lookouts and cabins and yurts, oh my!

when it's sunny out, you always get a little hopeful. like, it's sunny today, and even tho it poured rain yesterday, as i research possible getaway destinations, it's hard to keep in mind that it could just very well end up raining the whole time. in fact, it's very likely.

francis has the whole week off from school next week, a new thing this year, (to accomodate for parent/teacher conferences before thanksgiving) so we thought: maybe we could do a little family excursion somewhere. so i've been googling. i have to admit: i love googling. i had some friends stay in this treehouse rental near mt. rainier, and thought: that'd be fun! but, alas, no kids under 10. apparently due to insurance reasons and safety. oh well, maybe next year. i've heard of people staying in little rental cabins, yurts, and teepees. we're not really a camping family. we're into the "idea" of roughing it, but not actually doing it. hence, the cabin sounded perfect. until i realized it's just a glorified tent: a roof with a bed. cooking dinner? outside. bathroom? outside. fireplace? outside. running water? bring your own. and no coffee! not exactly what i'm looking for. especially in the end of november, where it could rain all weekend. i want all those things: inside!

when i was younger, i did alot of adventurous things, and i thought myself outdoorsy. greg also did alot of adventurous things, and when we met, we thought eachother quite adventurous! traveling thru europe, freeclimbing big giant rocks that you really shouldn't be, finding yourself on mountaintops in waist-deep snow...so i guess it was just assumed that these crazy antics would continue once we got married. but it wasn't so. and strangely, it wasn't a bummer. i realized that, left to my own motivations, i was lazy and preferred to be comfortable. sleeping in a warm cozy bed is important to me. so is my morning coffee. and so is indoor plumbing...

luckily for us both, greg has been discovered to be much the same way. and we're ok with it. we tried to summon all our enthusiasm last october for francis' cub scout camping trip. we decided to go because francis really wanted to, but mainly because we felt guilty that we didn't take francis camping more often.(ie: ever) we even went out and bought a bigger tent. i made a checklist of everything we needed to bring, which was long, and it took us hours to gather, buy, and load everything, and then more hours to get to our destination. and then more hours to unload everything, set up camp, and cook dinner. i think it took about an hour to boil a pan of water, because we only had a tabletop propane grill, and by the time we got our paltry mac and cheese and hot chocolate, everyone else was off exploring. that night in our tent, we remembered why we didn't do this more often: we froze. and francis woke us up about 15 times in the middle of the night in a panic of terror that the sasquatch was trying to get into our tent! he heard it!! trying to undo the zipper!!!( damn campfire stories. who's brilliant idea was it to tell scary stories to a bunch of 3rd graders??)

on the plus side, francis hasn't been begging us to do it again, so our guilt has been somewhat alleviated.

but that was last year, and this is this year, and again, i'm caught in the position of trying get my city-boy outside: something fun and outdoorsy and maybe not so rustic. and i had a new thought which i posed to greg: "hey, remember that fire lookout cabin we spent the night in way back when? i bet francis would love that! we should do that!" (way back when: was 1995, when we were just friends, or i should say, barely friends, because even in my tomboy-guy's-best-friend ways, i still managed to revert to girliness sometimes, and at that very moment, i wasn't speaking to him for some grand transgression, but he didn't know it. we went to the three fingers lookout cabin with matt snyder, his sister lisa, and brian glenney, and it was definitely a trip to remember, and completely a whole 'nother story: just ask me about it sometime.) greg, in answer to my grand idea said: "HA! are you crazy? that hike was over 9 miles! and have you forgotten the glacier we had to cross?" well, yes, i forgot about that, but i googled it anyways because i wanted to see if there was anything about it, and there was. (just click on the cabin to see the collection of pictures) and then i googled all fire lookout cabins in washington, because i thought, if three fingers was too hard and too high, maybe there was an easier one. but i had forgotten a few key things. one: they are high on mountaintops for a reason: they once really did contain people looking for fires. and two: they were mainly a summer residence. i forgot that in the mountains, in the winter, you get snow.

so right about now, a motel is looking mighty nice, and i'm back to square one for the next nyssen adventure. if you have any ideas, or places you've heard about or stayed in, i would love to hear about it and completely copy you.

thankfully, we're not so urban that francis doesn't get to experience the glories of fall right here in seattle. he asked me last week if i would make caramel apples, and i realized i never have. he's almost ten and i've never made caramel apples??!!what's the deal? so we did. and he loved them.








the leaves have been beautiful and our lawn covered with them, so my most recent idea to get my city-boy out into the great outdoors was to get him to rake them.





i posed it as a money-making venture, a chore of old: boys of every generation have had to do this, and as a double incentive, once he had a big enough pile, he could jump in it. as long as he raked it up again. i posed the idea to zoran, our former-neighbor/friend and current bldg. manager/friend and asked for the rake and if francis could do it. he was thrilled (saved him having to do it) and offered to pitch in money as well. so francis got to learn a lesson, earn money, and have fun all in one. he was a little disappointed at first that it took him a lot longer than he thought it would. also, that leaves kept falling as he worked and messed up his many organized piles. he thought he would be done in one shot. but it gets dark so early now, than he only had time to rake afterschool for one hour, and it took him three afternoons and he still wasn't done! (however: we did spy on him, and he did spend quite a bit of time looking at pretty leaves and setting them aside, and then a little raking, and then: oh! another leaf! and setting it aside, etc etc. it was a painfully slow process but we stayed out of it.) on saturday morning, it was sunny, and he had his friend august over (from a sleepover the night before) and greg was going to take them to the park. i said: why don't you ask if they want to rake and earn some money? they both chose earning money! apparently, you can still buy good manual labor these days for 2 dollars...and it's always more fun when you get a little help from your friends...





so, i posted some more pics of the raking on my flickr page, because i was just that tickled about it. and there's still leaves on the trees, and they're still falling, so lucky him! he'll get to do it all...over...again...