A Relaxing Weekend at my Favorite River

Friday after work, I hopped in my car and drove up to the mountains to join my husband at Smiling River Campground on the Metolius River. He had a delicious dinner waiting for me in the Dutch Oven (chili and cornbread). Saturday morning I talked him into driving over to Suttle Lake to hike around it. When we arrived there, it was quite cloudy and a chilly breeze had sprung up. I thought it the weather was too unpleasant to hike for long, but we might as well do a short one since we were there. I had failed to bring a jacket, since it was sunny and warm at camp. Will came to the rescue with a shirt he had in the pickup. It was a bit large for me, but fortunately, the wind died down and the sun started to peek from behind the clouds as we walked along. I was able to shed the oversized shirt before we reached a boat dock where people might stare at me. Here is Black Butte across the lake before the sun came out.

I caught Will spying on me with his newest toy, a monocle he got at Lowe's in Bend. Or maybe he was looking for wildlife. He let me look through it too. Very good spy tool.
It warmed up nicely when the sun came out, and we walked all the way around the lake. I think it's about 3 1/2 miles. Lovely easy walk.

Will hiked with me, so I got to take a drive through washboardy mountain roads with him. We went up to the Jack Lake trailhead and had some pretty views of Mt. Washington, some Sisters, and Three Finger Jack, but I couldn't get all of them on one picture.

Back at camp that afternoon, we saw that Will's friend, the resident deputy at Camp Sherman, had stopped by and left a "Junior Deputy" sticker on Will's chair. Deputy Dave soon came back. As he got out of his patrol car at our campsite he called out, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave." The neighbors at the next campsite snapped to attention and listened with interest as Deputy Dave continued, "Every time you are up here, someone gets dumped out of a kayak and we spend all day looking for the kayak." During our last visit, our next door neighbor lost her boyfriend's kayak and the stresses of their day culminated in a fight that night as we were at our campfire. We could hear the boyfriend saying, "Stop hitting me" and "Don't throw my bike in the river!" She came over to our campsite crying and saying he had bit her hands and wouldn't give her car keys to her so she could leave. We tried to call Deputy Dave but he was soundly sleeping through his phone ringing. Some other police came but the boyfriend left before they got there. This weekend it was a 12 year old girl who got dumped. She was rescued and so was her kayak eventually.

It was a very relaxing and enjoyable weekend. I was a guest on Will's camping trip, and he cooked wonderful meals and cleaned up. For some reason he took to calling me "Princess" before the weekend was over. Perhaps I adapted a little too quickly to being served! I could get used to a lifestyle like that! I told him this it what I envision it will be like when he retires. It sounds like I will have a few years to help him get used to that idea!

Hopefully this relaxing weekend will help me get through the stresses of this next week - school registration with a new principal, new assistant principal and new counselor. Oh joy!