Pictures: Dry Falls & Sun Lakes

In spite of two sick boys (Chris and Cowboy), we had a great time during our camping weekend with Mark, Erin and Finn. Chris and I packed up the car and headed out to Sun Lakes State Park on Friday evening, arriving around 9 PM. Mark and Erin showed up right after we started setting up camp and set up their stuff at a nearby site. Finn came on Saturday, because he had a wedding to attend in Seattle on Friday night.

Sun Lakes/Dry Falls is a few hours east of Seattle, in the desert half of the state (it's really easy to forget that half of Washington is a desert when you live on the coast, and it's always amazing to cross the mountains and end up in a completely different climate zone). Dry Falls is the name given to an amazing canyon that used to be the largest waterfall in the world. It's 3.5 miles wide and falls 380 feet (by comparison, Niagara Falls is 1 mile wide and falls 165 feet) and was formed when the Glacier Missoula Lake came through around 15,000 years ago. Sun Lakes is a state park located in the bottom of the canyon, built around a series of freshwater lakes.

I haven't gone car camping in years (I think the last time may have been abalone diving while I still lived in Pacifica), and I'd forgotten how cushy it is! No worrying about packing everything in and out, carrying all of your equipment on your back for miles, divvying up meal preparations amongst the party to reduce weight and redundancy. We weren't sure what to bring (Chris is a backpacker too) so we just threw it all in the car. How simple! We had our nice camp chairs, bags of food, clothing, and towels, Cowboy's tent and sleeping pad, and even three sleeping pads for me alone! It was really easy. We set up our tent on a nice flat spot (campsites are marked and maintained -- no looking for a reasonably flat spot in the middle of the woods or mountains) and set up Cowboy's tent facing ours. I hooked the flap of our vestibule to the front of Cowboy's tent so that he could look into our tent and we could still zip the screen shut. Finn set his tent up nearby and Mark and Erin were across the way. It worked out very well for everyone.

We spent the weekend swimming in the lake, hiking in the desert canyon, and hanging out at the campsite. Erin organized the troops to prepare a delicious grilled salmon dinner with risotto and roasted corn on Saturday night, and we enjoyed french toast, bacon and eggs for breakfast on Sunday morning. Those types of meals are another perk of car camping -- no living on couscous, mac-n-cheese and oatmeal.

It was a supremely relaxing weekend, which was perfect. As Erin put it, it was nice to spend all of our time focusing on nothing but staying cool. "Hmmmm...maybe I'll get back in the water..." "I think I'll move to the shade now..." "Back to the water for me..." The days were hot and sunny (in the 90's) but the nights were blissfully cool. The wind really whipped up in the evenings (we were at the base of a canyon, after all), which was great for getting rid of bugs and keeping the temperatures nice and comfortable.

As I mentioned, my two boys were sick but both handled the weekend very well. Chris has some kind of sore throat/congestion thing going on and Cowboy, apparently, is a nervous wreck. He was anxious the entire weekend, trying to constantly protect us and patrol the perimeter. The only time he relaxed was when we were both with him and he was able to keep an eye on us at the same time. It exhausted him and messed up his digestive processes (we took him to the vet this morning to make sure that he's OK, and it turns out his digestive issues appear to be entirely in his head -- at least this time).

So that was our weekend: friends, sun, water, desert canyons and crazy dog. Pretty great weekend! I've posted some pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Link: View camping pictures