Summer is my favorite season; there's no school, it's sunny, I get to sleep in and spend time taking care of myself, and I get to go to Seattle for an entire month. With it being just around the corner, I’m often reminded of my camping trip from last summer.
Every year since I was five, my grandparents have taken two of my cousins (Madison and Morgan) and I camping. We skipped around for a couple years, trying a bunch of new campsites, but we always seemed to make our way back to Baker Lake. Whether it was the island or the three rope swings or the hill we declared as ours when we were younger, there was something about that place that was addicting. Last year, after almost month in Seattle, I was exhausted in the best way possible. It was a known fact that I've always been happier in Washington, so the closer I got to my departure date, the more and more anxious I got about leaving and going back to Utah.
Wednesday, August 5th, we arrived at Baker Lake. We pulled into the campsite with excitement streaming through the blood in our veins, awaiting the adventure before us. The fresh air and the smell of rain daunted us down to the beach to run around in the rain before returning to the motorhome to make tea and write in our traditional camping journals. After dinner, we fell asleep to the sound of rain drizzling down the windows.
It was sunny the next morning, so we changed into our bathing suits and went to the rope swing and then the beach. We would walk/swim across the log boom to get to the island, as we have hundreds of times before. But this time, there were some guys on the logs. We ran into them once we reached the fifth log, and made a bit of small talk. We discovered that they went to a high school in Seattle that we knew of, and they'd been coming here since they were five, like us. We hoped that maybe we'd see them again.
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| view from one of the rope swings on an overcast day |
A couple hours later, we came back to the beach to wade around in the water. Now, Madison and Morgan are some of my bestest friends in the world. We've grown up with each other and can tell each other anything, so, we didn't need to plan to rant to each other about the things on our minds; it was inevitable. We sat on our towels at the tip of the boat launch throwing rocks at our feet as we spewed out everything we'd been holding in for months. Sports, school, our family. How reality is going to hurt like hell when we leave our little Baker Lake bubble. By the time our Grama called us back in, everything suddenly felt like our lives were moving at a thousand miles per hour and we couldn't stop spinning. We had three days until I was gone. We weren't ready to leave.
We went on the boat that night. Swung off of one of the sketchier rope swings and basked in the setting sun in the middle of the lake. Started a campfire and made our own cinnamon and honey toast. We were feeling better now that we were distracted with the little joys that Baker Lake brought us, and before we knew it, we were already on the third day of camping.
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