My spur-of-the-moment weekend

Last week I decided about mid week that I was going to take my two daughters camping. On the surface this sounds like a typical American pastime for Summer. Lots of families partake in this time honored tradition. My family itself has a long tradition of camping at Yale Lake in Washington.

This time I was determined to camp at Elk Lake, in Oregon. I checked the Deschutes National Forrest website for particulars and discovered that the lake had a campground and no reservations were required. Just first come first serve. My two daughters and I, along with my oldest daughters boyfriend, would be camping in alpine splendor (elevation 4900 ft).

I drove home and stopped to pick up camping gear at mom’s house. I took my favorite camp item, a nice thick foam pad to sleep on. This little item gave me the first hint that there might be trouble ahead. I own a Scion xA; the tiny one not the box. Its trunk is about big enough to hold two bags of groceries provided they were filled with marshmallows and could be compressed.

At home I started packing in earnest. After an hour I came to the stark realization that I could take the gear required to support 4 people in the woods or the four people, but not both. So I started dropping items off the list. To begin with my nice sleeping pad. It had to go. I would simply stop at Fred Meyers and get a blow up mattress, one of the cheapies. This after all was going to be a cheap trip. I put one of my camp chairs away, I did not have to sit in a chair, the ground would be fine for a day or two.

Food was already purchased, two cans of chili, a box of mac’n cheese, muffins, and begals with cream cheese. Pop etc. I took the requisite paper plates. I got some plastic cups too. All told the grocery bill was less than 40 bucks. Great!

After several attempts at packing my little Scion was ready to roll. The interior seating looked about as ample as a Mercury 7 space capsule. My older daughter and her boyfriend would be in the back seat with, three camp chairs, two sleeping bags, 3 pillows, and a bag containing a tripod, between them. They would not be able to see each other for the entire drive. My younger daughter would be packed with the dry food, her own cloths duffle bag on her side and I would have several stuff sacks of stuff under my legs and seat.