Painted Hills Mega Post

We spent last weekend in the wild-lands of East/Central Oregon, splashing in and out of swimming holes on the John Day River, scouting sun-baked fossil beds, and, in general, filling our hearts with fun.

Let's go there for a minute.

Hot and bright by day. A chorus of cricket song at night. Not a single bar of cell-phone reception (vacay-ing in the wilderness shouldn't be tampered with by outside-world contact anyway).

We whipped through round, caramel-colored hills to get there, but on a dirt road a few miles outside camp, plans changed. Plumes of smoke, coloring the air blue. Wild-land fire fighters biding time inside diesel trucks. Helicopters hauling big troughs of water. Mobilization.

We turned and retreated through a blackened landscape and chased the fading light west—later to find a new, downriver campsite by chance, in the dark. Nevertheless, it was a special place.

What I took away from the trip: the image of delicate leaf tendrils pressed into ancient fossil stone, the freedom and quiet of being the only tent in sight, and the strange way it felt to get woken up at night by the haunting sound of coyote howl. I wonder what Lefty thought, curled up out there in the dirt in front of our tent?

A panting dog, and the Painted Hills in the hot wind—exuding deep geologic mysteries.

Reelin' em in, tossing em back.

Stone-cold fossil hunters.

Parched earths of the Precambrian.

Later grams.

Coastal Rabbit Hole

This weekend I fell down a kind of rabbit hole of summer with a small group of friends, as we basked in white-crested waves and sunlight and the very brightest star-scape over a black expanse of water.

We travelled westward on Friday after work and found a shangrila campsite overlooking the strand—just in time to stagger up a hillside of deep sand and watch the sun disappear. Up in our little hollow—hidden, as we were, from the rest of the beach goers—life ground to a kind of halt. Our fire crackled. Our hot dogs roasted. The real dogs curled up all tired in the sand.

I think one of the very best things about camping is that you remember about the stars. They're always a surprise for some reason. You're done cooking, and you're all staring at the fire talking and sipping, when someone looks up. "Look at the sky!" Sure enough, the pale ceiling of dusk has been replaced by a ba-jillion tiny points of light. It's just the kind of little miracle thing that city peoples like ourselves don't get to see on a daily basis.

Hidden out.

Lincoln City for Go Skate Day—scary/fun.

Back seat car buds.

Best Camp Meal 2014

Recent camping-meal move: fire-pit nachos.

I made them after the longest, funnest day of wandering through woods and swimming in cold, sun-glimmering waters. I did not take a picture of them, though (I'm not programmed to "food-Gram" for some reason).

Yes, yes, food when you're camping always tastes better. All that fresh air, et cetera. But! I'm gonna argue here that these nachos are legitimately good (the Monterey Jack melts ungodly smooth/creamy, and that Trader Joe's Taco Mix kicks). They're also hecka easy. I mean all the shit below travels well. And the campfire inferno toasts and browns and bubbles things in wonderful—if unexpected ways.

In conclusion, I would like to say that this meal is, for those who care, my new campfire jam for the rest of summer ’14.

What you need:

1 can of black beans

1 brick of Monterey jack cheese

1 pack of Trader Joe's Taco Seasoning Mix

1 can of Trader Joe's Black Olives

1 bag of tortilla chips

1 pan (that you don't mind getting all covered with campfire soot)

1 giant piece of aluminum foil

What you do:

Mix together the black beans and, like, half the taco mix.

Chop the cheese and olives.

Pile everything onto a metric ton of chips spread evenly over a baking sheet.

Cover completely with tin foil.

Get some good embers going, and cook on a grill over the fire for as long as it takes to get things where yo want ’em, melting and toasting-wise (for us, maybe 10 mins? but every fire is different ya know).

Norcal Camping, Memorialized

Wanting to go camping and going camping are not the same thing. Case in point: last summer, when my tent only came out of the closet once (but it was a good once!).

Anyhow, there is a stretch of road in Northern California, right across the Oregon border, that I particularly love. The road follows a river—one of the clearest, gem-like bluest you'll ever find—all the way to the Pacific Ocean. And just a few minutes before you run head-first into the waves, the forest suddenly explodes in size. The concept of scale gets weird. You feel like an ant in a prehistoric celery patch. It's the very northern tip of the Redwoods—and it's a bewildering place.

I drove this road again over the weekend and camped by the river for two dark, starry nights. In the cool of morning, we walked in the woods, slipping through the shade beneath those towering giants, and by afternoon we'd sit in the sand by the river, letting  our skin get warm, then hot, then burning before we'd make ourselves splash into the freezing cold water—sometimes just for how good it felt when we got out, like every single cell in our bodies was electrified.

Yep, got home late last night, smelling really bad in the best possible way—like campfire, sweat and sunscreen.

Happy summer everyone!

Lefty was ready before we were ready—leaving no chance of getting left behind. 

After a 5 hours in the car, nobody doesn't want to cool their feet in the water.

Delicacies of the forest, to be eaten by starlight.

Calm waters at dawn.

The anatomy of the kind of camp breakfast that wants not.

Big. Bigger than big. 

Inspired evening activity: take off wet bathing suit, stand near raging inferno.  

Summer Starts Now?

An entire saga of summer skate camp just ended (yay!), and without further ado, we packed up the car to go camping out on the Oregon Coast. To make summer and stuff. But I don't know. All the camp sites in every campground in a 50 mile radius were full. Grid lock traffic. Coffee shops packed with the obese and children wearing rollerblades. So Much Ice Cream being consumed. It was a horror show. So we cooled out at the beach for a bit and then split for Portland. The coast on a sunny summer weekend—I don't even want it. Let the kooks have it.

That's a sandy doggy.

Later that night, the Bracewells had a lil backyard ramp jam and called it the Salmon Jam. Loads of bros came through, old friends, new friends, people I didn't know. So much fun. Not another thing I'd rather be doing on a summer night.