The Camping Trip: Blog 1

I left the office Friday night not knowing much about my weekend other than I knew I was going camping at the Jones Creek Camp Ground on the Wilson River. I looked up Jones Creek and found out that it is equipped with vault toilets. I had to run the Google on that. I can’t find a photo but a vault toilet is a non-flushing toilet but it is permanent not like a port-a-potty. This knowledge left me a bit apprehensive. I like to flush a toilet.

As I have mentioned, I have not been camping since 1977. Until Friday evening, I had no idea how much stuff needs to be taken along when going camping. Although now that I think about it, camping is like packing your clothes, books and stuff for a little getaway and then also packing the hotel and restaurants. I didn’t really know what to do but Deren got home and we started prepping.

Clean dirty cooler for this is our fridge

Pile of stuff outside waiting to be packed.

Pile of stuff inside waiting to be packed.

Years and years ago, before I was married (either time), my parents would go to Gearhart for a month every summer. Since there really wasn’t room in the O’Connor vacation for fast food, my mom had to have all of her cooking tools with her. She traveled with  The Spice Basket, which had spices, good knives, scissors, meat thermometer, etc. Once I was vacationing with my own family, I got my own Spice basket and there it is!

The Spice Basket.

And here is my favorite photo of prep time….Derwood’s suitcase. Derwood packed a suitcase for a trip that would last no more than 36 hours. That’s my clothes horse!

In Derwood’s defense, he also packed many flashlights which did come in handy.

Pile of flashlights, GPS thing and a microfiber towel for some reason.

My favorite piece of camping luggage:

Nothing like a good Boat n Tote bag!

And away we goooooo!!!

The drive was great and it took no more than 30 minutes for Derwood to threaten to leave me at the side of the road. He is tough to travel with because it bothers him how I jump and stomp on the passenger side brake and gasp while he’s driving. No, he’s not a bad driver but you never know.

Our first stop was….

Yep, the Glenwood Park Store, where as you can see they sell Fast Food, Bait and Tackle.  They don’t mention that they also sell cassette tapes.  In case 1983 rolls back around and you need to listen to some Kenny Chesney.

Maggie’s not in the city anymore.

I bought a couple of bottles of water and Derwood got a styrofoam cup of night crawlers which happily had a tightly fitting plastic lid on it. Gah! They had public restrooms but I decided to wait.

I think I’ll just wait and see what the vault is.

Heading into the back country…not a mall in sight.

We arrived at Jones Creek Campground, which is first come-first served, and were told that the BEST site C1 was open!

Ermergerd C1!!! Hurry Derwood drive like the wind at 10 mph and get us to C1! And he did. Click on the photos to see the exquisite detail.

As you can see campsite C1 is spectacular.

This is the great room area.

Room for a tent here but also a rope strung between two trees. No idea why.

Tent laid out. It’s a 6 person tent. I really see no way that six people could sleep in this tent. It’s a 2 person/1 dog tent.

Me hammering in the little metal thing that hooks the tent to the ground. Deren hammered it in once photo was taken.

Tent in the master bedroom area.

We had only one little glitch in set up. Derwood bought a car charger/converter thing that wasn’t powerful enough to power the air mattress pumps.  So we had to go into Tillamook and buy another air mattress that didn’t have an electric pump attached and a hand pump. And a box of wine. And a stop at a bathroom with a flush toilet.

Sideways photo of Deren using the pump on the air mattresses.

Ready for action!

In tomorrow’s blog, I leave the campsite and go out in nature and to the vault! Stay tuned!