Goodbye Woods, Hello Seaquest State Park – July 27

It took four adults working fairly diligently to get us on the road. I was figuring lunch time, and sure enough at about 1pm – we finally got it all put back together and were on our way. Our family friend, Sue Paules was us at The Woods for the weekend and was a huge help getting us resorted out and back on the road. Mom has been collecting quarters – and sold me $20 for future laundry runs. Dad and Issac took our bottles (and one of theirs) down the hill to refill them. Thanks Dad!

We pulled into Seaquest State Park at about 5:30. Our spot is quite handy to the path under the highway to the Mt St Helens Visitor Center run by the state. It was easy to back into, and Jakob is getting much better at directing me. We were fairly close to our neighbor on the door side – sites 70 and 71 would make a nice combination for a small group needing two sites. 71 can only accommodate a tent though – it’s not long enough for a camper. In any case, our neighbor hadn’t arrived yet. And there’s a tap with a drain for dumping grey water just across the street. Handy. We spent the rest of the evening getting the popup, up, and getting settled. The boys were definitely crawling out of their skins – so we headed over to the playground to burn off some more energy. Our neighbor had arrived by the time we got back. Poor guy, stuck next to us. He just wanted a quiet place to read, and go through the pictures he’d taken that day. I had to remind Issac to be neighborly twice – that child is LOUD. Taiko didn’t trust him at all. He didn’t bark at our neighbor, but he was very alert and growled quietly. I think maybe I should have had him come over and introduce himself to the dog. That might have solved it. However, he only stayed one night – so in the end it didn’t matter.

We broke out the mosquito coils. The mosquitoes aren’t bad, but certainly are a nuisance. They worked quite nicely. We ate all our meals outdoors. I switched the outside stove to one of the little 1# propane bottles. It clips along quite nicely now. Don’t remember if I mentioned the trouble with the outdoor stove I’d been having. It was taking an hour to boil a liter of water – really. Very anemic. Turns out we messed up our high pressure line to the stove when we modified the propane for two bottles with an automatic cutover regulator. Anyway, Dad suggested just hooking it up to one of those little bottles – and I’m good to go. I hate using them though since they can’t be refilled or recycled. Ug. But, I’m back in business – so I’ll us them, and fix it sometime after we get home.
I’m having trouble getting the boys to bed at a decent time – it means they’re getting up late, and we’re getting off to rather late starts. Hummmm.