Earlier this week, the cruise ship Explorer, which took Jenelle and Jonathan to Antarctica, sunk after hitting ice and taking on water. You can see pictures of the disaster here, while the Explorer can be seen in happier days here (safely navigating the ice).
There were no casualties, but after feeling so safe on our cruise, it’s strange to think that the ship is now at the bottom of the sea.
Jenelle and Jonathan chose this past Friday and Saturday to open the camping season. They packed up the car with the cooler, tent, sleeping bag, air mattress, Dutch oven and accessories, etc. After noting that there was no room in the car whatsoever for a baby and her car seat, they headed west to the Pacific coast and Oswald West state park.
Oswald West is a very special state park. Its thirty campsites are all 0.3 miles from the parking lot, which means there is some walking to do before you can set up camp. Fortunately, the park provides lovely, bright blue wheelbarrows that the guests can haul their goods in. The weather was good, and Jenelle and Jonathan had a lovely time.
The big question that loomed was how their new tent would perform. Actually, not so much how would it perform, but how would it fit in a campsite. They had purchased the tent to accommodate their growing family. However, when they first set up the tent at home, it wasn’t clear if the they could accommodate the tent, as it filled most of the living room. Jenelle named it “Snuffalufagus.” Jonathan called it the “Tent-Ma-Hal.” It is officially a four-person tent with a large, screened vestibule on the front half of the tent.
As you probably know, tents this large are banned in many small eastern states because they take up a disproportionately large amount of land. In the end, Snuffy fit just fine and was very comfortable. Imagine, a tent that Jonathan can stand up in!
On Saturday afternoon they went to the beach at Hug Point and flew Jonathan’s kite.
Reasonable people may wonder how a husband could be so mean and selfish as to force his pregnant wife to go camping, and even make her do the cooking. For the record, the camping trip was a result of Jenelle’s repeated requests to go camping. Besides, she is only 7.75 months along. Additionally, diligent genealogical research has revealed that she stems from good nomadic stock.
Jenelle and Jonathan recently spent a weekend in Astoria, Oregon. Astoria is a city on the northwest tip of the state, on the mouth of the Columbia River. It is full of history, having long been the stomping grounds of Native Americans and explorers such as Lewis & Clark. It was founded by Mr. Astor, who gave the town its name. Fortunately, it wasn’t founded by Mr. Malar or Mr. Hyster.
Upon arriving in the city, we were surprised to find snow on the ground, which the locals assured us was very unusual. We spent two nights at a lovely bed and breakfast in the old part of the city. The place was a house that is almost a hundred years old, which made it a good setting for the large antiques collection of the owners. This was our first stay at a B&B in the United States, and we very much enjoyed it. One of the best parts was that the tasty breakfasts included dessert. The house is next door to the site of the first U.S. post office west of the Rocky Mountains.
After attending church at the friendly Astoria ward, we walked up to the famous Astoria Column, which stands on a hill overlooking the city. From the top of the column we had a beautiful view of the surrounding country. The face of the column is covered with a mural depicting the history of the area. Later, we visited two lighthouses on the Washington side of the river.
The next day, we visited Fort Clatsop National Historic Park, which contains a replica of the fort that the Corps of Discovery wintered in from November 1805 – March 1806. The word is that Lewis and Clark saw only seven days of good weather during their winter on the coast. We also visited Fort Stevens, which served as a military base defending the mouth of the Columbia from Civil War times through World War II.
I’ve posted some photos from our week together this month.
With the days here growing rainier and colder, thoughts turn to the end of summer, when Jenelle and Jonathan ventured south to California to visit the Redwood National and State Parks. (The original plan was to visit Yellowstone, but that is another story. Maybe one that will happen next year.)
They drove down to the parks on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend and set up camp. Within minutes, one of the early highlights of the trip occurred when Jenelle invented the Double Stuff Chocolate Oreo S’more. But the culinary wonders did not stop there as they experimented with their new Dutch oven. By the end of the trip, they were producing things that Jonathan thought he would never eat on a camping trip, including pizza and apple/cherry pie.
During their stay of four days and four nights, they saw wildlife, wildflowers and (of course) really, really big wild trees. They also visited Fern Canyon, a canyon with vertical walls that are covered with ferns. During the hikes they went on, they noticed that many of the groves were named after people (presumably ones who had money to donate to the park). Jenelle and Jonathan started thinking that it would be great to have a Vance Grove in the park. As they were driving home on Wednesday, they happened upon just such a place, named after an early pioneer in the area.
Update: Here’s a link to a panorama shot that I couldn’t upload into the photo site (for unknown reasons).
Jenelle and Jonathan spent three days last week hiking the Eagle Creek Trail in the Columbia River Gorge. They had been on the first 6 miles of this trail several times before, but a yearning to carry heavy things on their backs caused them to plan a trip all the way to Wahtum Lake at the end of the trail (and then back, of course — you can’t stay at Wahtum Lake forever).
They resolved to set off on this 26.6-mile journey early Thursday afternoon, but one thing let to another, and they didn’t get to the trailhead until 4:45 that evening. So, they hiked in a few miles and made camp at a site on Eagle Creek.
The next day was a very special day — Jessica’s Birthday Eve, a.k.a. Jenelle’s Birthday. Not just any birthday, but the Big Three-O. (Some of our acquaintances would find this hard to believe, since they tell Jenelle she looks so young.) They celebrated with a candle-studded carrot cake muffin. That day they hiked and hiked, passing beautiful waterfalls, steep cliffs, peaceful forests, and sunlit groves. They pondered how much more pleasant backpacking can be in good weather. Late that afternoon, they reached the end of the trail at lovely Wahtum Lake and then made camp near a creek a few miles back on the trail.
Their third and final day was uneventful, though breakfast was cut short when the stove ran out of fuel in the middle of the first pancake. (Jonathan needs to learn to conserve fuel. Or just bring more.) Afterward, they went home, cleaned their gear, and treated their blisters.
Pictures are available here. We hope you enjoy them — Jonathan has said that he isn’t taking a camera with a heavy zoom lens backpacking again.
Jonathan has put together a few panoramas from the recent Great Britain trip. Some of them are so wide that our photogallery doesn’t handle them well, but you can see them by clicking on the links below:
