Off to Lake Simtustus!

Golly, its been like 10 years since we've been able to camp with our Oregon gang. We are all in two states now, and neither of them are Kansas. We drove over via John Day. It takes quite a while, no matter which way you go.

But soon we were in Central Oregon. We were the first to arrive, so we hopped on our paddleboards and checked out Lake Simtustus, and it amazing wildlife, including this fellow, who seems a little nonplussed that he's not allowed on tribal property. The kids in our group would later empathize.

And a small family of river otters! I pointed out that they should technically be called lake otters. This guy took a lot of effort to try to scare my husband away from the others with his hissing and snorting. Hmph.

These were the other two who were less engaged in chasing us off.

Just kickin' it on this rock, man.

One by one our peeps arrived! We had a bit of a snafu with our camp plans, so we were six families in four campsites, a little spread out. We shared with Tim and Stacey. I very much enjoyed watching Tim and Taline put up their tent, and the look on her face when Tim yelled from the other side of the tent, "take the hook and clip it off," and her confused little face looking up at me... "clip it off?" I explained that Daddy meant clip it on. 

The families worked together to make sure everyone was tented up, inflated, and properly housed.

Sister and Mike and Chris and Kristin and Lena were just across the camp road from us. Woooo! Let's get to camping!