Our own hill, the full kit, and berry galette
Clean and fresh, we left civilization in pursuit of a spot to spend the work week… now, I don’t know if any of you have been keeping track, but since leaving the Moose Lodge in La Pine, we have camped in a different nearly every single night. Only once, at the state park, did we stay two nights. Every other day we packed up, drove around for a few hours, and re-settled in a new camp. While it is a true VanLife way to live, it is extremely tiring to say the least. So when the work week was coming up on us, we were hoping to find a spot that we can spend the next four nights without having to pack up and move.
So, we headed out into the forest lands again, driving even more miles of gravel road and inspecting every spur road we came upon. There were a few spots we came by, but they were trashed by previous campers. We kept moving further and further into the forest and eventually came upon a small hill with a road that dead-ends at the peak. It was perfect! With a small clearing up top to get a few hours of solar each day and an almost guarantee we would not have visitors we settled in for a few work days.
Our little mountain was quite the relaxing spot. I put out the full kit for van-camping right away, complete with the awning, ground mat, shade wall, and both chairs and fold-out table. It’s a lot of gear (for a van-guy), which means they usually do not all come out, but this place felt like home right away.
We were surrounded not only by trees, but by the berry bushes of all types. Kerri has been reading up on all the local edibles so we spent one evening picking a good helping of berries (Black, Thimble, and Salal berries) within just a few steps of Big Blue. Later in the week she hand rolled some crust and put together a berry-galette which sure looked good, although a bit tart for me. But, look what we can do in a van, thanks to Big Blue’s kickass oven.
The dogs had free reign for the week again. There wasn’t really anywhere for either of them to go to be honest. The forest is so thick – with prickly bushes – that they didn’t dare venture off the roadway or out of the clearing. A little fetch was played each day to get them moving, but otherwise it was a relaxing week.
On Thursday night, just before going to bed, our water tank started running dry. It is easy to tell that it is happening; as we pump more and more air bubbles come out. This meant we were down to our final five gallons of water which I poured into the tank the following morning. This also meant we had to leave our spot to find more water. So on Friday morning we rolled out and into the nearest town where Kerri had her mail forwarded to the local Post Office. The rest of the work day was spent at a local park-slash-swimming-beach. That evening we rolled out to start our weekend.
Really nice
I do miss blackberries.