Part 16: Family Camping

From the birth of children to building and financing a house, from family holidays to summer vacations, the challenges of husbanding mix satisfaction, distraction, confusion, and shear panic.

Family Camping

“The wilderness holds answers to questions we have not yet learned to ask.” – Nancy Wynne Newhall

The weather is generally predicted by meteorologists using the Turnbull camping calendar as a scientific predictor.  Regardless of weekly forecasts, the weather always managed to change as we loaded the van to head off to enjoy nature and burned pancakes.  Our family of four; husband, wife, 4 year old son, and 1 ½ year old daughter set out from Seattle with clear blue skies and a forecast of nothing but sun for the next week.  We were on our way to Fort Stevens State Park on the Oregon coast.  As we drove over the coast range we encountered a little coastal cloudiness which was sure to burn off in the afternoon.

We checked into the campground, set up our tent and began getting stuff ready for dinner.  The kids were getting a little hungry.  I needed a beer after the long drive singing 100 verses of the “Wheels On The Bus Go Round and Round”.  It began to drizzle a bit.  No worries.  Just a little coastal mist.  I was pretty sure it would burn off in the morning and we would have a gloriously beautiful day on the beach tomorrow.

“Maybe we should eat in the van”, my wife gently said as the mist increased to showers.  “Don’t worry.  It will blow over in a few minutes”, I replied.  We finished eating slightly soggy hotdogs and decided to retire to the tent and play silly games.  Soon, with the gentle pitter-patter of the rain bouncing off the tent, we fell asleep.

3:00 am.

“Look dear, our daughter’s swimming.”

“She’s not swimming, her air mattress is floating.”

“Isn’t Eric cute the way he is blowing bubbles?”

“He’s blowing bubbles because he is drowning.”

“What time is it?  It’s really dark in this tent.”

“I’m not sure.  My watch says 3am but it might have stopped.  It’s not waterproof.”

So, in the middle of a torrential downpour in the dark of night, we hustled the kids into the van, turned on the heat to try to dry out their soggy pajamas, rung as much water out of the sleeping bags as we could, crammed the tent, sleeping bags, pillows and clothes into the back and headed out.  We didn’t know where we should go.  But anyplace that was dry would be ok with us.  On highway 101 we could go north or south.  We chose north.  The constant shivering from the back seat was getting annoying so I turned on the radio and Linda climbed over the seat to try to find dry clothes in a suitcase that was buried under a wet tent and soggy sleeping bags.  The news was on the radio and it was reported that five inches of rain had fallen in the last few hours and many roads were closed due to mudslides.  We kept on going north, hoping that we would avoid the slides and eventually came to Astoria where we discovered gold.  The brilliant gold sign of a 24 hour laundromat.  I was overcome with joy.  For a few quarters we could dry out our children, our clothes and our sleeping bags.  Life was suddenly beautiful.

Camping on the St. Joe

“Oh, darling; let’s be adventurers.” – possibly Zsa Zsa Gabor (but possibly the famous poet, Anonymous)

The next summer, my parents called to say they would like to come for a visit.  Linda’s sister, Kathy and her husband, Steve had also just called to say they wanted to go camping with us.  I asked my parents if they would like to go camping and fishing on the St. Joe River and they responded affirmatively.  Prior to their arrival, I scouted out a couple of campsites along the river and found one that was a little primitive but at least it had a pit toilet and a fire ring.  And it had space for three tents.  When the big day arrived, we set out in three cars, with two dogs, four kids under six, and six adults, three tents, four ice chests, six folding chairs, two camp stoves, six fishing rods, 10 sleeping bags, 10 pillows, 4 boxes of food, enough firewood for two nights, Coleman lanterns, multiple flashlights, several rolls of toilet paper, a shovel, an axe, a bucket, and all of the paraphernalia required for a successful two night camping adventure. 

The camp site was right on the river bank in a fairly narrow canyon carved over the centuries by the force of the river’s current.  Granite walls rose from the river and we were awed by the majesty of the surrounding forest, the constant roar of the river, the deep blue sky, and the general awesomeness of nature.  Once the tents were set up, we began the preparation for dinner cooked over the campfire.  The kids were happily playing; skipping stones in the river, gathering kindling, and giggling as kids do. 

After dinner, we all sat around the fire, toasting marshmallows for ‘smores, grandpa telling stories, grandma pointing out the constellations as night began to fall.  “Look, there’s the big dipper”, she said.  “What a beautiful evening.”  “Look at those flashes of lightning”, said grandpa.  “They are a long ways off”, said grandma.  “Probably sheet lightening.  Nothing to worry about.  Look how beautiful the night sky is with all those billions of stars.”  And so, awed by the beauty of a clear night’s sky and the occasional flash of sheet lightening, whatever that is, we retired for the evening.

Boom.  “Jesus Christ!”, said Linda.  “What was that?”  “Sounds like thunder I said.”  “It sounds like it is right on top of us. What time is it?”, she asked.  “About 2:00 am”, I replied.  And then the storm hit.  All of a sudden.  Lightening followed immediately by thunder echoed down the canyon.  The wind was howling.  You could hear branches snapping off of the trees.  The rain was torrential, quickly devolving into hail which blasted against the tent walls, and pinged off the roof and hoods of our nearby cars.  “Quick”, I said.  “Everybody up.  We need to pack up and get out of here.  We don’t want to get trapped in this canyon in a flash flood.  Come on.  Move it.” 

Just then, we heard a tree go down.  Everyone was scrambling to get tents down, and stuff packed back in to their cars.  The dogs and I were barking, kids were crying and finally doors were slamming as we eventually loaded everything and everyone into the 3 cars and in a caravan began driving out on a very muddy, slippery road.  Several times we stopped to move small trees out of the road so we could get through.  Branches were sailing through the air. The ground was white with hail.  The rain returned in torrents, blowing across the narrow, one-way dirt road in sheets.  And then, I began to laugh.  “What could you possibly be laughing about?”, asked Linda.  “The last thing my mom said before we went to bed was, “look how beautiful the night sky is.”  “She didn’t factor in the Turnbull weather equation.”

Winter Camping

“Of all the paths you take in life, make sure a few of them are dirt.” – John Muir

Several years and many camping trips later, my darling daughter, Jessica,  announced near the end of Christmas vacation, that she had a senior English class assignment due that required an outing to Honeyman State Park.  I have no recollection of the nature of her writing assignment other than it had something to do with exactly that.  Nature. 

Her announcement was much like my son’s announcement in fifth grade that he had a science project due the next day and would I please help him with it?  “Sure, Eric, what is it?”  “I need to build a volcano”, he says.  “A what?”, I say.  “A volcano.”  “You need to build this tonight?”  “Yes, it’s due tomorrow.”  “When did you learn of this assignment?”  “I dunno.  Maybe a month ago?”

Being the amazingly resilient person I am, I began assembling our camping gear using the list that Linda had created.  Linda was a Virgo.  According to some book on the signs of the Zodiac, Virgo’s are adept at list making and Linda was the quintessential Virgo.  She had lists for camping, and nearly every other human activity.  She even had lists of lists.  But the camping list was particularly useful and in no time, the van was packed and ready to head to the coast.  It was winter and it was cold.  It rarely freezes on the Oregon coast, but this particular weekend it was well below freezing.  Linda, Jessica and I rented a yurt which had a heater.  There was snow on the ground and despite having a heater in the yurt we all slept in our clothes wearing ski parkas, ski gloves, and knit hats and we nearly froze to death.  I had never been so cold.

In the morning, I got up and went outside to get water to heat on our camp stove in order to make coffee.  All of the pipes in the state park were frozen.  Workers were out with propane torches, trying to thaw out the frozen and broken pipes.  That meant no coffee.  Now I was pissed.  This was the last straw.  Camping without coffee is like skydiving without a parachute; the end is not pretty.  There may have been some undadlike words used as I muttered my way through cooking bacon and eggs.  After breakfast, we all climbed into the van to thaw out.  We drove down the coast a little way to a trailhead, and hiked through the snowy dunes to the location Jessica was using as the subject of her nature paper. 

The Oregon dunes are a magical place with the shifting sands offering an ever-changing landscape of exceptional beauty.  This frozen morning was no exception.  The white, snow-covered landscape, punctuated by clumps of green beachgrass, stretched to the horizon where it merged into the blue-white margins where land meets sky.  And the gradient blue of the sky grew ever deeper and darker as it reached its zenith.  Ours were the only human tracks on this crunchy trek through the dunes.  There were other tracks though.  Perhaps rabbits, some bird tracks, and wait!  What is that over there?  Those tracks are quite large.  What kind of animal would make cat-like prints that were that big?

The human imagination is quite a marvelous thing.  The shift from serenity to fear can happen quite rapidly.  Suddenly every sound was accentuated.  The pace of our movements increased.  There was danger behind every grove of shore pines.  I began rehearsing in my mind the proper protocol for meeting a cougar.  Get large.  Don’t run.  Remain calm.  I began searching around for large sticks to use as a possible defense.  No hope.  No cougar-worthy sticks to be found.  Don’t show fear.  Don’t let Linda and Jessica know that we are surrounded by potentially deadly carnivores.  And finally, we were at the end of our trail and ready to head back home.  I desperately needed coffee.