My friend Steve at the Sneeze is back! Big YAY! for that!!! Technically we've never met, but I missed him so that makes us friends. That's how my now 5-year-old son explained "new" friends to me while we were camping. See, Kid3 had some "new" friends for me to meet. So we went on the best bike ride ever and I got to meet his new "friends".
If you've never been to Honeyman State Park Campground south of Florence, Oregon (on the amazing Oregon Coast with the most amazing sand dunes you'll ever see, I promise...), you really ought to go. There's tons of things to do and you will truly never forget the experience. But, I digress...
Kid3 and I carefully rode our bikes (mine: the friend's never-ridden bicycle, far too small for a man of my build in life; and his: with the somehow comforting squeak of a far-too-relied-upon training wheel), up our "loop" to his first "secret" spot. Parking our bikes, we climbed up an obvious path to a beautiful large clearing completely encircled by trees. (It reminded me of the very disturbing scene of the pagan worship festival from the movie Dragnet with the goat head dudes. Except I think that happened in LA, so well, nevermind. If you saw the movie, you'll undoubtably remember that scene and this seemed like the kind of place that could have been filmed.) Despite my fears, Kid3 charged right to the middle and held out his arms wide and kinda yelled, "These are my friends, Dad!" He meant the trees. And I asked him how they were his friends, and he said it was because he missed them when he was at our campsite, so they must be friends. It was freaking AWESOME!! What a kid!
And then we just listened. And the wind blew gently through the amphitheatre of trees, and they were his friends, and I, at that very moment, I discovered nature. It was the best moment of millions of best moments I had with him that day!
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So, Steve's really back. Go check out his website. Seriously. Do it. I'm not kidding. Do it from HERE, or even HERE. He's been gone for awhile, but visit his site anyway and catch up on some of his older entries. It's seriously some of the all-time most hilarious blogging you'll ever read.
Here's one of his all-time bests in my opinion. It's from the whole "cake decorating" series. For now, just read this one portion of that story and you will forever be addicted to The Sneeze. Enjoy!
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Oh, yeah, camping. It was great! We went up to Heceta Head Lighthouse (Note to self: get pics off digital before Kid4 deletes them.) and went on the tour. It's a half-mile hike up to the lighthouse proper and the walk isn't too steep with plenty of resting opportunities along the way. After the tour (Note to you: if you go, there are 58 steps along the actual "lighthouse" portion of the lighthouse tour. If you get the tour guide we got he'll probably give your kid a sticker for answering correctly. Kid3 smartly counted all the steps we took along the tour, even asking if it "counted" when I shifted my weight from one foot to the other while standing just below the still-working light, lens and clockwork. Fortunately for Kid3 I had only counted the stairs during the "tower" portion of the tour.) Kid3 and I raced back down the hill to meet My Bride and Kid4, who apparently awoke from his nap 10 minutes after we left.
One quick thing...If you want to be a sailor or a lighthouse builder, I think you have to know Trigonometry. See kids...there's your practical, "real world" use for math. You can be a lighthouse operator.
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The campground time of our vacation was probably the best, though. We did have a reasonably large group of neighbors that occupied 4 or more sites around ours. With the lone exception of the "International One Night Stand" site, we were completely surrounded by them. Sadly, they were there our entire vacation. It's not that they were that bad. I've certainly probably been worse myself, but still. It was clear that they weren't the ONLY people in the campground and they still behaved as though we were camping in their backyard, not a State Park.
I guarantee that the following will sound much worse than I mean it too, but I don't know how else to put this. So, if someone actually reads this blog and can think of a better comparison or at least a nicer way to put it, please let me know. Anyway, these neighbors of ours were like NASCAR people. You know the ones I'm talking about. Loud, obnoxious, rude, kinda redneck. Them. Oh, man, I hope that's not somehow racist. I don't have any kind of "real" problem with them, I'd just prefer to not hang around them. Just as I'm sure they'd probably not want to hang around my liberal ass. We simply don't have much in common. That's really all it is.
Maybe it's sortakinda like they sing in Avenue Q, "...everyone's a little bit racist..."
So, they were kind of annoying. Big deal. They mostly figured it out over the course of the week and we all got along. I guess that's kinda the chance you take when you decide to camp at the very large, very busy, and very ATV-friendly Honeyman. Yep, ATV people are NASCAR people too. So are Jeff Foxworthy fans.
Huh. Go figure. Well, maybe next year we'll be the larger group and people will probably despise us. Except you know if I'm there, it'll probably be drums and Kumbaya and whatnot instead of NASCAR.
We really did have a great time. And, to be honest, since this was Kid3 and Kid4's first time kinda primitive camping with us, this louder, busier park was probably the perfect one for us. Somehow, I didn't feel bad if Kid4 cried during the night, especially after they spent most evenings making some poor, sugar-fueled pre-teen girl with an unbelievably horrendous laugh, cackle uncontrollably at a barage of stupid jokes. That kid may never have a boyfriend if she doesn't change her laugh.
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Other highlights of the vacation were:
Fiddy and MrsFiddy's wedding on the 5th of July, 2008! Congrats...we love you guys!
Picking up Kid1 and Kid2 from Lutherwood! The only way camping would have been better was if they were with us! That and the wind could've stopped blowing. I realize it's the beach, but seriously.
Campfire War! Submit your reader variations of this classic card game! Our version requires one deck of standard cards, two chairs, a warm fire, probably some blankets next time, sweatshirts and two people! Family rules dictate that any dropped card by a player, result in the forfeiture of 5 of their randomly selected cards plus the dropped card to the other player. TBD if that rule applies for Multi-Player Campfire War (which has so far never been played). Other rules include, a "War" when two cards match during a face off. "War" is comprised of two extra cards and a showdown with the third extra card. Winner take all. Surprisingly, no match lasted very long, with Bride taking 2 out of 3. Ooh...another rule...if at any time (after the first "hands" are fully played out) both players run out of cards in their "hand" simultaneously, the game is automatically over. Winner in Campfire War will always be determined by an eye-ball measure of each players "stack" or if one player collects all the cards. There's one more that Bride let me add. Jokers are in play. Jokers beat anything in a face-off, but lose if they are the displayed card to end a "War".
Which reminds me. Do you play a lot of cribbage? If you do, you may like what my friend Ogden and I invented while ice fishing in Canada. Doesn't "ice fishing in Canada" sound like a code or a really bad euphemism? It does to me. Anyway, it's called "Extreme Cribbage" and it pretty much is cribbage with the two jokers added. You'll kind of have to make up your own rules, but the Jokers are "wildcards" and they can be any value, but once you play it during the "pegging" part of the game, that is the value for the Joker during the "counting" or "scoring" part of the game for that hand or round. If the Joker is displayed as the "starter" or "cut card", then it is wild for both players and can be any value.
Let me just say a couple of things.
1....This game is not easy drunk or sober. It's like billiards and darts.
2....Just be warned, 29 is no longer the best hand. It's an amazing update to an already great game. Oh, and the games can be over really fast if the Jokers get into play.
3....Can anyone think of a better name than "Extreme Cribbage"? Let me know.
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