Cabins on Camano

Really I had very little hope of that any cabins at Cama Beach State park would be available.  You can’t book them online and calling the park has been on my to-do list for months.  Yet here it is days before the ‘summer’ starts and they had a night available in July – yipee!

Cama Beach State Park is a restored family fishing resort with rustic cabins right on the beach and it’s only 25 miles from Seattle.  I can’t wait until July! Can you see the huge smile on my face? Trust me it’s there.  

Almost too late for planning ahead

Forget black Friday sales, I was up at 6:45 this morning to reserve what I’m guessing must be the the most popular campsite in the state – and didn’t get it!  Booking started at 7AM and it was reserved 7:01. I guess I just didn’t hit send quite fast enough.

Washington State Parks allow you to reserve many of their sites exactly 9 months ahead, so if you book this week you can get (or try to get) popular sites for the end of August 2010.  (and last year I thought I was so on the ball by booking before Memorial Day). 

OK so I did get an adjacent site but it’s not as big or as private as the one I wanted.  Sayonara Southend Site 8 at Moran State Park on Orcas Island – maybe next year . 

Easy camping menu v.2

I’ve amended the Spencer Spit menu to something that at first seemed simpler.  The menu itself seems a bit more streamlined but my shopping list is still out of control.  I suspect this is in part due to some misguided instinct to bring enough snacks to survive the apocalypse.  Is this a mom thing? Probably just a me thing…

Basic Weekend Camping Menu

	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Dinner:	Pasta + salad: lett, tom, avo	Hot dogs and beans (carrots and peas)	Left-overs!
Lunch:	Sack lunch: PB+J sandwiches (fruit)	Croissants and cheese (fruit)	Left-overs!
Breakfast:	At home	Pancakes and bacon (yogurt)	Scrambled eggs with chopped bacon

Shopping list

Fruit and Veg	Dairy and Meat
Bananas Apples Grapes Blueberries Carrots Snap Peas Tomato Avocado Lettuce	UHT milk Vanilla yogurt Cheese slices Hummus Eggs Bacon Butter Fresh pasta
Dry Goods and snacks	Condiments and staples
pancake mix croissants bread hotdog buns potato chips coffee hot chocolate marshmallows cookies granola bars baked beans pasta sauce	ketchup mustard jam peanut butter syrup Green and Black’s Almond Milk Chocolate sugar salt pepper vegetable oil balsamic

One more thing – this menu is for feeding 6 adults and two kids.

Bacon – the camping wonder food

So if you’re wondering - what we ate at Spencer Spit was somewhat different than what I actually planned. This wasn’t entirely unexpected and in practice the menu kinda’ streamlined itself.

The trick is knowing what you can cook once but use for more than one meal and this takes some experience. I’m happy to say my camp cooking revelation this trip was bacon. I only grabbed a package at the last minute but it turned out to be a staple food on the weekend.

Use 1: Saturday breakfast: Pancakes and bacon. OK so I kinda love bacon with maple syrup – I think it was one of those pancake breakfast fundraisers in my youth where they slop it all on your plate and pour the syrup over everything…mmmm

Use 2: Saturday lunch: Bacon sarnies. This is just an English way of saying bacon sandwich. I suppose you could add some lettuce and tomatoes….

Use 3: Sunday breakfast: Scrambled eggs with chopped bacon and whatever else you have left and don’t want to pack home

One ingredient – three meals! Camping food perfection.

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Fairies, clams and Spencer Spit

So I did bring three times as much food and clothes than we actually used but as long as it fits in the car what’s the risk right?  I’m definitely going to cull the menu and food list and amend the kit list in my camping box – but what has left the biggest impression on me is how great it is to spend focused, time together as a family and - as much as I obsess about it - the food was the least of my concerns on the weekend. 

 

If you ask the four year old toasting marshmallows was the highlight of the trip.  For me it was the fairy house.  I think my husband would say the clams. The three year old? Maybe the piece of driftwood he adopted as his ‘baby’. 

 

So much to elaborate on, I can’t wait to tell you all about our adventure.  For now though a couple of pictures will have to do. 

Easy-Peasy Camping Menu

Here it is Wednesday and we leave tomorrow for our first trip of the summer, a four day trip to the San Juans. I, of course, have been focusing on the food aspect of the trip. Planning wise I have completed the menu and my husband has pulled out most of the gear. I hit Whole Foods this morning and now just need to do the hard part – fit it all into the cooler!

Breakfast x 3: I can only really bring myself to do one cooked breakfast a trip – it’s not so much the cooking, it’s the cleanup I can’t deal with.

1. Bacon, Eggs, Fruit – i may substitute pancakes for the eggs – I was seduced at whole foods by the simplicity of the organic pancake batter in a can – however having not used it before I’m making sure i have a back-up – i suspect the ‘batter blaster’ will be a hit with the kids
2. Croissants and Yogurt
3. Granola

Lunch x 4: We usually do packed lunches so we can eat on the trail or at the beach – again minimal clean-up!

1. Mini-Bagels: cream cheese, ham, peanut butter and jam, avocado
2. Left-over Pasta

Dinner x 3: Most of this is done on our trusty Coleman stove, but this time I’ve planned one dinner for over the campfire. Can you guess which one?

1. Tortellini with pesto and ricotta cheese; tomato/arugula/parmesan salad
2. Hot (Hebrew National) and Veggie (Yves) dogs; corn on the cob; baked beans
3. Grilled cheese and tomato soup

Snacks, treats and extra stuff

Fresh stuff: mini-carrots, snap peas, grapes, blueberries, apples, bananas, tomatoes, hummus, juice, chee

Treats: Oatmeal banana mini-muffins, Green and Black’s Almond Milk Chocolate (see my other post about this heavenly stuff), marshmallows, graham crackers, fig newtons

Dry snacks: cashews, fish crackers, trail mix

All of this is in addition to the basic kitchen staples that are packed away in a camping box downstairs. Now – time to check on that….

Kalaloch and Salt Creek Campgrounds

Just as I suspected – my attempt to shame myself into getting prepared early for the Spencer Spit trip didn’t work. I did however get a great campsite recommendation…we haven’t been there yet but it sounds fantastic. I’ve quoted Kathie directly below. Thanks Kathie!

I would add that both of these sites are on the west coast of the Olympic Peninsula. My mom has just moved over there and man we can’t get enough! The region is stunning – and we’ve barely begun exploring the coast and National Park. Kalaloch is at the top of next year’s camping list.

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Olympic National Park Campground Info

If you are up for a little drive (about 3-4 hours), Kalaloch (on the coast) is absolutely the best camping…especially for kids. There are lots of trees for climbing around on, pathways to hike on, and you are on the beach so you can never get bored. There is a little convenience store nearby with ice-cream and lattes. It can rain like crazy, so we always come prepared, but when the sun is out, it is beautiful. We always bring the boys’ scooters too as people tend to drive slowly through the campground and there are lots of nice long stretches for scootering where you can still keep an eye on them so that they are not out of sight. I have done a ton of camping over the years, and this is probably at the top of my list. If you go there, I suggest the A loop…it’s my favorite combination of trees and sun.

The other place I would recommend is Salt Creek Campground…it’s a really fun campground too, although not quite as beautiful as Kalaloch.

Spencer Spit Planning Week: Day 1

Well spring has sped away faster than i imagined it would and here i am, after all my talk of planning, planning, planning, and not having done a bit!  Well i suppose since we are not going until the end of the month i still have some time but June is shaping up to be crazy – what with preschool graduation (kindergarten here we come!), field trips, the occasional tennis match – June will be gone in a snap.  So in an effort to concentrate efforts and focus my thoughts – June 8-14 – is officially devoted to planning the trip.

Why Spencer Spit?

Spencer Spit State Park is on Lopez Island in the San Juan Island.  To quote it’s website its key features are:  “excellent crabbing, clamming and ‘car-top boating.’ This is one of the few state parks in the San Juan Islands that is accessible by automobile. A sand spit encloses a saltchuck lagoon”.  Translation – preschooler heaven!

More objectively – it was recommended by a few friend and the write up in my trusty guide book “The Best in Tent Camping: Washington” was great.  One feature that attracted me was that they have campsites right on the beach. They are not accessible by car but are not far from parking, which could be wonderful however i did not book early enough to secure one of these coveted sites.  Still after considering these sites more thoroughly i decided they weren’t going to be for us this trip anyway.  We are in the midst of potty training the 3 year old and close access to toilets and running water unfortunately trumps a tent door view.  I’m going to scope it out for next year though….

now i need to think about gear – what does one need for crabbing? Bing.com – here i come – time to prove yourself!

Hiking with Kids Workshop at REI

REI is hosting a free seminar by Joan Burton, author of Best Hikes with Kids: Western Washington. It at the flagship store in Seattle on 6/23/2009 at 7:00 PM. I think it’s a bring the kids event too! Love that.

I’ve got the book and although I haven’t yet done any of the hikes yet I’m really looking forward to tackling some soon.

Hiking with Kids Workshop at REI

Reservations at Dungeness Spit

The summer is set. I just received my confirmation for our July trip to the Dungeness Recreation Area on the Olympic Peninsula. While I know some people like to fly by the seat of their pants, and at one time I would have too, but these days I can’t imagine traveling into unknown territory, boys in tow, without a confirmed place to pitch the tent.

Reservable sites at Dungeness are new. Thank you Clallam County! They don’t have an on-line reservation system like Washington State Parks, but you can mail in a reservation, requesting your preferred site. The turn around was fairly quick – i got my confirmation about a week after I mailed in my reservation request. They do have a function on the website that allows you to check which sites are available on the days you want. However, even after checking their availability list and putting three alternate sites down I still didn’t get any of the campsites I requested - so don’t get your hopes up. But still I am grateful that at least we got one and it’s NOT next to the toilet – phew!

Dungeness Recreation Area - Info and Reservations

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