Long weekend Camping Trip to Waldo lake Oregon with our good friends - The Bercots.
Waldo Lake is considered one of the clearest lakes in the US. It was a 1.5 hour drive from Bend.
Joining the Donaldson Crew were the Bercots, the Hornsby's, the Delemarters, and the Currys. Thanks for a great weekend everyone!
if you cannot see the video click here
Kelly and Abbie went down to California this weekend for Erin's baby shower. Thursday was also the last day of school, so I took Friday off and we did a boys camping trip to East Lake in Newberry Crater. We stayed at Cinder Hill Campground on the east side of East Lake. The weather was beautiful and warm during the day (around 70) for this time of year. Evenings were still cold for sleeping though so staying warm in the sleeping bag was important!
Here is some shots our campsite after setup, the beach as well as cooking hot dogs over the fire for dinner.
Friday evening after dinner we did a canoe ride over to east lake lodge for some ice cream and then back to warm by the fire.
Saturday we tried fishing but no luck. PJ was not super patient so we didn't get a lot of time to try (note - the picture of him lying in the boat throwing a slight tantrum). Also on Saturday we did a short hike, daddy cooked a turkey zucchini bake in the Dutch oven for dinner, and camping would not be complete without s'mores for desert at least one night. Last of all - the boys received their 'journey to manhood' gifts which I present annually to them starting at age 6. Noah received a pocket knife this year (turning 8) and Hunter received an antique spyglass (turned 10)
Sunday morning we packed up, and on the way out we stopped in for a short walk to see Paulina Falls before heading home. One of the may cool things to see at Newberry Crater.
Second week in September... Fall is in the air, but the nice weather is still holding. It was expected to be in the low 80's in Bend this weekend, so I figured it might be a good to try a last camping trip in the mountains with Hunter and Noah before the weather turned. I expected it to be cool at night since the lake is at 5400 ft - almost 2000 ft higher than Bend. My plan was to take them out in the canoe to a wilderness camp site at the far end of Sparks lake. (Kelly and I did a moonlight canoe on Sparks in early August) Its impossible to get a camp spot here in the summer time but I figured September would be fine, and it was. This would be their first non car camping trip! They both did their soccer games in the morning and we headed up to the cascade lakes around 2:30 Saturday. We probably got on the lake around 3:30.
Here we are launching and going to the camp site. Also note, it seems to be frog season at Sparks. The shores and water was covered in these tiny frogs - see the bag full the boys collected.
We found a nice spot on a bluff at the far south east end of the lake with a view of Mt bachelor in the background. Lots of lava for the kids to climb and and explore while I set up camp. Hunter remembered slicing hot dogs like a squid from our trip to Canada 3 summers ago so we did that again this weekend.
The night was cold but not as much as I expected. There was only a slight hint of frost the next morning. In the morning we dressed warm initially but once the sun came up, it was really nice. We hung out, ate, played, read some devotionals about the outdoors and set out for our return journey.
We stopped for lunch and some scrambling on this neat uplifting of lava not far from the return point. It was great fun to scramble up the narrow fins of rock. Also being late season the water in the lake was super shallow in parts - you can see it in some of these pictures.
A short but super fun night out. The boys loved it. I think we will try and make an annual trip of this each September!
First family camp trip for Abbie and PJ. We went with some neighbor friends of ours (the Gillettes) to Rock Creek campground on Crane Prairie Reservoir in the Cascade Mountains. Just one night but a fun time even though it was a bit of a cold night. Here are a few pictures around camp.
On Saturday afternoon we did a hike to Lucky Lake. Preston gave it a good go but I ended up carrying him most of the way:)
A couple of panoramic shots from down at the lake below our camp site
