Ok! Back to the Quilomene trip! Morning on the second day, after the thunder storm the night before, was a slow start. And thankfully so. None of us had anywhere to go and we weren’t expecting the rest of the group until after noon. With that in mind I peaked out of the tent around the time the sun was coming up then hit my mental snooze button until about 10am.
Kim had already gotten up and soon Sabrina was rustling. Not cattle, just general rustling. After breakfast Sabrina and Kim took a stroll and found a secret hide out. This whole area of Washington has been covered by some pretty large lava flows thousands of years ago and most all of the rock is basalt. The area we camp is near the top of some of these flows and runs down to the Columbia river in what seems like dozens upon dozens of wedge shaped grooves cut into the landscape by centuries of weathering. These grooves also have some cool drop offs and one of these short ones is where Sabrina found a secret hideout. It’s great to listen to her imagination run wild with new discoveries and I love that she loves exploring the great outdoors. Kim too.
The Millers rousted around 11am and we bummed around until the rest of the group lurched into camp with a cavalcade of noisy Land Rovers (and one Jeep) around 1pm. And the rest of the day went pretty much like the start, but with more drinking. It w as nice to stay in one spot for a day and not pack or move. That’s not the norm for these trips and we all seemed to enjoy it. With camp setup, we set to to swapping stories, lighting off one of those parachute fireworks (the non burning kind as the grass was fairly dry) for the kids and eating well. I had brought some of the bigger sparklers for the kids as it was the 4th of July and once the sun set late, late that night, we had a bit of fun with them. I’m not sure when all the kids got to sleep that night, it always tends to be late when it’s a summer trip and they are all pretty hyper. Around the campfire later Dan and Kevan read some cowboy poetry from the book A Cow’s Tail for a Compass by Leon Flick that had been given to us by Leon on our last Oregon offroad trip. There’s a video of it out there, but to help save some of Dan and Kevan’s dignity, I’ll not point it out.
The night wore on for some, but we turned in around….uhhh….I’m not sure. That’s part of the point of these trips, to ignore the norms and just do as you will. It was probably after midnight but stats aren’t important. I know we were tired and I was glad we hadn’t drank too much. Some others stayed awake until the wee hours and it showed the next morning. :)
