Saturday, April 18, 2020

Corona Camping

Right after we got back from Disneyland, Corona virus (or Covid-19) really hit the States. And Washington state was the first to fall. Everything changed so fast! First it was no toilet paper, then it was no groceries, then it was don't congregate in groups larger than 50 (then 20 then 10), then it was close all the bars and restaurants, then t was the stay-at-home order (started at 2 weeks and then went to over a month, to no real end in sight).

Although the number of cases (and deaths) has been drastically lower than projected, the government shows no signs of letting up. Gas prices have dropped (right now it is about $1.70/gallon), all local events have been cancelled, there is no school until Fall, all states lands are closed, and we just have to trust that God has this handled and make the best of it.

After Easter, we usually take a couple of days to get away. But this year... Well, you know.  The weather was just too nice to not go camping and we have a trailer right in our driveway. So, we went camping. In our driveway. 😁 Turns out we have a lot of pretty nice amenities: wifi, firepits, picnic tables, privacy, hot tub... We did all of the stuff we would normally do when camping, we just didn't go to a campground.


It also had a pretty nice view

We "left" right after dinner on Thursday night. The weather was glorious, so we drove down to our neighborhood beach and caught the sunset... :o 






Even our beach has a nice view of the mountain
I love logs and old stumps (Bonus: you can still see the mtn.) 




Then it was back to camp for a fire and Guiness and caramel s'mores! Yum!


Friday morning it was sunny and warm enough to go out and read my new magazine and finish my cup of tea at the picnic table after breakfast...


When I was done with my magazine, we used it to play a dice game on. The ridges in the picnic table aren't conducive to rolling dice. And then we did a bit of reading...


Going on a hike is pretty standard for our camping trips and since there is so much of our neighborhood we've never seen, we headed down toward the golf course to do a bit of exploring...


The water we can see from our living room window is really just 
the mud flats at high tide. It was low tide when we were there... :/ 


I finally got to see this tower up close. I just don't 
know what it is???

Then it was back to camp for lunch and some more games. 

Another camping tradition is going to a local tap house or bottle shop and picking up some beer to go with our hot dogs. Since we want to try to support local businesses during this time, we made an online curbside pickup order at our favorite local bottle shop. It wasn't the same as wandering through and looking at all the different fun bottle labels but we're pretty happy with our selections so far... :) 



By this time, the clouds were pretty thick and it started to rain on the way home. So we passed the time by enjoying the indoor hot tub and watching a movie...


Thankfully it stopped raining so we could roast our dogs on the fire while enjoying one of our very favorite stouts from Fort George... 


After dinner we realized it was a friend's birthday and his wife had a sign put up that said, "Honk, it's my birthday!" Well, we just had to go and wish him a happy birthday. Only when we got to his house, we realized our truck horn doesn't work. So we texted him instead, rolled down the window and just yelled "HONK!" really loud! LOL


Being outside camping makes us tired, so we hit the hay early and slept in late... :) 

Even though it rained overnight, it was another lovely sunny morning and we enjoyed just sitting outside in the sunshine. It's amazing how warn 52 feels when you're sitting in the sun (and you're almost 50 and having hot flashes all the time... ;) ) 



The only thing we had left to do was to hop on the scooter and go and check out the local little towns near camp. We got some super cheap gas and headed north and explored Blaine... 

We haven't been to Blaine much and they have a lovely park right across from the Peace Arch border crossing...



The best part was that it wasn't all closed up! :) 















We've never been to the cannery at the end of Semiahmoo, but I 
really want to go to that little sandy beach there!


It's so strange to have Canada so close and seem so far away right now...


this seagull sat so still you'd think it was a statue

All that walking made us pretty hungry. So we rode back to downtown Blaine and picked up some take-out Thai food and ate on a bench overlooking the marina. 


Then we went home, unpacked, did some laundry and got back to "real life" again...

Next time maybe we'll camp in someone else's back yard??? LOL

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