A weekend at Drift Creek Camp

We spent last weekend with our Corvallis Mennonite Fellowship church family nestled into the deep woods of the Oregon Coast Range at a magical place called Drift Creek Camp. We had a wonderful time and wanted to share some pictures from the weekend with you. Just a great time to play indoors and out, fellowship with others, and spend some time together as a family. Love that place, my family, and our church family.

Giant splintered spruce.

Perspective.

Bananagrams

Inside looking out.

Watching the abilities variety show.

Hiking in the woods and coastal drizzle.

Closed USFS road into the wilderness. 

Watching grazing elk at Wapiti Park.

Collecting seashells on Taft Beach.

The salmon spine and the river.

Steelhead fishing Drift Creek.

A typical Saturday...

'Twas a beautiful Saturday morning. The sky shown bright blue and as we lay there deciding what to do with our day, we heard Finn's voice from her room - "I'm awake now Mummy and Papa!" We grabbed both kids and brought them back to our bed for a little snuggle time. We told stories, read a several books we'd recently checked out from the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library, and reflected on each others dreams from the previous night's dream-scapades. And lest we be late for pancake breakfast at our friend's Dan, Janel and Lynn's place, we quickly showered, packed our bags for the day's adventures, grabbed the dogs and scooted out the door.

Breakfast consisted of Cafe Pasqual's whole wheat organic pancakes, organic Shelton's Farms turkey sausage links, and some natural pork sausage parties, seasoned up by Steve's Customer Meats out of Lebanon, Oregon - the pig delivered and raised by a friend of ours. And, of course, the prerequisite coffee and tea. After some wonderful visiting and watching our respective children play together, we gathered the kids up and headed over to LaSells Stewart Center at Oregon State University to meet some other friends and their kids for an interactive science fair put on as part of the "Song for the blue ocean" event. Kids and parents alike played and learned about things like water quality, ocean acidification, pressure and depth, coral bleaching, and the impacts of garbage in our oceans and on its inhabitants. We ran into several people at the event we hadn't seen in years - one I hadn't seen since around 1998. As the kids started winding down, we gave hugs and kisses and said our goodbyes and decided the day called for a little more exploration. It was just too sunny out not to take advantage of.

Neither of us were still fully recovered from our last bought of the winter-time cold/flu bugs so we decided that a winter drive around the backcountry roads and a shorter family hike in the woods was in order, so off we went. To where, we didn't yet know. But we did manage to find a benefit garage sale along the way.

We soon found ourselves traveling south on Bellfountain Road then heading west up to Alsea Falls recreation area, operated by the BLM, along the South Fork Alsea River National Back Country Byway. It had been quite a few years since we'd been up there so we decided to poke around the campgrounds and trail system for a bit. The campground-falls loop looked good so off we headed, the lot of us. It sprinkled some on us but all in all was perfect hiking weather. We walked the loop and by the time we got back, both Finn and little Jeremiah were beat tired and slept on our lazy drive back to Corvallis through the countryside.

The trail sign pointing the way.

The kids forging their own path.

Cat's cool bark piece find!

Finn's moss beard - "Like Papa's!"

The fam on one of bridge crossings...

On our way home, we stopped by the Samaritan Health Services Urgent Care Clinic to get Cat's sinuses checked on (she'd been miserably plugged up for weeks). Sure enough, she had a sinus infection so we got her taken care of then headed home for the evening. When we got home, we made supper with the kiddos and ate together at the table, something we like to do every night. Little man is now in the habit of reminding us to say our prayers and he does so by grabbing our hands and saying "Amens! Amens! Aaaaaaaaa-mens!" It's awful cute. Later that evening, Finn and I headed off on a date, just to the two of us, to see film "A Sea Change", a documentary film on ocean acidification, the showing sponsored by the "Songs for the Blue Ocean" symposium as part of OSU's Spring Creek Project. I wrote about that experience here. All in all, it was a wonderful Saturday.

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Fort Clatsop and the Lewis and Clark Expedition: an educational and fun family field trip

Fort Clatsop NHP sign. Beautiful.

This weekend, as our Christmas gift to each other and our family, we made a trip over to the coast and explored the northern coast region of Oregon. Partly as a result of the fee free dates at National Parks - this one in honor of MLK, Jr. day/weekend - we found ourselves at Lewis and Clark National Park's Fort Clatsop. We had also heard that this weekend was the largest live reenactment of the year, timed to coincide with the winter the expedition spent at the Fort in 1805-1806. What we didn't know, in advance, was that - similar to the time period - they were prepared to trade. Unbeknownst to them, however, we had dried apricots in the car...and Finn drives a hard bargain. And dried fruit was in high demand amongst the inhabitants of the fort (she knew this from our reading the signs in the interpretive center).

A living history "explorer" from the Lewis and Clark expedition

Before we went and retrieved the dried fruit, Toussaint Charbonneau - husband of Sacagawea - wanted to know what manner of thing was her umbrella? She said it kept the rain off and was called an umbrella. And he said, "Oh! Like a little roof!" She then offered it to him and he inquired what she might want in exchange for it. She declared - in a very matter of fact way - that she wanted his musket rifle. To which he thanked her and said that his musket was one of his most prized possessions and worth many beaver pelts so no thank you. Later, after we retrieved the dried fruit for trade, he offered her one white trade bead for an apricot for his wife. To which Finn replied, "I already have white beads at home". So he said, in his broken French-English "You are right, white trade beads aren't very special and worth very much. How about the white bead along with a special 'verde' green bead...but for TWO apricots?" She agreed and they signed to each other that it was a good trade (the sign is a fist over your heart and the other arm folded cross-wise across the other arm and over the chest, with moving one arm away from you in a flat plane and opening the fist as you do).

Captain William Clark didn't find it necessary to trade anything. Said the other members of his party should have first selection of the apricots. From another French boatman (whose name I have forgotten), she offered her apricots. He pulled out some beads to which she interrupted, "I have lots of beads and that last man traded me some, too. Do you have anything else?" He dug around for a bit and found his last military uniform button to which she beamed and accepted for one apricot. From another gentleman we encountered outside of the fort (he was out on a hunt with the hunting party), she got several small, blue trade beads and one small red bead for one apricot. He loved it so much he wanted another. So she traded him another apricot "but not for any more beads", she said. She had been watching him measure out beads for her in a small, tin thimble. He saw her eying it and, with raised eyebrow, surmised that she might want it (and asked her the like). She was beaming again, almost as if her smile went ear to ear and all she could do was nod vigorously in affirmation. The trade was made but she was too embarrassed to sign good trade (we talked about it later) but was beside herself proud of trading with them (as were both Cat and I)!

I think the experience made a distinct impression on her. And Cat and I had so much fun watching her. We also loved listening - via story - to the hardships they experienced. In time, I think Finn will love hearing the stories, too. But it was a wonderful experience, made all the more acute by the bone-chilling torrential rains and pounding wind we traipsed around in for a couple of hours while at the Fort. What a great time...

Rainy deluge and dreams of sunny hikes

It's been raining like the dickens (etymology?) for several days. Most of the local rivers have risen to near or are at flood stage now, especially along the North Coast. Everything's sopping wet. And we love the water...but our whole household is longing for a sunny hiking break. So we figured the next best thing was to go back and look at some of our hiking photos from this past year. And it worked. Except now we're REALLY longing for a sunny break in the weather, and it looks like it's coming this weekend! Nevertheless, we thought we'd share some of our (mostly) sunny outdoor photos from this past year with ya'll.

("Huh! How 'bout that?! I said ya'll. I guess I AM local!") name that movie...