Picture this: Its the days between Christmas and New Years, the air is crisp and cold, all around people are making plans for the coming holiday and sharing stories of the day just passed. The shy has been clear all day and night for the past few and coldest nights in a long while are coming up ahead, you know its just gonna get down right chilly. What should you do?
Go camping, of course.
Our adventure starts out by trying to coordinate another family we know and ourselves to get together for an overnight, we decide very quickly with the cold it might be better to finally try getting a yurt or a cabin. Fawn and I have talked about doing about a billion times or so, and we've chatted with the other family about it on well more than one occasion. Lesson number one about renting a yurt: Do not wait until the last minute. These things need to reserved well in advance, otherwise its first come first serve and there aren't that many of them. Even less allow dogs in them.... We find that trying to pick one out the day before you just can't reserve them. So its gonna be an adventure. The other family quite understandably decides to stay home, with no guarantee of a warm place to sleep and only an inkling if the three hour drive will prove successful they are the wiser. But off we go. Tent loaded up just in case. We head to southern Oregon, to a park named William A Tugman. OK first impressions count, and mine was "Really?!?!? We just drove 3 hours for this???" The first thing we notice is that this park is NOT on the coast. Its about a mile in. Theres a lake here and its beautiful. But the hiking trail was closed due to the clear cutting that started at 8am.... Don't get me wrong that facilities were well kept and clean and all in working order. But I would certainly hope so, since there were four camp host spots, all filled.
I was skeptical about the Yurt form the first sight of it. It was small and sparse inside, all of the furniture consisted of a bunk bed, with a full bed on bottom/ twin on top and a futon couch. there was a small table with two chairs. All of the furniture, save the two chairs, was bolted in place and in such a way that put them a little too far into the middle of the yurt. It felt like you probably open the space up quite a bit more if that wasn't so. And they were spendy, for the same amount we could've rented a roadside motel room with free coffee and continental breakfast. The yurt was comfortable and warm.
We spent the first night with a few drinks and staring at the stars by the fire, playing a little chess and then snuggling into the cozy bed, and it was cozy. I devised a plan that evening where I put my pot of water on the fire and boiled eggs while it was blazing rather than have to cook them in the morning. Worked great. No reason not to keep in mind for a backpacking trip or a day when you just need to get up in the morning and break camp fast. Sizzled up some ham steaks and warmed some hard boiled eggs and off we went, by off I mean strolled at a leisurely pace. We strolled along one of the sides of the lake for a bit and played on the playground. Then we headed out, the plan was to play on the beach and take in a town. So we did. We checked out Coos Bay, apparently the largest city on the Oregon coast, but it was still small and kinda nice. We had a good coffee, some tasty German food and stopped into a thrift store. On our way back to camp we pulled into a Dunes area. The dunes are gorgeous we let the boy run on the beach for a bit and then went back to camp.
The next day we packed up early and headed out, I had to work that night, it was New Years eve and I work in a bar.... but we wanted to make the most of the day. We stopped at a lighthouse overlook and did some whale spotting (yes!! we actually saw some!!), which was pretty easy once you knew what you were looking for. Our plan after that was to get back on the beach for a bit. We choose a random turn off that had a sign indicating the beach. Our stroll to the beach as it looked form the top of the bluff couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards........ man were we wrong. It was a mile and a not entirely easy mile at that. but we made it and when we got to the beach we were blessed with a gift we are likely to never have again. The entire length of the beach as far as the eye could see, in both directions, was completely deserted. We had the whole Oregon coast to ourselves that morning. We spent the time looking for treasures and chasing a toddler. It was heaven on earth.
On our way home we stopped in another town, because we can't go anywhere near the ocean and not get Fawn some chowder. Mo's chowder in Florence, yum.
It was a nice weekend as any weekend should be, but it left a little something to be desired, it felt rushed and forced. I might attribute that to the yurt or the fact that we decided the day before to go, but I think it was something different. I think we were trying to create a camping trip rather just have one. Camping is organic, you bring some food and a tent and build a fire. Its just that simple. What more do you need? Oh the rest is great too, day trips and sight seeing, but its not needed in order to be. And thats what camping is, a chance to just ...be.
