Camping

I spent much of the last weekend camping on an island in the middle of Priest Lake, about 70 miles from here (here being Bayview). Mike and I rented a canoe from a local resort, which is a cheap and effective (although somewhat tiring) way to get yourself and your gear a mile into the lake to reach the island, from a guy who was definitely not getting paid enough to care whether or not we sank en route. After 5 minutes of delays and interrupting conversations with his coworker, he showed us to our proud vessel (actually a great canoe) which had four inches of water in it from the last rain. He asked apathetically “so uhh, you want to dump the water our first?” “oh no, that’s fine, I like having the lake in as well as out”. After we get it emptied of water he says “ok, go ahead and get in”. Which would be an easier proposition if it wasn’t tethered to the dock between two other canoes, making the only way to get in jumping across two feet of open water into the skinny tippy top triangle end of the canoe. Perhaps the only amusement he gets out of his job, watching people fall into the lake.

So anywhoo… we set sail, or set paddle (whatever) and made it across the lake just fine. We set up camp (and this is by no means a primitive island - it’s a couple miles around it and has established campsites complete with “facilities”, fire pits, and nice sandy beaches. We spend the day swimming, lounging on floaties (the technical term for those you know) eating lots of food… For some reason when I go camping I instantly switch into “starving frontier woman survivor mode” and eat way more than I need to, which is ridiculous when the most strenous thing we did that day was stroll 3/4 of a mile to a different beach to look at an osprey nest.

We had a nice campfire and watched boats go by enviously, and ate some more, and built a sandcastle-turned-sandpyramid, and slept under the stars on an air mattress with the sound of the waves shwooshing in.

We awoke at sunrise, sat around another fire for a bit, then packed up and paddled back across the lake early in the morning. Once we gave the canoe back to Mr. More lazy than an old cat (who very nicely asked “hey, so like, you need any help with all that stuff?” After we had carried all but the last bag in the car) we made up for our retreat from the civilized world by eating a sumptous breakfast at the resort’s restaurant (buttermilk huckleberry pancakes, hashbrowns, fresh squeezed oj for me; some meat/egg/goop thing for Mike). Why does “real” food always taste so much better after you’ve been camping on an island? Weird.

I hadn’t been camping yet this year and it was truly splendid… I’ve been very involved at work lately, mostly in a good way, but have sometimes had a hard time getting my mind off of work when I’m not at work anymore. It’s quite a bit harder to dwell on such things when you’re on a floaty in the middle of the lake looking at little fishes swim around underneath you in the clear blue water, off the shore of an island, in the middle of a lake, surrounded by mountains and blue sky.