Over the weekend, we went camping! Yayyyyy! Apparently I took 335 photos, so get ready for a lot of camping photos over the next couple of days. Or, you know, don’t. Your choice!

Naturally we have to begin with the classic “dogs in the car on the way to somewhere” photo. Poor dogs. It was hot, dudes. We’re talking around 90, and remember that I don’t have air conditioning. The guys at the repair shop said my air conditioning didn’t work because of some “factory defect” (greeeaaaat) and they could order the part, but it would take five days.

“Fine,” I said. “But meanwhile, can I have my car back? I need to take it camping!”

The driver. I wore wristbands for sea sickness and played angry birds during the hour and a half long drive.

We knew we wanted to camp on the Cle Elum lake, close to where we camped last year, but didn’t know exactly which road to take to get close to it. The part of the lake closest to town is popular–so obviously the far end of the lake was preferable. But how to get there?

For quite a while we took a long winding mountain road until it seemed obvious that we were driving away from the lake. We turned around and went back up the second road we passed and presto–that was the “right” road.

And by “right” I mean “clearly no maniacs other than us would even attempt this shit”, because the road was insanely overgrown and now my poor VW has about 10 billion scratches on the paint that the Boy insists can be “polished” off. We’ll see, friends!

The road ended, and we had to backpack towards the lake, about a half a mile. My backpack weighed 25 pounds, the Boy’s (which he weighed at home last night) about 65 pounds! Talk about stromph. Whatta man.

Did I mention that I’ve never actually gone backpacking before? Half a mile is not a long distance, but add in some steep hills and YES it was difficult.

It was worth it though. Total isolation–except for a pair of very tanned kayakers who stayed on the sandy beach until around 5, then left. We were all alone!

Bonus: no rednecks around to shoot at us, a’la last year.

The weather was perfect–the lake was popular, which we expected. You get so few nice weekends to camp around here.

There was a nice flat large rock near our camp, perfect for sunbathing.

On Friday I rode my bike to the tanning salon for a fake tan, then sweated 75% of it off on the way home (who knew the ride back home was uphill?). I wouldn’t recommend doing that.

It was fairly quiet, save for some jetskis.

I’ve never been on a jetski before. Sheltered?

But I never get tired of camping! This is my happy camping face.

Werk, werk, etc. etc.. Join me tomorrow for Part 2…freeze-dried ice cream! Birds! And an embarrassing video!