Sep 3, 2007

Camping: Lk. Wenatchee


Went camping again this weekend. This time at Lake Wenatchee.
It's great campsite, especially for those with kids or for those who prefer not to "rough it" too much.
They have a bunch of sites, some with water and electricity hookups (in case you bring a camper or RV) and many others without them.
There are a couple of play areas for kids to slide, climb, and play on... plus you can walk around the lake on a really nice trail.
The bathrooms are centrally located and they have showers. (Get out of town! Showers? While camping? It must be a dream!)
Hotness actually likes this place BECAUSE they have showers, but I couldn't care either way. Camping means being grungy for a couple of days, smelling like campfire smoke, and being a little scruffy.

Anyway, our once-mighty camp group has dwindeled to a few core-members so there were only 5 of us "originals" plus 2 new members.
I showed up on Friday night after work, and met up with two of the others. One of them was celebrating his 50th birthday, so we had some cake and sat around the fire.
I improvised a little aluminum "hat" for one of my cooking pots and made some popcorn.
That turned out pretty good, so I'll have to do that again on another trip.

The campground was almost full, with it being Labor Day Weekend and all that. So the evening was pretty noisy. I didn't sleep well and was dragging most of the day when I got up the next morning.

Speaking of morning... on Saturday we got up, made some breakfast and then made our plans for the day. I stayed at camp to wait for the rest of our group while the other two went on a hike up Dirty Face Peak.
After about noon, the rest of our intrepid group showed up and staked their tent claims.
Then we just sat back and relaxed.
It was all about being lazy at camp this weekend!

Dinner consisted of whatever we could throw together. We had salad, baked potato soup, spaghetti, and smoked salmon on Triscuits. Followed by more sitting around and talking while mass quantities of wine was drank.
I mixed up some cake batter and tried to make cupcakes in my Dutch Oven but I used paper baking cups the first time, and so they kinda were free-form shapes and didn't come out too well.
I still had some cake batter, so on the second try I formed aluminum "cups" and used them to bake the cupcakes. And the result was.... SUCCESS!
I frosted them and shook some colored sprinkles on top and we had fresh-baked cupcakes for dessert! Yummy!

We all retired kind of early (probably had something to do with all the wine everyone had), and luckily I had purchased some earplugs at the local grocery store so I slept M-U-C-H better that night.

The next morning was similar to the evening before. We made breakfast of whatever we felt like scrounging together. We had re-hydrated Asian chicken / vegetable medley, buckwheat pancakes, bacon, scones, and English Breakfast tea.
I made some stick biscuits with cinnamon and sugar, which were a big hit at our last camp and proved to be popular again.


We packed up shortly thereafter. Being Sunday, we felt we were ahead of the crowds coming back from the weekend, but we didn't want to get stuck in any traffic at all if possible.

Atul & his daughter and myself drove a little further east to Leavenworth to get a bite to eat and then take Blewitt Pass south to I-90 and head home.
On the way, we stopped at The Alps and picked up some goodies.
I got their awesome 'green lizard pickles' (which are sweet at first, but quickly turn fiery!), some chicken-wing dipping sauce, and some candy. It's definitely a must-stop on my way to or from Leavenworth along Hwy 2.

Our trip home was uneventful. Traffic was light (as expected) so nothing exciting happened.

This is probably the last camp trip for this year (unless we finally organize a snow camping trip), so now I get to put away all my gear and wait 'til next year.

Only a week and a half until we get to see Weird Al in concert. Hopefully I'll be able to get some really nice pictures.

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