This has been a long time coming. Rebs and I have been in the U.S. for about a month now and the past two days have been our first alone together. Don’t get me wrong—we love spending time with other people. That’s probably part of the problem. But we also love spending time just the two of us. That is what these three weeks are for us. We’re climbing and camping around Western North America alone… as a family. I am currently writing this (though it may be posted a few days later) from Site #21 of the 8-Mile Campground in Leavenworth, Washington. I have a citronella candle to my right and a blazing campfire to my left with my hot wife repeating, “You put the lime in the coconut…” as she makes herself a s’more. I sip my Californian “Red Velvet Cupcake” wine from a coffee mug because we have no cups or glasses.
Out here, life is simple. If I listen closely, I can hear the rush of the river in the distance past the other campsites, the pops ofthe fire and sparks. The evergreens surrounding our campsite make it so dark that even with time, your eyes won’t adjust to the dark. Life is beautiful.Although, it hasn’t been this way entirely. Yesterday seemed to be Rebs’ unlucky day. What happened, you ask? Well, I popped the air mattress with a hot pot while bringing breakfast in bed to Rebs. While I was retrieving duct tape from our neighbors, the screw fell off the lid that Rebs was washing… into the firepit full of ashes (Don’t worry, we found it.). After getting out and hiking up to a climb that seemed good for us to do, I proceeded to climb up, but knocked off a large rock that I didn’t notice. Rebs was kind of on a ledge and couldn’t move. In her words, “I almost died.” She likes to embellish things sometimes. Then, after I finished climbing up, she followed as usual to join me at the top of the pitch. But then she had , let’s say, some URGENT needs to get down, and nearly disposed of them on the rappel down. Later in the day, as we packed up to hike down the mountain from climbing, Rebs set her full pack down briefly on what she thought was stable ground, only to see it roll in slow motion down the mountain. Luckily, after about 10-12 tumbles, it stopped against a rock and we were able to retrieve it. Then on our way down she had forgotten to wear her Chacos and instead was wearing her favorite flip-flops. One of them couldn’t quite hack it and the strap broke, so she hiked a quarter mile downhill in one flip flop.
We got back to camp in one piece and enjoyed a delicious dinner of turkey brats and chili with a beer. This relaxed us so much that we fell asleep in the hammock until I woke up from the cold at 11:00. When we moved to the tent, our dreams of a soft bed and uninterrupted sleep slowly deflated with the air mattress. It turns out that duct tape isn’t completely air proof.
