So the Delica was wonderful to sleep in, thanks, after Mike sorted out the storage issues. He packed tent pegs, he swears he did, but he didn’t find them so the SUV tent extension never got put up. That hiccup aside, I got to camp:
In a new place (Sxótsaqel, Chilliwack Lake PP)
RIGHT ACROSS from the pit toilets, which were clean and unsmelly
Drank not a single whisper of anything alcoholic
Found out about recent generation camping equipment that’s most useful
with a cat and two dogs (Ninja, Zaya and Jasper)
with a raven flying through the woods
listened to the other people at the campsite play Mölkky which is a deranged Finnish version of skittles invented late last century
and three little chipmunks so we kept yelling for Alvin
with new people and old (Stephanie, the long term girlfriend of Erik (all camping trips should have a meltingly beautiful young couple to admire, she’s one of those women who without being too much into herself can put her hair into a messy bun in 1.5 seconds and then look gorgeous) and her beau Erik who instead of being Jarmo’s child at Baumfest, conspiring with Ville to lock me in an outhouse LOL LOL is in fourth year med school prepping to be a radiologist and who probably saw Tom on rounds when he was dying at RCH, and Päivi, whom I hadn’t seen in easily 15 years; and Samppa her oldest whom I hadn’t previously met and Matthias who turns out to be ANOTHER Finnish extraction med student. We got into the prolapses folks, it was intense, also hilarious)
Not having to prepare a single meal, cup of coffee, pack except for myself or do any driving. I wiped some stuff up, cleaned the small trash off the campsite, got the chairs out of the rain, that kind of thing; told stories and sang songs
—very nice gig frankly
With a view so intense that if you want to see the mountaintops through the trees you have to tip your head back
and a beautiful beach
and it’s only two hours from here, less if you maniac it down highway 1.
I have more notes and more details later, but I’m home, and happy and I can hardly wait to tell Katie about it but I bet she already knows about this campground. Maybe pics later if I can liberate them from Mike.
All hugs and kisses to Mike for underwriting basically everything