We have our final family dinner with our summer guest, Evrim. Everyone is sad that she’s heading back to Turkey tomorrow. She’ll be a senior at Choate this year, but will be attending her classes from Ankara.
Sabriya begins 7th grade. In lieu of the traditional First Day of School backpack photo, we take a First Day of School laptop photo.
In the morning, we walk to Starbucks with Evrim, then Anya and Angela take Evrim to the airport for her flight home. She’ll be flying to Istanbul via a crazy route through JFK and Qatar, so she’ll be traveling for the next two days.
Liya begins her senior year of high school classes. In lieu of the traditional First Day of School backpack photo, we take a First Day of School cat photo. These days, Mojo likes to spend most of his daytime hours on a bed in Liya’s room.
Tonight’s dinner is from Toshio’s Teriyaki on Rainier Avenue. The only window they have that opens starts about 6 feet off the restaurant’s floor, so the staff climbs a stepladder, then stands on the countertop to take payment and hand food to the customers.
Moxie discovers that the lightweight chairs in the backyard are pretty comfortable.
Behold the two-headed cat.
Back to School nights are different now.
Angela and Jan rent a tiny trailer camper for a 4-day trip to two state parks.
We rented the camper through Outdoorsy, a site that’s an AirBnB for RVs. A couple named Judi and Steve were renting out their 2018 nuCamp T@B Clamshell, a fairly small 15’ trailer. The key features include a bed, a tiny bathroom with shower, and an outdoor kitchen. It’s light enough to be pulled behind Angela’s Toyota Highlander.
We meet Steve in at the Woodinville Park-and-Ride, where he gives us a thorough walkthrough of the camper and takes us on a drive-along to make sure we’re comfortable (and are not going to destroy the couple’s camper). Given the small size and weight of the trailer, it’s not particularly difficult to drive with it.
We head out on the highway to Ike Kinswa State Park on Lake Mayfield near Mt. St. Helens. We’re fortunate to have some decent weather (and the smoke from the recent forest fires has cleared).
Our site at B48 is a “pull-through”, so we don’t have to tackle the challenge of backing up the trailer. The site also includes water and electric hookups, so for tonight we don’t have to worry about those things.
We have fun moving everything from the car into the camper. It feels a little like a cruise: you only have to unpack once, and then your room travels with you from place to place. Afterwards, we read for a bit, then go for a walk along Lake Mayfield.
The camper is snug inside. Jan’s only 5’ 10”, but when he stands at the highest point inside the camper, his head brushes against the ceiling. The tiny bathroom has a raised floor, meaning even less headroom. Still, it’s nice to have a bathroom and shower to ourselves.
The photo shows the camper in day mode, with a small sitting area and table.
We can flip up the back of the camper to access the kitchen. There’s a sink, a two-burner propane stove, a small refrigerator, and stocked cabinets.
Jan’s doing all the cooking on this trip. Tonight’s menu includes couscous with grilled chicken — but unfortunately there’s a burn ban in effect, so he has to sauté the chicken instead of grilling it over a fire. After dinner, it’s pretty easy to wash everything in the sink and put things away.
Evening time. We read and study, then watch an episode of the brilliant “Midnight Diner” Netflix series set in Tokyo.
When we set up the bed, we discover that the bed is just barely tall enough for Jan to lie down on without touching his head or feet against the walls — probably less than an inch to spare, but it’s enough! The bed’s pretty comfortable.
RV trip, Day 2. We pack up after breakfast and head towards Cape Disappointment State Park in the very southwest corner of Washington. Along the way, we stop in Longview for chicken wings at the Mill City Grill and for coffee at Guse’s.
Cape Disappointment is quite beautiful — the “disappointment” in its name comes from British trader John Meares, who mistook the mouth of the Columbia River for a bay. He failed to realize he was looking at the river he’d been searching for. The cape includes sites visited by the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
We’re in site C169, which is just inland from the beach. A stand of low pines between the site and the dunes forms a nice windbreak. We have to back the trailer in, but it’s not too difficult. This site doesn’t have trailer hookups, so we’ll have to keep an eye on our water and battery levels.
We make the short walk down to the beach, where there’s a bit of fog and drizzle.
RV trip, Day 3. We’re lucky — the weather has cleared, and it’s a beautiful day. We go for walk on a trail through lush forest to the cape’s North Head.
Forest denizen
We reach the top of North Head, giving us a view along the beach. Our campsite is somewhere down there.
After our hike, we drive into Long Beach for lunch. We decide to stop at the Drop Anchor, billed by Google as “similar to Chinook’s Restaurant in Seattle”. Aside from the fact both restaurants sell seafood, the Drop Anchor is in no way similar to Chinook’s. Still, the food’s okay.
The coffee up the road at Bold Coffee turns out to be better. We chat with one of the proprietors of the coffee shop and gallery, and Angela buys a nice ceramic mug.
Back at the state park, we make tea and bring it down to the beach with our chairs to read.
The North Head Lighthouse
Towards sunset, a small group of people gathers at the next site over. They’re part of a bluegrass band, and gathering outdoors is the only way they can play together. We enjoy listening to their impromptu concert.
Good night, sun.
RV trip, Day 4. The weather overnight changes to rain, and it’s a bit of a storm by the time we’re up. Jan cooks breakfast, and is grateful for the flip-up roof over the kitchen area. He hands the food to Angela through a pass-through cabinet into the camper’s interior, and we eat breakfast snug in our little room on wheels.
Since we’re returning the camper today, we move everything from the camper into our car. The rain continues to pour. By the time we’ve got the trailer hitched up and ready to go, we’re both soaked.
As Jan begins to pull out of the spot, one of our site neighbors waves his arms. Jan stops the car immediately — have we forgotten some crucial tear-down step and are about to destroy the trailer? No. The neighbor just wanted to joke that we’re “lightweights” for leaving in bad weather.
It’s a long drive back to Seattle. We stop for lunch along the way at Clark’s Restaurant, a diner in the middle of nowhere. We meet up with trailer owner Steve in Kirkland and return the trailer.
Neither of us is particularly eager to actually own a trailer at this point, but it was a fun trip, and we might do another trip in rented RV in the future.