Vacation Part III: Yurt Camping

I am not a fan of camping.  There is nothing enjoyable about sitting in the dirt, sleeping in a puddle, and waking up with rain water on your pillow.  Add in a baby who may or may not sleep, and that doesn't really sound like something anyone would do voluntarily.

Unfortunately, spending $100 a night for a hotel room for a week also isn't really something we can do either.  So, we decided to head to the Oregon Coast and rent a yurt.  The yurts are only a few dollars more a night than a tent site, and you get a solid floor, heat, electricity, and total protection from the rain (not to mention a bed that doesn't deflate in the middle of the night).

I am a convert, I love yurt camping.  It was great to  lay in bed and listen to the rain pour down, knowing that you weren't going to have to hang your wet sleeping bag out the next morning.  We need more of these things in Washington, we might actually do some camping in the next few years.

It was still pretty cold this week, so we spent most of our time inside, but the yurt would be great in the summer when you can spend most of your time outside.

It's hard to plan meals for a camping trip that starts with two nights in a hotel and then one at a friend's house.  So, on the way to the campsite, we stopped at the grocery store & bought whatever we could find.  We ended up with one of those frozen "skillet meals" it turned out to be great for camping, no left-overs and just one dirty pan.

Our elegant camping dining:

We stayed at the Umpqua Lighthouse State Park, so we had to check out the lighthouse (actually that's about the only thing to do in this town).

We all climbed up to the top to see out the light.

We'd prepared ourselves for a very wet few days of sitting in the yurt and watching movies, but the weather turned out beautiful.  It rained every night, and it was a little chilly to be on the beach for long, but the sunshine was wonderful!

Parker loves Keith's hat...

...he especially loves to eat it.

For my birthday, we headed out to Oregon Wine Country.

There are about a dozen vineyards about half-an-hour East of our campground.

We ended the day at Reustle Prayer Rock Vineyards.  You can tell they have built this vineyard/winery as the wedding/event destination, the place was beautiful!  Their wine tastings were quite the experience as well.  The tastings take place in their rock wine caves, and come with appetizer bites created to complement the wines.  It was a great experience, if we lived closer, we'd probably join their wine club so we could go as often as we liked!

This also turned out to be the closest we got to a fancy meal for my birthday, dinner was pizza in a diner by the highway.  The town by our campsite was not especially large, but we did get blizzards for my birthday dessert!

This picture reminds me of a funny story from our stop at Jeff & Katie's.  Between the wedding, Parker's crazy-long nap, and the drive down to Corvalis, Parker didn't get any solids for lunch on Saturday.  I'd nursed him several times, so he wasn't starving, but he was very ready for dinner when we sat down at the Gerigs.  I put Parker down in his seat, and put some puffs down for him to eat while the rest of us got ready.  In one motion, as fast as lightening, he pulled his binky out, grabbed a puff, and shoved it in his mouth.  He moved so fast his arm was just a blur.  Guess the kid was hungry.