Monday, June 21, 2010

Father's Day Weekend, June 18-20th, Site #57 ORSF

Great weather and a nice site. We've thought about camping on this site before because our friends have several times. It's a pretty It's a pretty big site and close enough to the bathroom. The water isn't so close, but no biggie. It was me, Mike and Kenzie on Friday night and my dad came up Saturday morning. It was great to go camping with him after not for 20 years. I think it was a nice Dad's Day for him :) We had perfect weather, in fact it was so hot in the city we were in just the right spot. We did some trails in the Jeep, did some fishing and relaxing. No sooner did we close the top on the Aliner it started to rain, gotta love that. Mike is going back out with just Kenzie on Wednesday to Dennison, until Friday. It's just so easy in the Aliner. Gotta love that. Dad --->

Friday, June 18, 2010

Weekend Trip 6/11-13, ORSF #64


Mike and I took the Aliner and not much else and spent the weekend at Otter River, site 64. It rained most of the weekend, but that was okay because the Aliner not only kept us dry it kept us from getting damp. And because it was only the two of us we were able to go off and explore some places that we never took the time to because the girls wouldn't have much interest in these places....wine, antiques, gardens in the rain. Although when we were exploring we decided the girls might like some of them. We went to Cathedral of the Pines, it was rainy and wet but still sweet. No lines in the rain :) They lost a lot of trees in the ice storm a couple years ago. We picked up a Cats Meow of the Pines for Joey and Diane, they loved it. We stopped at a wine warehouse that we've passed a million times and found some good deals, we will definitely go there again (near Rite Aide in Templeton). And we stopped at Country Mischief which is somewhere I've wanted to go for as long as I can remember. Endless rooms and nooks full of antiques and treasures, we spent a long time there and had a nice lunch right there after we were done exploring. Very homey and unique. We also went to a hippie house that made pottery too, fun :) And we wandered through Lake Dennison as we usually do. This weekend there were two other Aliners there. The first one we came across was Tom and his Expedition, they were from Townsend maybe...Mike will remember. And Chuck had a double bed set up....can't remember the model. Because of the rain neither made it over to Otter River, but I'm sure we'll see them again. We decided we'd take the girls back to camp on site 87. It looked neat with a little camping area behind the site itself, a path to the lake and a little wooden bridge. Mike is going to take the girls up on their own trips with him during the weeks coming up while he is still home.
We admired the Mariah awning on Tom's unit and Chuck had an EZ-Up set up in front of his. We didn't bother with a tarp at all this weekend just being the two of us. So we came home yesterday and started looking at awnings a bit more and decided we are going to order a canvas tarp and install turn buckles on the outside frame of the Aliner and make our own. We already own great poles and ropes and this way we can make it our own. Tom liked his Mariah awning a lot but pointed out it did sag loosely and collected water in the outer corners. Chucks EZ-Up was nice, had a screen and all.....but he said it took 4x longer to set up than the Aliner itself. We're going for quick and easy here. And I gotta say this past weekend was the easiest camping I've done in a long time.....probably since my parents used to do all this work for me, lol.
(*note cross post, from old blog to new.)

Memorial Day Weekend, ORSF #28


We camped in our favorite site on Memorial Day weekend and it was a perfect weekend. Mike and the dog went out on Thursday and set up so the girls and I just came after work and school on Friday and got to camping. Camping in the Aliner was a blast and so much easier. I love my tent and don't plan on giving it up any time soon but I think the Aliner is going to see a lot of camping this year! We had a little bit of rain Saturday afternoon, but not enough to really be a bother. It was enough that we had to wipe down the bottom of the girls tent...but not the Aliner! We saw our friends Chrissy and Mark, but not Alan and Sue. It would've been nice to show them the work we did to their old camper.