Camping

The first exhale comes just outside of Estacada.  After a two mile long climb uphill, the bus in third, burning oil and working hard to maintain 45 miles per hour, we crest the hill and look out over the Clackamas River Valley.  The river hundreds of feet below cannot be seen through the dense woods that roll up and down the peaks of the valley.  I can see folds and bends, contours in the hillsides and this texture brings me relief.  I exhale and feel my shoulders lower a bit. 

Tracy and Shea are in the back of the bus and they are chatting away in excitement.  We've been building Shea's enthusiasm for camping for days and it is starting to pay dividends.  She sings, "We're goin' campin', we're goin' campin'," and Tracy is singing alongside her.  They are happy.  We are all happy in this moment.  In some ways, the Clackamas River is welcoming us home.  Tracy and I try and camp up here a couple times a year and it feels like home in a way now.

The second sigh comes that night around the campfire.  With darkness descending and my daughter snuggled in my wife's arms, I can relax even deeper.  We managed to set up camp in the near dark, have a delicious dinner of barbecued steaks, and now we are all posted up in our camp chairs watching the embers.  She's blue eyes and Tracy's brown ones glisten with the reflection of dancing flames.  It's a beautifully warm night and the mosquitoes are nowhere to be found.  I push back in my camp chair so it reclines, lace my fingers behind my head and stare up at the night sky waiting for the meteors to start streaking.  When I see the blaze of light streak behind the trees, I sigh and tuck back into my chair.

When the rest of our party arrives the next day, again, I relax further.  There is no more waiting, no more worrying or fretting about car troubles or other roadside mishaps.  We are a group of friends getting together to blow off steam and to leave our regular lives behind for a couple of days.  It's hard for all of us.  Each one of us, with the exception of Shea, is used to being wired.  We are in constant communication with each other and leaving our phones and computers makes us mildly uncomfortable.

It's the creek which quickly dissolves that anxiety.  When everyone has arrived, we make our way down to the creek with our camp chairs in tow.  We wade and splash, play with squirt guns and throw rocks.  It's as if we were children again.  Our entertainments simplify out here.  A good conversation, a cold beer, and some pebbles in a body of water are all we crave.  We sit there for hours until I can feel my shoulders pink up a little bit. 

Finally, when I at last felt calm, was at the rock beach.  Jason, Sarah, Tracy, Shea and I took a hike down a trail that broke off from the campground in search of a swimming hole we'd been told about.  We walked in about two miles by the time we stumbled upon the wide rocky expanse that led us to the Clackamas.  We quickly stripped down to basics and plunged into the icy water.  The day was approaching the 90s and it wasn't even noon.  Shea loved it.  She liked wading into the water and throwing rocks. 

Jason and I quickly got down to just our shorts and dove in.  The water was paralyzing.  The icy cold ripped into my chest and left me breathless, but as soon as I broke the surface of the water and was met with the morning air, I was comfortable.  So, we all took turns submerging into the icy water, laughing as each person came up huffing and gasping for air.  We took pictures of the place.  In one I hold my wife in the water and we smile up to our daughter on the shore.  It was there that I finally relaxed.  I felt energized and invigorated, but in a way that made me want to greet the day and not dread it.