This year Joshua booked us a yurt in Bend, Oregon for our 4th Annual Campsgiving Trip!
We'd heard so many good things about Bend and it was a great trip, albeit cold. Our yurt never got above 40 degrees F (lows of 0 degrees at night, high of 20). We went to buy a baby space heater which in turn yielded us maybe 2 extra degrees of warmth. But as long as we were in our sleeping bags, by the fire, or moving around it was quite tolerable.
Our first hike was Smith Rock's Misery Ridge trail. We hiked on Thanksgiving morning so we had the place to ourselves. The scenery was striking and kept offering views back to the 3 Sisters Mountains and Mt Hood as we wound around the trail. The snow punctuating the craggly rock and giant icicles dripping from all the rocks was a treat. The warm hued rock reflecting in the river and warm sun, mmm, it was a great little hike.
Then we went back to the yurt and raced to build a giant fire. We cooked our thanksgiving dinner over the fire again this year. It had turkey with gravy, roasted garlic mashed potatoes, green beans and leeks, and the piece de resistance the sausage chanterelle kale stuffing! That stuff was killer! I made it in the cast iron so it had a great smoky flavor to it as well. I must toot our own horns, we're amazing at campfire thanksgiving dinner. So pro it even came out done all at the same time and it would have all been warm too if the cold air didn't immediately zap all heat from everything. Our beer did stay nice and cold sitting in its snow bed on the picnic table though.
We finished off the evening with Joshua's numb fingers playing some guitar and then into our sleeping bags pulled up to our eyeballs watching a James Bond movie, thanksgiving tradition.
