Goal Update: Whatever happened to March and October?

As of this moment, I have 4 days left in which to complete one last camping trip if I want to claim success in my goal to go camping every month this year. The final trip is scheduled for this Monday, but like most of my trips this year, the plans - and participants - are tentative and subject to change without notice.

The most alert followers of my blog will have noticed that I've not posted anything about my March or October trips, so I would like to apologize and rectify that failing now.

March's camping trip can be summed up in four words and no pictures (which is probably why I never blogged about it in the first place): Cold, short, uneventful, token. Although, I did get a morning fire going, which means I came home smelling like smoke, which means it counts.

Oh, what the heck. Here are a few pictures anyway.

Christian and Stephanie full of excitement. Woohoo! Hot Chocolate!

Coldness.

The other most exciting part of the day: Putting out the fire so we could go home and warm up. Woohoo, again!

October's trip was a bit more of a misadventure, or at least getting there was. I'm not saying I made the best decisions, but this is how it happened.


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My original plan was to head up to the Alice Creek Campsite along the Iron Horse Trial, up off of I-90. Despite the dark and rain and having only one headlight, I made it to precisely the spot marked with an x on the map I had so carefully prepared where my campsite should have been... and found nothing. Those familiar with my legendary sense of direction will undoubtedly question my confidence in being at exactly the right place. To them I say, I hope you slept comfortably in your warm bedroom that night.

Had I not been alone, I would have simply suggested we find a wide spot in the road and pitch our tent and call it good, but not wanting to make things too easy on the serial killers, I decided to head back down I-90 in search of a suitable alternative. All that I found, however, was a series of signs that read "Exit 37 - No Camping" or "Olallie State Park - No Camping" or "Go home, Ken - No Camping".

Not to be deterred, I called my dad and asked him to look up the directions to what had been my alternate plan for a camping location that night (the map to which I had carefully left in my apartment). He told me the route, which I then memorized before setting out through the dark mountain highways in the rain with one headlight and growing frustration, and before too long, I arrived at the gates of Kanaskat-Palmer State Park - gates which were locked shut for the season. Never mind that I had verified online earlier in the day that the campsite would, in fact, be open for operations; apparently, pad-locks trump the interweb in disagreements such as this one.

At this point I was glad that nobody was with me and that I didn't have to feel guilty for dragging anybody but myself around on this seemingly futile attempt to find a place to sleep on the ground. I got back in my car to drive home, upset at myself for failing with just 3 months left on my goal. As I drove, I couldn't stop thinking about my gear all nicely packed and ready in the back seat. The thought kept nagging me until I remembered that my parents had just moved into a nice new house on 5 acres on Camano Island. I had been in the car for several hours already, what was a couple more up to their place? With that, I called up Mom and Dad and told them I was coming to visit.

I don't remember exactly how much time had passed since I first left my apartment that evening, but when all was said and done, I had driven over 175 miles and reached the most basic, the most primordial of all camping destinations: my parent's backyard. No monsters came to get me.