Post Memorial Day Greys

So…for the past MANY years it has been my tradition to camp over Memorial Day weekend. I am happy to say that this tradition has been taken up by a multitude of my friends and family. This time out we went to Cape Perpetua.

Cape Perpetua is just about the best camp site we have been to that will accommodate as large a group of people as we have come with us. This time out there was about 20 of us. A few new people but mostly the regulars. Sadly there were a few friends that weren’t able to make it due to a myriad of things that came up at the last-minute. There was however an especially exciting addition to this trips guests as my buddy Tom and his son Koty (Kody) were able to make it down from Seattle area (Bothell).

The site itself is capable of housing (tenting) 50 people, has a large (6-7 ft. diameter) fire pit, an A-frame covered area with running water/sink and an outlet and about 7 picnic benches. We also had his/her bathrooms with flushing toilets and running water. Bonus!

Another great thing about Cape Perpetua is that it is located on the beach south of Newport. Beach access gives another activity for us to do; that is to say checking out tide pools and combing the beach for agates. Plus you can go and just sit and watch the ocean in its awesomeness. This isn’t like “totally awesome dude” hokum. It is that I can’t think of any word more appropriate to the ocean because of its sheer power, beauty, and magnitude.

For the most part this trip consisted of eating, drinking, socializing around the camp fire and playing games. There were other activities like hiking and beach combing for agates that were also done by more than a few but for the most part that was it. Some of the games we  played were cribbage, MTG (Magic the Gathering), Rail Games, Phase 10, and Dominion.

On another note: (rant) When someone says they are going to make and bring pancake batter or the ingredients to make pancakes you better check that shit out beforehand. Leaving names out of this I will describe what went down; it was agreed upon by me and said nameless individual that we would pre-make some items of food so that prep time was cut down with our limited resources plus we could get kinda fancy at home and use all the resources available there to accomplish this. I for my part said I would make home-made chili for dinner a couple of nights (recipe below) and some foil packets of potatoes/onion, sausage, salt, pepper, garlic for re-heating for breakfast a couple of mornings. I did all of this and was rather proud and excited about it since being busy working all week I was able to make time to accomplish this. However my accomplish in all this decided instead of a home-made recipe that he promised mentioned he might make and/or bring he decided to bring this stuff (image below).  I was a little disappointed and busted my friends balls for about 10 minutes. I had no choice to accepted it. I do admit the pancakes weren’t terrible but did have a ton of sugar in them and definitely not made from some family recipe. You actually spray the stuff into the pan like it was Cool Whip. Needless to say the aforementioned pancake fiasco will not be repeated. 😉

On to my chili recipe:

• 1 lbs. ground chuck
• 1 whole yellow bell pepper diced
• 1 jalapeno cut small sans seeds
• 1 can (12-16 oz.) black-eyed beans
• 1 can (12-16 oz) black beans
• 1 can (12-16 oz.) kidney beans
• 1 can (12-16 oz) diced tomatoes
• 1 can (6-8 oz.) tomato paste
• 1 whole sweet yellow onion diced
• 3 garlic cloves pressed
• sea salt to taste
• black pepper to taste
• non salt seasoning mix to taste
• 3 kinds of chili powder to taste

This cooked for about 2 hours total and was delicious! I did freeze it when done in two containers for easy transport. It also had time to saturate and let the flavors come out more since we didn’t eat it right away.

Since I am talking about food right now I will say I had my very first smore with a peanut butter cup instead of chocolate bar this trip and was pleasantly surprised. Next time I need more mallow I think because the cup is so thick it needs more of the melty stuff to really do a totally good job.

I also tried a drink called “German Chocolate Cake” which is made from 1 part Franjelico and 1 part Vanilla Vodka. This is accompanied with a slide of lemon wedge dipped in sugar. So here is what you do:

1. lick your lemon wedge
2. down your shot of “German Chocolate Cake”
3. bite on/eat your Lemon wedge minus the peel

It tastes just like a german chocolate cake and was so delicious.

For the critters we did see there were large crows or possibly ravens, Stellars Jays (robber birds), chipmunks, large yellow slugs, snails, interesting colored beetle-like bugs and some mosquitos. I will post images of those shortly, once I have pulled the images from my camera.

Some other noteworthy bits to note was Saturday night several people channeled Michael Jackson with their dance version of Thriller played on someone’s “i” something or eBook. Since most people were drunk at this time the quality of the singing and dance moves were not up to MJ’s quality but hella awesome to watch. I was glad no one nose-dived (doved)into the fire pit that was in full use. I wanted to videotape it but was told not to by one of my more conservative friends who thought I might post it online somewhere. Sheesh! Like I would do that. 😉

Our luck ran out for a predominately dry weekend when on Sunday the light drizzle began before the sun sank down behind our curtain of trees and was persistent enough that it forced everyone indoors, for those who had trailers, or under cover provided by the three gazebos we set up for just such an occasion.

We left Monday early enough so that people could grab a late breakfast on their way home. My traveling companion, Ruben, went home on Sunday with Craig so I was forced to eat pizza by myself at Woodstocks in Corvallis. I was able to grab a take-and-bake home for my wife since this is seriously like one of her favorite pizza places.

All in all this was another fun camping trip and look forward to the next one.

More to come…