However, this year has been such a year of stress and strife, all I wanted to do was just get away and spend some good quality alone time with Wes. Which is exactly what we did.
I consider myself quite the outdoorsmanwomanperson, so of course my idea of a relaxing weekend "away" was camping. Wes was totally on board with the idea so we started formulating plans to camp out at Dougan Creek Campground, adjacent to Dougan Falls, a popular swimming hole north of Washougal. In the week leading up to the trip, we planned our meals, grocery shopped, and prepped the food. We had a great weekend planned.
Dougan Falls - Credit http://www.panoramio.com/photo/44990917
Thanks, Google.
Friday night, I headed over to his house with my car stuffed with camping gear and the food I had bought. Wes had also stocked up on food for the weekend, and we went to Winco and purchased even MORE. We had enough meals to last about two weeks, I'd bet. And alcohol, of course. To the tune of one twelve pack of beer, one bottle of wine, and a bottle of Bailey's for coffee in the morning. In the parking lot, there was a brief moment when Wes paused, looked at me, and suggested maybe heading up that night. It was dismissed. To this day, we still argue about who was the actual dismisser. (it was him.)
I wanted to get an early start the next morning, so after we got back and packed the car, we headed for bed.
Saturday morning came bright and early, as I was awake and bushy tailed at 7am. Knowing Wes's night owl-like tendencies, I lay there, vibrating, waiting for him to wake up. Around 8:15 I couldn't wait anymore and I quietly got up to brush my teeth and start getting myself ready. Had it gone my way, we would have been up and out the door by 7, especially considering Dougan Falls is extremely popular, and with it's close proximity to Washougal and the neighboring smaller towns, I was worried we would miss out on a spot. I had done some preliminary research on Friday to see if there were any other camping spots in the area as a Plan B.... there were none.
I finally woke Wes up at 8:30. He was quick to get up, but we were both slow to get everything ready. It's funny, how packed you think you are the night before, but when it's actually GO time, you realize all the stuff you forgot and all the stuff you still need to throw in the car. Wes debated taking a shower, and then much to my chagrin, made the decision to. I tried to hide my impatience, in fact I vaguely remember mumbling "there's a RIVER and a swimming hole." under my breath and at his back as he walked to the bathroom.
Finally on the road at 10AM (cue expletives from me), we stopped at the gas station down the street from Wes's house to pick up ice and fuel up my car. The scene in my head is reminiscent of an old school Three (two?) Stooges movie, as we were constantly running back and forth from the car to the mini mart.
"I got ice"
"Only two bags?"
"Should we get more?"
"I'll go get more"
"Got more ice"
"What about wood? They have wood there"
"Yeah, let's just get it here."
"Got the wood!"
"Crap, we don't have a bottle opener for the wine"
"I'll go look for one in the store"
"I'll put the ice in the cooler while you do that"
"They didn't have one"
"Should we run home to get mine?"
"Yeah, lets do it."
"We need one more bag of ice."
After doubling back to get the damn bottle opener, convincing Wes to smoke in the car rather than delay 4 more minutes, and waving a cheerful goodbye to his dad (who thought we left LONG ago), we were FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY on the road to Washougal. Wes had his coffee and smoke, and my anxiety was lessened just a little at the fact that we were making some progress and actually moving in the direction of the campground.
We arrived at Dougan Creek around 11:30 that day and promptly realized we needed a goddamm Discover Pass to park in the Washington Wilderness. The closest place to get that was 10 miles BACK in the direction we just came. Had we any foresight (barring the foresight to remember the damn pass) we would have checked the campground for open spots and THEN doubled back for the pass. Alas, it was not so. We immediately turned around, bought the pass at the Washougal Mercantile (aDORable) and drove ten miles BACK to the campground. We drove one pass around the loop, and my heart sank as I realized every single spot was taken. So many negative thoughts zoomed through my brain at that moment. "We should have left last night", "We should have remembered this stupid pass earlier", "I was afraid of this".
We asked a couple of locals if they knew of any other spots to camp, but there wasn't much of anything to suggest. We stopped back at the mercantile to ask the same question, and were pointed East about 15 miles to Beacon Rock. We were told there were two campgrounds, one on each side of the highway, so off we drove off with a tiny glimmer of hope that our weekend might not be ruined.
I'm sure the drive there was pleasant enough, what with the scenery and the foliage and the this and the that blah blah blah. I didn't pay any attention. My stomach was soured with anxiety and all I could think were negative thoughts that didn't help the situation at all. Wes and I barely spoke the entire drive, except for the occasional "oh hey look at that thing out the window" and the usual "how 'bout that." response. Both of us knew complaining and commiserating would only wear us both out, so we elected for almost total silence. I had tunnel vision, I no longer saw anything that wasn't campground location related.
Once we reached Beacon Rock, we took a right at the first campground entrance down by the river, only to discover both (yes, both, as in TWO) campsites had been taken. They were terrible, anyway. Right next to a parking lot, no shade, gross. Not to be deterred, we followed the signs and took the first left up to what we thought were the other campgrounds. Only group camping and day use areas, as far as we could drive, awaited us there. Not one to admit easy defeat, I flipped a U-turn and drove back to the small lodge looking thing that looked all official and stuff. There had to be someone there who knew of some remote, unknown campsite that no one would possibly know to find except for a small number of people and THAT PERSON would be the one to direct me there. I just knew it. We parked, walked inside, and were told by the forest worker that we had taken the wrong left, we needed to take the SECOND left to the campground, and as about 45 minutes prior, she knew there were five campsites open. We looked at each other, shrugged, and decided to take a shot. We didn't vocalize it on the way up, but both of us knew this was our last shot at the weekend. If we weren't successful, we were going home.
As we got near the day-use area, there was a guy waving hikers in to the parking lot and we asked him if the 5 spots were still available. He thought about it for a second, and then said "Sorry, it's all full."
My heart sank, I felt my face fall. I looked at Wes and he said what I was thinking: "That's it. Let's go back to Portland."
I looked down for a moment, and then looked back at the guy with total misery in my face. I asked him if he knew of anything, ANYTHING that might still be open, but I had been totally deflated at that point. He waved down another forest worker in a truck, and I swear to fucking GOD the clouds parted and a sunburst with a rainbow beamed down on her as she said "Oh yeah, I just drove around up there, there's still 5 spots open. Go get one."
The speed limit within the campground was 5MPH. I'm pretty sure I at least tripled that, screaming up the hill to get to a spot before any other imaginary person could. We pulled into the first empty one we saw, got out, and surveyed our new home for the weekend. It was just about perfect. Set way in off the road for a little privacy, nice and big, with room for my giant tent and a huge old picnic table that was basically wood planks mounted on big boulders. Wes suggested continuing on to see if there was a better spot to be had, but after thinking about it for a moment we both decided to stay put, less someone else drove up and took the spot while we were gone.
It was then that I noticed Wes was looking a little green. "I need some water." He said. He didn't want to bring it up, but the last two hours he had been suffering through car sickness and a huge headache. Not wanting to stress me out even more, he suffered in silence. Now that we had gotten to our goal, all he wanted was some water and to sit down on something that wasn't moving.
Once we got settled (and Wes swallowed his initial scoffing when he realized that my tent with the built in poles INDEED only takes one single minute to set up), we cracked open some beers and sat in our camp chairs, staring at a cold fire pit. It felt so nice to finally relax, breathe, and not worry any longer. Our phones got zero reception, except for a tiny sliver up by the car, as long as we were facing left, so we left them in the car and prepared to have an amazing weekend unplugged from the rest of the world.
After an hour or so of beer drinking and idle chatting, we decided to boot up and explore some of the hiking trails that were a few feet away from the camp ground. Well, I booted up anyway, in my amazing Katniss boots!
I wanted to get an early start the next morning, so after we got back and packed the car, we headed for bed.
Saturday morning came bright and early, as I was awake and bushy tailed at 7am. Knowing Wes's night owl-like tendencies, I lay there, vibrating, waiting for him to wake up. Around 8:15 I couldn't wait anymore and I quietly got up to brush my teeth and start getting myself ready. Had it gone my way, we would have been up and out the door by 7, especially considering Dougan Falls is extremely popular, and with it's close proximity to Washougal and the neighboring smaller towns, I was worried we would miss out on a spot. I had done some preliminary research on Friday to see if there were any other camping spots in the area as a Plan B.... there were none.
I finally woke Wes up at 8:30. He was quick to get up, but we were both slow to get everything ready. It's funny, how packed you think you are the night before, but when it's actually GO time, you realize all the stuff you forgot and all the stuff you still need to throw in the car. Wes debated taking a shower, and then much to my chagrin, made the decision to. I tried to hide my impatience, in fact I vaguely remember mumbling "there's a RIVER and a swimming hole." under my breath and at his back as he walked to the bathroom.
Finally on the road at 10AM (cue expletives from me), we stopped at the gas station down the street from Wes's house to pick up ice and fuel up my car. The scene in my head is reminiscent of an old school Three (two?) Stooges movie, as we were constantly running back and forth from the car to the mini mart.
"I got ice"
"Only two bags?"
"Should we get more?"
"I'll go get more"
"Got more ice"
"What about wood? They have wood there"
"Yeah, let's just get it here."
"Got the wood!"
"Crap, we don't have a bottle opener for the wine"
"I'll go look for one in the store"
"I'll put the ice in the cooler while you do that"
"They didn't have one"
"Should we run home to get mine?"
"Yeah, lets do it."
"We need one more bag of ice."
Do we have enough ice yet????
credit - http://www.laobserved.com/archive/2013/01/documenting_the_three_sto.php
We arrived at Dougan Creek around 11:30 that day and promptly realized we needed a goddamm Discover Pass to park in the Washington Wilderness. The closest place to get that was 10 miles BACK in the direction we just came. Had we any foresight (barring the foresight to remember the damn pass) we would have checked the campground for open spots and THEN doubled back for the pass. Alas, it was not so. We immediately turned around, bought the pass at the Washougal Mercantile (aDORable) and drove ten miles BACK to the campground. We drove one pass around the loop, and my heart sank as I realized every single spot was taken. So many negative thoughts zoomed through my brain at that moment. "We should have left last night", "We should have remembered this stupid pass earlier", "I was afraid of this".
Oh, thanks, cheerful sweater stock image guy. Good info.
We asked a couple of locals if they knew of any other spots to camp, but there wasn't much of anything to suggest. We stopped back at the mercantile to ask the same question, and were pointed East about 15 miles to Beacon Rock. We were told there were two campgrounds, one on each side of the highway, so off we drove off with a tiny glimmer of hope that our weekend might not be ruined.
I'm sure the drive there was pleasant enough, what with the scenery and the foliage and the this and the that blah blah blah. I didn't pay any attention. My stomach was soured with anxiety and all I could think were negative thoughts that didn't help the situation at all. Wes and I barely spoke the entire drive, except for the occasional "oh hey look at that thing out the window" and the usual "how 'bout that." response. Both of us knew complaining and commiserating would only wear us both out, so we elected for almost total silence. I had tunnel vision, I no longer saw anything that wasn't campground location related.
Once we reached Beacon Rock, we took a right at the first campground entrance down by the river, only to discover both (yes, both, as in TWO) campsites had been taken. They were terrible, anyway. Right next to a parking lot, no shade, gross. Not to be deterred, we followed the signs and took the first left up to what we thought were the other campgrounds. Only group camping and day use areas, as far as we could drive, awaited us there. Not one to admit easy defeat, I flipped a U-turn and drove back to the small lodge looking thing that looked all official and stuff. There had to be someone there who knew of some remote, unknown campsite that no one would possibly know to find except for a small number of people and THAT PERSON would be the one to direct me there. I just knew it. We parked, walked inside, and were told by the forest worker that we had taken the wrong left, we needed to take the SECOND left to the campground, and as about 45 minutes prior, she knew there were five campsites open. We looked at each other, shrugged, and decided to take a shot. We didn't vocalize it on the way up, but both of us knew this was our last shot at the weekend. If we weren't successful, we were going home.
As we got near the day-use area, there was a guy waving hikers in to the parking lot and we asked him if the 5 spots were still available. He thought about it for a second, and then said "Sorry, it's all full."
Those words, they thundered into my skull.
My heart sank, I felt my face fall. I looked at Wes and he said what I was thinking: "That's it. Let's go back to Portland."
I looked down for a moment, and then looked back at the guy with total misery in my face. I asked him if he knew of anything, ANYTHING that might still be open, but I had been totally deflated at that point. He waved down another forest worker in a truck, and I swear to fucking GOD the clouds parted and a sunburst with a rainbow beamed down on her as she said "Oh yeah, I just drove around up there, there's still 5 spots open. Go get one."
The speed limit within the campground was 5MPH. I'm pretty sure I at least tripled that, screaming up the hill to get to a spot before any other imaginary person could. We pulled into the first empty one we saw, got out, and surveyed our new home for the weekend. It was just about perfect. Set way in off the road for a little privacy, nice and big, with room for my giant tent and a huge old picnic table that was basically wood planks mounted on big boulders. Wes suggested continuing on to see if there was a better spot to be had, but after thinking about it for a moment we both decided to stay put, less someone else drove up and took the spot while we were gone.
We had finally arrived.
It was then that I noticed Wes was looking a little green. "I need some water." He said. He didn't want to bring it up, but the last two hours he had been suffering through car sickness and a huge headache. Not wanting to stress me out even more, he suffered in silence. Now that we had gotten to our goal, all he wanted was some water and to sit down on something that wasn't moving.
Once we got settled (and Wes swallowed his initial scoffing when he realized that my tent with the built in poles INDEED only takes one single minute to set up), we cracked open some beers and sat in our camp chairs, staring at a cold fire pit. It felt so nice to finally relax, breathe, and not worry any longer. Our phones got zero reception, except for a tiny sliver up by the car, as long as we were facing left, so we left them in the car and prepared to have an amazing weekend unplugged from the rest of the world.
After an hour or so of beer drinking and idle chatting, we decided to boot up and explore some of the hiking trails that were a few feet away from the camp ground. Well, I booted up anyway, in my amazing Katniss boots!
Katnissssssssssssss
One of the trail names that caught our attention was "Rodney Falls and Pool of the Winds."
POOL OF THE WINDS!! We had to go. It sounded like something out of Legend of Zelda or some shit. We thought maybe we'd find the Lady of the Lake wielding Excaliber. We hiked for a bit, chatting and joking around in our usual way, until we came to a crest overlooking the gorge, with a giant rock jutting out of the side. I *think* this was Little Beacon Rock, from looking at the map, as the name seems to fit. We admired the view for a moment, until I decided I'd get a MUCH BETTER view if I scaled that rock around to the other side. It looked like the view would be totally unobstructed by the trees. Ignoring Wes's hesitations and warnings, I set my water bottle down and climbed to the other side, whispering "Katnisssssss" under my breath. I sat at the top of the rock, totally out of view of Wes and yelled "oh my god you have to see this!". I was just floored by the amazing view I had of the river winding its way through the Gorge. I yelled a few more times, took some big deep breaths of the mountain air, and climbed my way back to where Wes was standing on the trail. He was totally stone-faced. "Oh man, you should have seen that, so amazing." I said, excitedly. Wes was not thrilled. From his viewpoint, he watched me disappear over a cliff face, balancing precariously on some rocks, inches from falling hundreds of feet if I so much as slipped the wrong way. He had yelled a few times, and I failed to respond. Frankly, I scared the shit out of him. I felt really bad, I didn't mean to scare him and I should have listened better when he voiced his concerns over what I was doing.
We hiked back to the road in silence. When we got back to our campsite, he gave me a big hug and told me he wasn't mad at me, I just scared him, and he didn't want the last thing he ever got to see of me be a water bottle before I fell to my death. He would have had no way of knowing if I did get into trouble, because we couldn't see or hear each other. My bad. Totally my bad. We talked it out, apologized, and the sun came back out for our weekend again. I actually feel pretty proud of us, as a couple, getting through our first real conflict by talking and listening to each other. No yelling, no accusations or attempts to "win". We aren't like that, we are an equal pair, neither of us ever wants to win anything. (except maybe beer pong, which I've never played but I bet I could get the hang of it and dominate. I will win that.)
Once that negativity had been banished for good, we decided to look for this fabled "Pool of the Winds". We passed a waterfall that we thought might be Rodney Falls, and were totally unimpressed. It wasn't a waterfall really, more just a slightly downhill area where water happened to fall down. We decided to keep going, and ended up at a different waterfall that was simply breathtaking. At least 50 feet tall, it crashed down into a rock alcove, with a giant petrified tree jutting up out of the water and growing right into the cliff face. Several smaller falls stemmed off of it, and I took my Katnissssssss boots off and waded into the water. It was freezing cold, but so refreshing after our hard and sweaty hike. I sat on a rock in the middle of the river and just let the spray of the falls hit me in the face. I looked back at Wes and he was smiling. We were both totally at peace there. We hiked up a little further and stared at the tree in the waterfall and marveled at how beautiful the whole thing was. We had both left our phones at the site, so no pictures were taken, which was actually for the better. This was our moment, we weren't sharing it with anyone or worrying about composing a picture. We took our moment, kissed for a long while with the falls roaring behind us, and then made our way back to the campground. The paths back were a little hazy, and there were a couple of moments we stood at forks in the path, debating which way we had came. It seemed any time we followed our instincts and made a decision, it was the wrong one and we had to turn back. And strangely, a lot of the time it was making a decision to take that first left.
Pool of the Winds. See the log??
Credit - deviantart.com, couldn't find the original photog.
Since we literally had no agenda, no plans, and were totally unplugged, we were free to just do whatever the fuck we wanted, when we wanted. We didn't even have a clock to tell time, because time didn't really matter up there. Considering this, I decided I wanted to nap, and so I did. It felt great to just make that decision and do it, knowing I didn't have any time limits or any restraints. I woke up to find Wes making some mini pizzas by the camp stove. He looked up when I exited the tent, smiled, and said "I'm just making a snack. Want one?" I swear I've never loved him more than that moment, right there. My heart just dropped. I smiled and said sure, and we spent the next hour or so making our pizzas and eating them, idly talking about nothing and everything. I don't even remember those conversations, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that we were both totally uninhibited, totally at peace and at home with each other. There was nothing I would have rather been doing, then sitting on that old picnic table eating pizza with Wes.
The night brought on the need for a fire, so Wes started cooking his fajitas while I got the fire built. Not to brag or anything, but it took me like 1.25 seconds to build a kickass fire. I'm thinking of teaching lessons. I was basically the fire bitch for the rest of the weekend, building it and maintaining it, and trying not to intervene when Wes would put additional logs on. After fajitas were the smores and more beers. After assessing our general stickiness from the hot hike and the bug spray we doused ourselves with, we decided a shower was in order.
Oh, but there is no greater test of a relationship than taking a camp shower together. I will now explain why.
When we walked into the shower room (which was a private locked shower room type thing) the motion sensor lights kicked on and the fluorescent beams shone down upon us in all their glory. Oh, this was going to be bad. Those lights were going to highlight every single flaw we had. Sure, we'd seen each other naked plenty of times, but not like this. Not. Like. This. We showered, paying .50 every 3 minutes and laughing at ourselves, because that's all you can do. In a damp, smelly, poorly (if not overly) lit shower room where you're too afraid to remove your flip flops and the old chunk of soap from who knows where mocks you endlessly because you forgot to bring your own, all you have is your humor.
It was heaven, pure heaven.
That night, we fell asleep holding hands.
The next morning, as per usual, I was up way earlier than Wes was. I planned to get the coffee going and get breakfast started before he woke up, because I know him enough by now to know that he is a giant grumpy face if he doesn't have his morning coffee and cigarette first thing.
I left with a pot to get some water to heat up on the camp stove for the coffee, and since the bathrooms and water pump were set back into the woods behind our site, I didn't see Wes was up until I had rounded the corner. I nearly stopped in my tracks. He was awake, dressed, and bustling around the camp with his signature hoodie on, hood up, and cigarette in his mouth. Again, it was one of those moments that seemed so simple, and yet when I saw him like that I thought to myself "My god, but I love him so much." Then when he smiled and said "Hey Bunches!!" I died a little inside. I love it when he calls me that.
Coffee is almost done, honey. Almost done.
I left with a pot to get some water to heat up on the camp stove for the coffee, and since the bathrooms and water pump were set back into the woods behind our site, I didn't see Wes was up until I had rounded the corner. I nearly stopped in my tracks. He was awake, dressed, and bustling around the camp with his signature hoodie on, hood up, and cigarette in his mouth. Again, it was one of those moments that seemed so simple, and yet when I saw him like that I thought to myself "My god, but I love him so much." Then when he smiled and said "Hey Bunches!!" I died a little inside. I love it when he calls me that.
We made coffee together (complete with Bailey's, of course", I started a fire to throw the burritos on, and we just meandered around the camp, enjoying the morning and enjoying each others' presence. I was already feeling the sting of knowing we were leaving the next day. The previous 24 hours had been so damn great, leaving was going to suck HARD.
After cleaning up breakfast, we chilled for a bit and I decided to experiment with a camping recipe I had seen online. I had a roll of biscuit dough and a can of apple pie filling, and darn it if I wasn't going to make tiny pies with them. I set to work, flattening out the biscuits, putting dollops of pie filling in the middle, and attempting to close them up and around. My thought was I was going to fry them in the cast-iron skillet in butter once I was finished. Wes helped, and actually got a couple of good ones closed. The rest slowly split open, revealing the gelatinous innards like infected vaginas. We laughed, and dubbed them Vagina Pies and we saw that they were good.
Since most people camp for a Friday through Sunday type thing, and we were camping Saturday through Monday, we realized we were pretty much alone in the campground when we got up Sunday morning. So we took that opportunity to explore the other sites and figure out what one we were going to try to get next time. (Because there WILL be a next time!) We found an excellent giant stone fireplace next to a recessed camp site that had A FUCKING WOODEN STAIRCASE on each end!! That campsite had a fucking foyer!!!
We realized with glee that many of the campers had left perfectly good firewood behind, so we gathered some to bring back to our site, briefly wondering if that was a "thing" and if it was "ok" we were taking it, and then immediately decided we didn't care.
Later that afternoon, after drinking more beer and eating more food, we decided to try our luck across the highway and visit Beacon Rock. We had seen a crowd there the day before, and wanted to know what the hubub was all about. Once we parked and had our Discover Pass proudly hanging from the rearview mirror, we embarked up the trail and laughed at how easy it was. A small child went skipping by, singing "I LOVE this trail! It's so fun!" The trail was paved in concrete, with metal bars acting as rails to help us along.
"This is basically a rest stop! There's a Flying J up at the top, I just know it. Honey, let's get slurpees!" - Wes
About halfway up, however, the concrete stopped and the switchbacks began. The trail up Beacon Rock is essentially 90-100 or so switchbacks zig-zagging their way up. We huffed and puffed and sweated our way all the way to the top, stopping to admire the view from time to time, but looking forward to the promised "360 degree view of the gorge" that was allegedly waiting for us at the top.
There would probably BE a 360 degree view, however the TREES SURROUNDING THE TOP sort of inhibited that view. But hey, we did get a nice view and I was adequately schooled by Wes on the art of the selfie. (see, that's why he went to school.)
After getting back and grilling up the burgers Wes made, we realized with some trepidation we were nearly out of beer. We still had hours left in the evening, and two beers to split between us. We stared in silence at the bottle of Baileys for some time. "Should we? Shouldn't we?" The thought of drinking, nay, swigging Irish Cream directly from the bottle had definitely crossed our minds. Laughing uneasily at our borderline alcoholism, we agreed more beer was in order. We had been to the general store a few miles down the highway earlier in the day to get ice, so I got in the car and drove back for more beer. After beer was another horrendously lit shower (in which I forgot my flip flops, sick.), more beer, and then we collapsed for the night inside the tent. I know for me, it didn't take long to fall asleep, we had done so much hiking and walking around that day my body was just spent.
The next morning was our sad departure day. It was the day that schedules and clocked were reintroduced back into our lives. I lay awake for awhile while Wes continued sleeping, wondering what time it was. I had a job interview that afternoon and was definitely needing to know how much time we had until we left. I rooted around in my bag for a bit looking for my contacts. My plan was to put my eyeballs in and get my phone out of the car to check the time and decide if I wanted to go back to sleep or not. All my rustling around woke Wes up, though, and after a time he huffily got up and put his jeans on, pulling his phone out and checking the time in the process. Of course. Of course his phone was right there.
"What time is it?"
"7:30"
"Shit. Let's go back to bed."
"NOPE. NOPE. YOU WOKE ME UP, I'M UP NOW."
And with that, he huffily left the tent. I sat there for a minute, the sour feeling in my chest rising as the thought of his being mad at me for something so silly and the fact that we had to leave our dream weekend behind crashed together. I gathered my stuff up and silently walked to the bathroom to take a moment for myself. I was mad at him for being mad at me, mad that we had to end this at some point, and just mad all over. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, and after coming back to the site, Wes once again gave me a big hug and said sorry for getting irritated. He was annoyed at waking up so early, yes, but once he thought about it, it just meant several more hour he got to spend with me. If he had to chose between sleeping and that, he'd choose that any day. We finished our coffee and breakfast, and morosely started packing up camp. We did it in mostly silence, reflecting on the weekend and all the things we did and saw. Once the car was completely packed up, we stood quietly staring at our empty campsite. Both of us got a bit choked up as we said goodbye. We were not ready to leave yet, but we had to.
On the ride home, we laughed and relived the weekend as best as we could, but as the dirt and trees faded into concrete and power poles, we finally realized "real life" was here again. We were once again back in the presence of schedules, clocks, alarms, bosses, and responsibilities.
All in all, there were many great tests of our relationship that we passed with flying colors. We handled conflict extremely well, choosing to take moments to collect ourselves before talking it out. We didn't force ourselves to talk while the emotions were still flying, instead choosing to respect each others' space until we felt like it was time. The initial stress of finding a campground could have ended with us fighting, arguing, and generally being miserable at each other but instead we chose to just stay quiet and deal with the situations that arose as best as we could.
It's been almost two weeks since we've been back, and we are still talking about that weekend because it was literally some of the best times either of us has ever had. I can say it's right up there in my top five best weekends of my life. The whole weekend was filled with us following our instincts and ending up totally in the wrong; those first lefts. But the second lefts, oh those second lefts, those ended up being worth the strife the first lefts caused.
We'll be back again, someday. Whether it's Site 9 again, or Site 18 with the Foyer, we plan on making a weekend at Beacon Rock a regular occurrence.
And when we're going about our normal lives, making decisions like adults do, we'll remember to always second guess ourselves, because our guts don't always lead the right directions.
We'll take the second left. And we'll be so glad we did.
Since most people camp for a Friday through Sunday type thing, and we were camping Saturday through Monday, we realized we were pretty much alone in the campground when we got up Sunday morning. So we took that opportunity to explore the other sites and figure out what one we were going to try to get next time. (Because there WILL be a next time!) We found an excellent giant stone fireplace next to a recessed camp site that had A FUCKING WOODEN STAIRCASE on each end!! That campsite had a fucking foyer!!!
Behold, the fireplace.
We realized with glee that many of the campers had left perfectly good firewood behind, so we gathered some to bring back to our site, briefly wondering if that was a "thing" and if it was "ok" we were taking it, and then immediately decided we didn't care.
Later that afternoon, after drinking more beer and eating more food, we decided to try our luck across the highway and visit Beacon Rock. We had seen a crowd there the day before, and wanted to know what the hubub was all about. Once we parked and had our Discover Pass proudly hanging from the rearview mirror, we embarked up the trail and laughed at how easy it was. A small child went skipping by, singing "I LOVE this trail! It's so fun!" The trail was paved in concrete, with metal bars acting as rails to help us along.
"This is basically a rest stop! There's a Flying J up at the top, I just know it. Honey, let's get slurpees!" - Wes
About halfway up, however, the concrete stopped and the switchbacks began. The trail up Beacon Rock is essentially 90-100 or so switchbacks zig-zagging their way up. We huffed and puffed and sweated our way all the way to the top, stopping to admire the view from time to time, but looking forward to the promised "360 degree view of the gorge" that was allegedly waiting for us at the top.
We were a bit disappointed.
There would probably BE a 360 degree view, however the TREES SURROUNDING THE TOP sort of inhibited that view. But hey, we did get a nice view and I was adequately schooled by Wes on the art of the selfie. (see, that's why he went to school.)
The next morning was our sad departure day. It was the day that schedules and clocked were reintroduced back into our lives. I lay awake for awhile while Wes continued sleeping, wondering what time it was. I had a job interview that afternoon and was definitely needing to know how much time we had until we left. I rooted around in my bag for a bit looking for my contacts. My plan was to put my eyeballs in and get my phone out of the car to check the time and decide if I wanted to go back to sleep or not. All my rustling around woke Wes up, though, and after a time he huffily got up and put his jeans on, pulling his phone out and checking the time in the process. Of course. Of course his phone was right there.
"What time is it?"
"7:30"
"Shit. Let's go back to bed."
"NOPE. NOPE. YOU WOKE ME UP, I'M UP NOW."
Oh, great. YOU'RE back again.
And with that, he huffily left the tent. I sat there for a minute, the sour feeling in my chest rising as the thought of his being mad at me for something so silly and the fact that we had to leave our dream weekend behind crashed together. I gathered my stuff up and silently walked to the bathroom to take a moment for myself. I was mad at him for being mad at me, mad that we had to end this at some point, and just mad all over. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, and after coming back to the site, Wes once again gave me a big hug and said sorry for getting irritated. He was annoyed at waking up so early, yes, but once he thought about it, it just meant several more hour he got to spend with me. If he had to chose between sleeping and that, he'd choose that any day. We finished our coffee and breakfast, and morosely started packing up camp. We did it in mostly silence, reflecting on the weekend and all the things we did and saw. Once the car was completely packed up, we stood quietly staring at our empty campsite. Both of us got a bit choked up as we said goodbye. We were not ready to leave yet, but we had to.
On the ride home, we laughed and relived the weekend as best as we could, but as the dirt and trees faded into concrete and power poles, we finally realized "real life" was here again. We were once again back in the presence of schedules, clocks, alarms, bosses, and responsibilities.
All in all, there were many great tests of our relationship that we passed with flying colors. We handled conflict extremely well, choosing to take moments to collect ourselves before talking it out. We didn't force ourselves to talk while the emotions were still flying, instead choosing to respect each others' space until we felt like it was time. The initial stress of finding a campground could have ended with us fighting, arguing, and generally being miserable at each other but instead we chose to just stay quiet and deal with the situations that arose as best as we could.
It's been almost two weeks since we've been back, and we are still talking about that weekend because it was literally some of the best times either of us has ever had. I can say it's right up there in my top five best weekends of my life. The whole weekend was filled with us following our instincts and ending up totally in the wrong; those first lefts. But the second lefts, oh those second lefts, those ended up being worth the strife the first lefts caused.
We'll be back again, someday. Whether it's Site 9 again, or Site 18 with the Foyer, we plan on making a weekend at Beacon Rock a regular occurrence.
And when we're going about our normal lives, making decisions like adults do, we'll remember to always second guess ourselves, because our guts don't always lead the right directions.
We'll take the second left. And we'll be so glad we did.
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