moment. I am afraid I completely monopolized her on Saturday afternoon. Even after the six of us in the park decided that it was time to move on and find the others, think towards preparing dinner and getting ready for Othello (be still my heart at the very mention of such a masterpiece!), I still ambled near my friend, talking as we walked. But we had years to catch up on. We have both given birth once more since we last saw one another, and miraculously in the same season, so that we both now have two-year olds. Hers is a darling little girl with golden curls and sparkling blue eyes. So precious. So there was much to discuss, and so luxurious to be able to talk and talk without interruptions from children or telephones or anything from real life. The whole afternoon was like a moment in time suspended above all mundane and tedious happenings. It was only as we began to head back to the house to cook dinner that we were all brought back to reality by a call informing us that Laura’s mother had experienced a fainting spell, from which she was recovering at a nearby hospital. So Laura and her sister rushed off to the hospital and the rest of us returned to the house, to which they all soon followed, Laura’s mother happily recovered from what was perhaps dehydration or more likely, being overwhelmed to the point of collapsing by the delights of Ashland. We had a beautiful dinner of fresh salmon, sourdough bread and salad around a large dining table, followed by chocolate mousse and a pear almond torte. Both birthday treats came from the nearby Apple Cellar Bakery and were perfectly melt-in-your-mouth delish. The crust of the torte in particular was something from a fairy tale. Other worldly.

Such a wonderful day, and the best still yet to come.

shakespeare festival (part 1 of 3)

Tags

ashland, comedy of errors, oregon shakespeare festival

Though I had been looking forward to attending my dear friend’s fortieth birthday party at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for sometime, I did not immediately fall under Ashland’s enchanting powers. The neighboring town of Medford was a perfect nightmare to negotiate. (Looking back, Taido and I decided that Medford is the external cost of blue collar industry that enables its southern neighbor of Ashland to be the charming gem of a place to visit that it is.) We set up camp on a lake nearby before Taido and the kids dropped me off for the weekend, and part of me wanted to stay at camp with them and just meet all those strangers later at the play. I had not seen my friend Laura for at least five years and a little insecure part of me thought that maybe she wasn’t still going to like me. And then there was the staying in a house with ten other people and sharing a room…even a bed with a total stranger. It had been a while since I had been around people. Maybe I had forgotten how to be sociable. So I was a little jittery when Taido dropped me in the street and drove off. I ascended the lime green stairs of the yellow house where we were staying and was much relieved when Laura answered the door. Seeing the face of a dear friend after a long absence is a telling moment. It is amazing how the years just melt away and the comfort of shared experience of long ago rises up to create a safe haven of familiarity. As she ushered me into a parlor with a high ceiling full of her other dear friends and family, I determined to put all my nervousness behind me and allow myself to be swept away by the place. We introduced ourselves, each explaining how we had the happy fortune to know this blessed girl. And I remembered as each girl was talking that of course a girl such as this friend of mine would have collected around her a group of friends who are as special as she is. That I am camping all over the country with my family is hardly a drop in the bucket of collective experience of this group of women. How many stories could be told about such wonders as living in Malaysia, taking two teenage sons out of school for the year to travel the whole world, living with your family at camps, cruising the Rhine river, teaching in Germany, getting married this summer or being an annual attendant and member of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival…um, can you guess which gal I asked the most questions. Yes, the high school drama teacher who sees a loads of plays and was our resident expert at the OSF. (That’s how she referred to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival…like they are old friends. Can you imagine my envy?) She was very patient with me as I asked her about three million questions about the festival. About the acting company and all the different variations she has seen of Comedy of Errors and Twelfth Night. She will be back in Ashland in two weeks with her family and I would really like for her to take me with her in her pocket, but I can only imagine that she will greatly enjoy her weekend without that hic girl from Arkansas badgering her.

Jitters aside, everyone rushing around to get ready to go to dinner and the play gave me a moment to breathe and prepare to be enchanted. (I wasn’t rushing around because I had already learned from my new BFF that you don’t have to dress up for the festival…and since the theater is outside, jeans are even preferable once the sun goes down and the chilly night air blows over the walls of the Elizabethan Stage.)
We had a lovely, if somewhat rushed dinner, sitting at a table outside with the waters of Ashland Creek rolling along beside us. Then as we meandered up the street to the play (at this point I was downright giddy) we ran into my family! They had been in the park seeing a free performance and the magic of the night just fell into my lap when we realized that because we had an extra ticket to Comedy of Errors that we had been trying unsuccessfully to sell, Mary Polly could come along with me to the play. And of course, part of the wonder was that the play turned out to be the most perfect one for her to see. Mary Polly was already predisposed to love Comedy of Errors because not only is it hysterical, it is Shakespeare’s shortest play, but Comedy of Errors rendered into a Western Musical was belly-aching HI-larious. I think I may have been distracting in how much and how loud I laughed. Besides being caught up in the moment of being in a REAL LIVE ELIZABETHAN THEATER and seeing SHAKESPEARE, Hello! My daughter was laughing with me…following the language and asking the right questions at the right moments. She was getting it. Do you know how great that is? Your first experience with Shakespeare can be key to your lifelong enjoyment of his brilliance. I had to overcome some very bad Shakespeare lectures from high school before I could fall properly in love with him in college. I feel certain that this rendition of Comedy of Errors could supplant anyone’s previous frustrating experiences reading through Shakespeare. Every actor was brilliant. On. Usually when I see a Shakespeare play (don’t you like how I write that like it happens all the time?) I am drawn to one or two characters and the rest are sort of marginal. But at the OSF, these people know their Shakespeare. The actors are playing in multiple Shakespeare plays all year. They all share a green room that is underneath the theaters and is connected by tunnels from each of the three theaters. So every character is playing as well as the lead. At any given time, I would look to the side where the main action wasn’t happening and the characters there would be on. Alive. The motion on the largely vertical set of Comedy of Errors built throughout the play until you were wondering how on earth anyone could possibly be certain of where they were supposed to be going. I cannot imagine how complicated the blocking must have been of all that activity. But the effect was so much fun. I was still laughing as we drove Mary Polly back to the campground and I quickly tucked her into the quiet camper before returning to the house. In fact, being far too giddy to fall asleep, it was after 2am before I finally calmed down enough from the excitement of the evening to doze off into the luxurious sleep of a mother whose children are safely away with their father.

parting is such sweet sorrow

Tags

ashland, oregon shakespeare festival

Ashland, Ashland! Wherefore art thou so far from my homeland?  When shall I ever see you again, and under what strange set of circumstances could it possibly pass that I am able to return to your streets?  At the end of time when the Lord’s beloved all gather to the fullest of fullness, will it be in the courtyard where your three houses of magic converge?  Or perhaps on the grasses of the parks surrounding you?  In the sycamore grove?  Will the dining room of the Winchester be transformed to accommodate the whole company of saints to dine on pear and mascarpone cheese filled crepes with champagne vanilla bean glaze and mimosas?  Oh Ashland, surely I will never forget thee.  Or how my heart swelled to the point of  bursting twice with laughter and once with tears.  I will always remember you with a soft sigh of longing.

beach blanket

Tags

camping in oregon, my summer in a pop up, oregon coast

Beachside State Park
Oregon Coast

We have arrived at the beach.  But we are having just a weensy bit different experience from the traditional Arkansan’s week at the beach.  It is not just that we are camping.  Taido said to me yesterday out of the blue, We are full on camping for three months.  You know at first I thought that we were sort of cheating when we got the pop up camper, but now I don’t really think so.  Full. On. Camping. I was experiencing some rough moments of re-entry from what may have been the best three days of my entire summer, about which I am writing, but it is going to take some time to do it justice.  But needless to say, I am getting back into the swing of life in the pop up, which includes searching every tub in the van for the peanut butter because in three days, my family managed to rearrange everything.  Oh, and the lighter is covered in sticky marshmallow goo.  But the primary difference between say, Destin and the Oregon Coast is that the sun is like permanently on vacation up here. Which means that it is freezing.  I don’t really know exactly what the temperatures are, but let me paint the picture for you.  I am sitting on the beach in my crazy creek in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater, a jacket, a wool hat, wool socks and hiking boots, while my oldest son is wearing a swim suit and a t shirt playing in the waves.  All day I am thinking, surely he is going to die of hypothermia.  Or something.  I mean, I am considering heading back to camp and adding long johns under my jeans.  That’s how cold I am.  Mary Polly and Ben were somewhere in between.  Rolling up their pants to feel the freezing cold ocean water on their feet and rolling in the sand like puppies.  Simon never ventured to get wet, but was as ecstatic about the sand as the others.  So here’s my conclusion.  Kids love the beach. They trip out over a giant sandbox and rolling waves so much that they don’t care that it’s not warm.  Ben’s take: Hey, we don’t have to worry about sunscreen!

So this is our beach week.  Taido is loving the cooler weather.  He was done with the desert heat.  And someone told me that it is like 101 degrees in Arkansas so we need to be thankful for our gloriously cool days.  I am thankful.  I am just going to have to put some more clothes on.

i want to ride my bicycle

Tags

my summer in a pop up, riding a bike

In addition to many different tubs full o junk (very necessary junk), we are also traveling with 5 bicycles. FIVE. Two of them are Taido’s. He sort of has a thing for biking, and I’m sure there is a very good reason that we are traveling with a mountain bike AND a road bike for him. I’m just not exactly sure what it is. Then Cole, Mary Polly and Ben each have a bike. If it were not for the total pain of lugging it around, we would have bought Simon a little trike by now because he is constantly trying to climb on all the bigger bikes. He really would like to get in on the biking. But there is one child who has not really cared for the biking portion of our summer adventure, and that would be Ben. Ben’s whole season of learning to ride a bike has made me eat a lot of the things I have thought in the past about kids learning to ride bikes. Cole and I both were riding our bikes (sans training wheels) at the age of five, and so I just wasn’t sure what was taking everyone else so long. That’s why God gave me so many children. Even if three out of four children manage to meet every unreasonable expectation I have about parenting, there will always be one who breaks the mold. And it isn’t always the same child. They take turns having a go at humbling me and making me vow to never say, I won’t ever… or No child of mine will… or All my children will know how to ride a bike. It’s amazing how much I have to keep re-learning that lesson. You would think I would know by now. Anyway, because of my preconceived notions about children and bikes, we have been lugging Ben’s bike around all summer even though he hasn’t been riding it. It just sits there. About once a week, Taido makes him do a few loops around the campground with him. And then once a week turned into twice a week. And then last week sometime, they started practicing every night. Somehow, Ben all of a sudden became way less resistant to the idea whereas at the beginning of the summer he all but refused to go and often had to be bribed. He said things like, I hate bikes. I never want to ride a bike. Earlier this year, Ben really had the whole bike thing down, but he crashed on our street (which is not a good bike riding street for a beginner because it is basically one large hill) and he said he was done forever. And he meant it. Since then, nothing could tempt him to get out on a bike. He said he was happy on a scooter, and he has been mad at me this summer for bringing his bike instead of his scooter.

All summer long, Mary Polly and Cole have ridden bikes everywhere and Ben is always running behind them. It has made me sad. He looks all pitiful running behind their bikes, and of course, he is always the last one to arrive at the park or the lake or wherever they are going. But it has not seemed to bother him at all. He is happy to go at his own pace. Ben is a little clumsy…it kind of fits in with his messiness. At the end of every day, he has new scrapes and bruises, and is covered in dirt. It seems like he is always the one to get hurt. He got stung by a bee earlier this week. No one else has been stung all summer. He is our only child who has broken a bone. He has received more stitches on his head than anyone else. He is just accident prone. Since it seems life is already sort of dangerous for Ben on the ground, it can’t get any better to add height and wheels to the situation. I guess.

But yesterday, for some unknown reason, Ben turned the corner. He actually asked for Taido to take him out on his bike for a loop around the campground. Maybe it is the thrill of riding through all the sprinklers that are going around every corner, or just that (as I already mentioned) this campground is perfect for bike riding. Maybe it’s that Anne and Gilbert ride bikes in the movie version of Anne of Green Gables, and he’s seen Gilbert crash on his bike and live to tell about it. I don’t know what it was, but somehow he miraculously crossed that threshold and by mid-morning he was riding all around on his own. He did have several accidents, but none were bad enough to throw him off riding for good. At least so far, he seems thrilled to be out on his bike. Simon cheers for him every time he rides back up into our campsite. so great! At one point I looked way across the campground and on the other side of the park all three big kids were riding their bikes in a row and I tell you my heart just leapt up out of its spot. I just love that sight. It was so sweet to me. Idyllic and summery and pastoral.

And when it got really hot. 2-5pm is the window of time that you must remain perfectly still to avoid melting. Because the camper was feeling a tad crowded to me after three hours our first day here, the second day we headed to a small town to do our laundry during the heat of the day. BAD PLAN. It was even hotter in the Laundromat than it was outside. I couldn’t even bear to stay long enough to dry my clothes. I brought them all back and hung them up and they were dry in like 20 minutes. Which also saved me $5, by the way. So yesterday, when Simon went down for a nap and Cole and Mary Polly retreated to the camper to read, Ben and I found some shade under some trees, where we put blankets on the ground and half read and half slept for a while. After about an hour, he said, Well, I think I am going to go and ride my bike and see if that will make me cool. I watched him through sleepy eyes, the sole movement in the entire campground, besides the slow fluttering of the tree leaves being blown by a hot breeze. He rode the circle of the campground for a long time all by himself. A long time coming, but he seems to finally have it. On his own time. In his own way.

Mary Polly was seven before she could ride her bike alone, but Ben surprised me by not wanting to catch up with the others earlier. He turned seven in April. I think my mom was like ten before she learned to ride a bike. She lived on a busy street and her parents were very cautious. It is funny how all different circumstances can play into when and where you learn how to ride a bike. Anna and I learned to ride our bikes when our family lived on a cul-de-sac, which is not only a perfect place to learn, but we had the added influence of lots of other kids on bikes. Peer pressure. I have seen several kids learn to ride on camping trips. We go camping every fall with several families and every year it seems like someone learns to ride their bike as all the other kids go pedaling by. And then there are those kids who have no fear and seem to have been born knowing how to ride a bike. When we lived in an apartment complex in Seattle, which was a terrible place for bike riding (the complex, not Seattle, which is a very bike-friendly town), Cole’s best little buddy was always taking Cole’s bike and riding it through the steep parking lot as fast as he could. He broke the training wheels off of it bumping over curbs, and he was barely four years old. In fact, I think Cole only learned so early because he had watched Ja’vohn for so long. However, Mary Polly was not the least bit responsive to the knowledge that Kindell (her best friend) and Grace (her cousin) already knew how to ride bikes, so didn’t she want to learn too so she could ride with them?? That tactic never works with her. She’ll let you know when she’s ready and don’t bother her before then thank you very much.

I am excited about biking as a means of transportation and fun for our family. Especially with gas being so expensive. On a bike shop in Bend, Oregon we saw a billboard that said…Three tanks full of gas or a new bike? Which one will last you longer? Clever, eh?

How about you? When and where did you learn to ride a bike? Or why didn’t you? Do you still ride it? Does it take you back to being 10 years old in a neighborhood full of kids? Do you want to start riding bikes with me to the grocery store? We could get some of those cool satchel things. I think they could be considered gear. Taido would be all over it.

missing friends

Tags

birthdays, boys, my summer in a pop up

Our big boy is 11 today.  It will be a low key birthday year, which he doesn’t mind so much.  He has asked for a trip to Barnes and Noble and some Chinese food.  Pretty reasonable really.  But he has mentioned several times though that he wishes he could be with his friends for his birthday.  Mary Polly said that maybe we could have  party when we get home and have all our friends to celebrate our birthdays.  (Mary Polly’s is in August.)  Both Cole and Ben have really missed their friends.  I have actually been surprised by how much they have missed them.  I just figured that since they have each other, they should be content and really, it’s Mary Polly who should be missing friends.  But Mary Polly is used to being the only girl, plus she and  I have thoroughly enjoyed each other’s company this summer.  She grocery shops with me and reads with me. (We lost the boys after book 2 of Anne of Green Gables.  Ben especially doesn’t find Anne nearly as interesting now that she is grown up and doesn’t get into trouble all the time.)  She likes the same movies I like and she enjoys a good used bookstore.  She is working on her junior ranger badge so we have been riding bikes around to try and find all the answers to the questions in her little booklet.  Yesterday we found the walnut tree grove that Joseph H. Stewart planted over one hundred years ago in this campground.  That was before it was a campground of course.  He also planted pear trees, and was apparently a pioneer in growing fruit in this region.  I don’t know much else about him, but he was clearly a man after my own heart.  So apart from the usual dramatic breakdowns about the boys being mean to her and it is soooo hard to always be the only girl that happen no matter where we are, she has been pretty happy all summer.  When friends come along, it is an added surprise, a sweet diversion. Yesterday a family pulled up across the way from us and on the back of their rig were four PINK bicycles.  Very exciting.  And I’m sure that Mary Polly will be meeting them and telling them all about how to be a junior ranger.

But the boys.  They have MISSED their friends.  Let me tell you just how much.  Frequently they are still playing with their friends, only in their imaginations.  They have invented this elaborate game (something with Pokemon) and each of their friends has some sort of role in it and they play it over and over again…as if their friends are really here.  They have spent hours drawing these extravagant clubhouses in which they and their friends are all playing video games on large widescreen televisions and drinking root beer from their own personal coke machines.  And since it’s all imaginary anyway, they have added in a few friends that aren’t even real, like Calvin of Calvin and Hobbes. He has a very important role in the game.  They even add in friends they have met this summer at various campgrounds.  In fact, in their imaginary world they have assembled a group of boys that would not ever actually be together in real life.  The best imaginable playdate.  It is crazy funny, even if at times it is a little sad. I suppose it is just their way of keeping their friends close to their hearts, which is sweet, right?  Still, we are going to have to have a full on par-TAY when we get home. One with actual people.

oh, and i’ve been meaning to tell you…

Tags

camping in oregon, crater lake national park, my summer in a pop up, stewart state park, tumalo state park, viento state park

Monday, July 14, 2008

Yesterday was another long day of driving around staking out homesteads for the week, but let me tell you that I think we have definitely happened upon something wonderful in the discovery of our current surroundings. We are aided in the tedious process of choosing a campground by a book we have called Pacific Northwest Campgrounds, in which we have the most basic of descriptions of places we set out to visit. I don’t mean to imply that the book is not helpful, because it truly is, but it is limited in its helpfulness by the fact that it was certainly not written by a mother of four children. The campground amenities are listed, but not detailed. If there are showers of any kind, there is a shower symbol. And for a playground, another symbol. But the playground can just as easily be a large and wonderful play structure as it can be a set of two swings over a pile of dust. Therefore, it is difficult to choose a campground for its play area without actually seeing it. So, several of the campgrounds we have looked at seem to be quite the same according to the book, but you can’t really tell until you see it. Drive through it. Get out and check the bathrooms. Sit outside for a minute to see if you are eaten up with mosquitoes or attacked by chipmunks. Or sit outside for an hour to know how many trains will pass by in that time and just how loudly they will be honking their horns. I haven’t mentioned all the dreadful surprises we have discovered after we have already set up camp in places, because I do so hate to be negative and as soon as we come to a place, I try to figure out what we can remember and love about it instead of focusing on its annoying points, or I try to find the treasures of the area without worrying about what kind of campground we are in. Besides, it is all part of the journey and the most annoying bits will always stand out to us and make us laugh years from now. That being said, without trying to be negative at all, but for the benefit of some poor soul who is driving through the Oregon and camping with lots of children (could there really be anyone else??), I will attempt to tell you a couple of the things I have neglected to mention without scaring you off from a camping adventure of your own, but rather to enhance your journey. Maybe it will save someone a trip all the way down to the Valley of the Rogue State Park, which will be a complete waste of your time, because what the books don’t tell you is that it is connected to a rest area (hello vagabonds!) and there are scary signs on the check in booth that say things like Please stay in your car at all times and We have no money on the premises. The bathrooms are filthy and the showers are locked at night to keep out someone. I don’t know who, because I certainly didn’t stay long enough to meet them. And if that’s not enough, it is RIGHT next to the freeway…Hello, LOUD TRAFFIC NOISE all night long! Bye Bye, Valley of the Rogue. On to brighter spots.

When camping (or even staying) on the Columbia River Gorge, you might as well know that a train runs down both sides of the Gorge regularly, up to four times an hour. So the train noise is hard to avoid. But if you stay at Viento State Park, which you might because they do have wild cherry trees, well there is an actual railroad crossing nearby so you get to hear the train horns all day and ALL NIGHT LONG. And don’t go to Viento for the playground. Four swings over a sand pit. That’s it. However, you cannot beat the very clean showers and bathrooms or paying only $16 a night for electricity. We were mighty grateful for our electricity because we ran the fans to attempt to drown out the train. The first few days Simon’s eyes got as big as saucers whenever the train horn honked and he ran for the nearest lap he could find, scared out of his wits. But by the end of the week, he just yelled CHOO CHOO whenever he heard the horns. He still founds someone’s lap, but he wasn’t nearly as freaked out by it.

At Tumalo State Park, the solar showers are glorious, but you can’t regulate the temperature so it was too hot for the boys and not quite hot enough for me. Still the desert heat made even a not hot enough shower a treat. The advantage to this campground besides its wonderful pine smell is its proximity to Bend which is a great place to hang out. The playground is again just a couple of swings over the dust pit. Also the book says that the park has swimming, and this is true sort of. The swimming area is no where near the campground. It is a swimming hole on the Deschutes River on the opposite side of the main road from the campground. Our family will probably not be returning to Tumalo in our lifetime because while we were there, we had some creepy experiences with critters there, ones that it is still too soon to discuss. Ditto the creepy critters in Golden Ears Provincial Park in B.C.

Crater Lake National Park is so beautiful. You have to go there, but you do not have to camp there. Even where we are currently camping is within shooting distance of Crater Lake, The main reason you don’t want to camp there is not even the dirty bathrooms and showers which cost several quarters, but who cares because they were locked up the entire time we were there. No friends the main reason for steering clear of the Mazama Village campground would be the GINORMOUS mosquitoes that swarm constantly. There was no relief from them except in the camper. If you held the door open too long, you risked everyone’s wrath over letting in several mosquitoes. Simon got bit on his eye and it swelled completely shut, so for three days he looked like we’d entered him in a toddler boxing competition. Yesterday, Cole blogged briefly about the mosquitoes in the Safeway parking lot while Mary Polly and I were grocery shopping and when I asked him why he didn’t mention Simon’s eye, he said that it was just too painful to talk about.

But now here we are at Stewart State Park somewhere between Crater Lake and Ashland, and it is just about perfect. The campsites surround a huge grassy field, in the middle of which is a great playground, with lots to play on, including swings. There is even a tetherball. Oh, the tetherball Cole and Ben have played today! And next to the playground is a large pile of big rocks from which water shoots from noon until 8pm and flows down through a little man made brook and pond. The kids have played all day in that water. The state park is located on the Rogue River, which also has a swimming area, but we haven’t even been there yet because of the rock fountain. Plus in order to have this grassy field in the desert, there are sprinklers going all the time that the kids have been running and biking through. The whole area is flat, so it is great for riding bikes. The bathrooms are clean and the showers are tiled, not cement floors, but tiled. And they are not coin showers, which means you can shower for as long as you want, plus they are not push button so you can control your own temperature. It’s all in the details, I tell you. There are dishwashing sinks. And you already know I love those. There is a junior ranger program every single morning, not just on the weekends as at many places. Since this is definitely a family friendly place to land, it is certainly not undiscovered. There are loads of other families here, which means lots of friends with which to play. It is stinking hot in the afternoons, because we have dropped in elevation and are back in the desert heat, which is a good time to mention our newest love for the pop up camper. It has an air-conditioner. Friends, we are living in the lap of luxury here. An air-conditioner! Are you kidding me? We laughed over the fact that we had A/C when we were freezing our little bums off in the Grand Tetons, but we are loving that baby now! When the heat became unbearable around 3pm today, we all holed up in the camper and watched Anne of Green Gables on my laptop. Does life get any better than that?