Well at the last minute my friend and I decided to go camping instead of only a day trip and to spend two days in the woods..so we threw more stuff in the back of the van and headed out.
We stopped at a friends house near Darrington WA who is a mushroom expert and she took us out to her favorite chantrell spot. We got a nice batch of chantrells and two lovely lobster mushrooms.
She headed home and we hurried to find a camp spot cause night was falling.
On the way..we passed a nice pile of logs on the side of the road left by the forest service for campers so we grabbed a few for our campsite..and when we got to the campsite we found we were the only ones there. It was wonderful! :)
Fortunately there were a lot of campsites with tons of wood left..so we grabbed kindling from the forest floor and a bunch of logs and got a fire going. Night was falling fast and we quickly realized we had forgotten a few things...a lantern being one of them and dishes and silverware the other :P
So we built the fire first and by the light of the fire and two candles I had stuck in my backpack I always keep ready to go to the woods with..we made a nice supper (we had to use our knives to eat the food with and we used a couple of pan lids for plates :P next morning we also were able to have sausage, hash browns and eggs along with our herbal teas.
We had grabbed several layers of clothes and lots of extra sweaters and coats cause we knew it would be cold..and it was! We quickly got into more layers and got the beds made in the van (I have an ever so small built in bed in the back of my van with room on the floor for a second mattress and bed.) and then we stayed up until our rather large fire burned down and we drummed and chanted and played with the rattles and singing sticks and danced around the fire in the moonlight..it was tons of fun.
My friend had found another chant that was new to us so we practiced it. She had found it on you tube so here is the link. ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S0gqI6koJwWe decided it was so cold by then and we had let the fire die so it would be best to just get some sleep..so we went to bed.
It was so dark I couldn't see my hand in front of my face when I heard something move around. Then the van rocked and I heard a low growling...it took me a few seconds to realize it was not coming from outside the van! It was my friend softly snoring!!!! rofl! But for one brief moment..it was a bear in my half awake mind! hehee
Next day we jumped up..made breakfast, packed up and cleaned the campsite and walked around a bit exploring the area.
We found tons of mushrooms but not any that I know so I did a few sketches of the ones I wanted to ask my mushroom teacher about and a sample for some spore prints and then we headed up the mountain.
The day was gorgeous and we had a few close encounters with a few birds. A couple of woodpeckers, several robins, saw an eagle, had a tiny little fluff ball of a bird hop right next to me on a branch and ignore me. I don't think the little guy had ever seen a person before..sure was not the least bit afraid.
We also saw quite a few chipmunks along our journey, a few squirrels busy in the trees and one mouse that tried to steal our breakfast! :P
We took a few photos and then headed down the mountain to another friends ranch where they let me gather some salal leaves for my herbal cupboard along with some pearly everlasting that had gone to seed. I already had dried pearly for sinus infections this fall but I wanted some that had gone to seed for my moon garden. They also let me gather some white sparkly granite rocks to finish the border on my new flowerbed. They fed us lunch and then we hurried down the mountain and home.
All in all..a lovely trip even though we got cold for a while.
This morning I had breaded and fried chantrells with my eggs for breakfast. :)