Today a family road trip moved us from getting off the grid to making future plans. Join us on the road to camping and Huckleberry scouting.
Today a family road trip moved us from getting off the grid to making future plans. Join us on the road to camping and Huckleberry scouting.
Hello there friends, both old and new. Welcome to the strive seek find podcast, I'm your host chance Whitmore home to bite sized lifestyle advice from a fellow traveler on the road to a better life. Brought to you by someone who is a longtime educator, writer, parent, and an outdoor enthusiast, who may just may like a good draft, because our future is set not just through our choices, but by our willingness to explore and find a better way. Well, now happy June, my family and I just got back into town after a short visit to the mountains. And if you've been listening to this for a while, you know, mountains tend to be my happy place. And I'm noticing more and more. For my girls, it's becoming the same thing. My youngest, especially has been begging every week, since it started to warm up that we needed to be out camping. And I'll be honest, I completely agree with her. But life isn't allowing for it right now. Maybe next month. But what was this trip? And what made it so restorative? Well, let's get started. And I'll share I've probably needed to get to the mountain since January. I don't think that's an overstatement. My wife has probably wanted to lock me in a closet and leave me there for at least that long. I'm kidding. There at least beer halls really. But today was the first time that we've been able to shake loose and get away. We're at that age, his parents were we've got one in high school that's doing athletics, one in middle school doing athletics and a little one, be in a little one. Consequently, what used to be taken for granted, there's not a lot of time for. So today, we grabbed the opportunity. And we had to make it serve multiple functions. Because it may be three weeks before we have this opportunity again. And when I started this list, I intentionally had three reasons we went up the hill the way we did, actuality it's probably closer to five or six. But first one, trying to get used to a different vehicle for road trips. wasn't in the truck. It was odd. Next up, kids have been working really darn hard while they're at home. And, and I'm not. And that deserves something getting away is important for them. And it's for the other reasons I'll kind of explain as I go. But we were out the door. Seven o'clock this morning. place we were headed was a two hour drive north of us. We're going to stop into McCall along the way, which is really the only part of our planes journey as planned as it actually was. That happened today. Now step one was about an hour and a half into the drive. We got off the main highway went up into the hills along the reservoir that for the last four or five years we've checked regularly and tried to get huckleberries because about every other year, it is intensely amazing what you can get there. And for those of you not in the Pacific Northwest huckleberries are a regional treat. They only grow wild and you have these tiny little blueberry, like as far as looks go. But very, very tart berries. And they are expensive. Because as far as I know, you can't cultivate them. They're temperamental. And they produce about every other year, anything worth having. So we get up there and we check every year. There are entire Facebook subculture about when to pick berries and find things and probably the best analogy for this is simple. Huckleberry spots are protected like a guy protects his favorite fishing hole. You're not telling you. You ask. He's gonna lie. You're asked about the bait. He's gonna lie about that too. So as much as we like him It's as much about the exploration and having a little fun getting it done as anything else. Last year, we got a grand total of three berries. And they were pretty expensive. Because we ended up having to buy four new tires after I basically exploded one coming off the mountain. Anyways, back to this trip, we went up, we went looking for our spot, knowing that there had been fires in the area. And we're not going to get any berries out of that area, because the whole thing was burned. The areas around it, if not, so there's places to search, but it's going to be a few years for that spot. Which is okay, we got to go check out and look for some camping sites along that area. Because it's still a great little hidden reservoir that I want to get kayaks on, hopefully in the month of July. So even though that was disappointing, it was a homerun part of the trip. Then it was up to check on a campsite that I loved and actually did a podcast on a few years ago. Place Called that I called it meander. I didn't name the campground because it's crowded enough as it is a great place to drop a kayak in the the water and play around and know your kids are safe and their life jackets. And it was about an hour away from our first stop. Why don't why didn't we just go camping, because I assumed that the campground was going to be full by the time I could get there on Saturday afternoon. And I was curious, wanted to know how much higher up in the mountains, I'd have to go to find a place that I could possibly disperse camp. And we had good intentions to maybe jump in the water there. But by the time we got there was about 60 degrees and high mountain lakes are not conducive to swimming when you're dealing with 60 degrees. So we moved on. But the girls took it in stride. There was a lot of sleeping and a lot of laughing on this entire trip. And we weren't done. We just continued up. We were exploring looking for dispersed campsites just in case, our favorites were all taken up the next time. Because last year, due to a combination of work insanity and more work insanity. We didn't make it out camping once. And I think it was only once the year before that. So trying to figure that out now. In the course of another hour, we went further up and found us ourselves about 10 places that we could possibly disperse camp, which is to say camp without being in a campground that looked pretty cool. Little bit of water around it. Nothing I would kayak and quite honestly because the kayaks we have are meant for lakes, not for a lot of rocks. But there's potential there. And it was about this point. Even though we weren't hiking, even though we weren't kayaking. We were getting in and out and looking at things and wandering around and taking pictures. It was enough that I could see the tension rolling off. My wife rolling off me rolling off the girls. There's just something about breathing mountain air and getting away from people letting it be quiet. So while we sat next to a mining claim and ate our lunch in there, the rain that wasn't a problem. That was a celebration because there wasn't anybody around and better yet for me. We are in an area where it suffers from cell phone interruptus. AKA, there's no service. And those are special places in my world. I know I'm kind of wandering tonight but my point is this. Get away from civilization. Get out in the hills. If you can't get up and hike, go out and find a picnic. The therapeutic value to all this for my entire family was off the scale and it led to more plants. When we sidetracked into a hot springs that I haven't been to and up about 19 years I think it was the first year we were married. We camped near it and then hiked over to it with a couple of friends because pre kid days. You had time for these things and in the Process found a couple of roads that I really, really want to see what they're like at the end of the line. It looks like there's some pretty country up there. There are places I haven't been. And I was definitely not ready for that sort of trip. Didn't have my shovel my bucket, the extra food and a sleeping bag toss in the back. So we didn't do it. But we have plans to get up there and do it. We have deadlines. And I can handle this kind of deadline right now. Because it's something to look forward to something to celebrate, and something to experience with the family. Because we came back tonight, ate dinner, and everybody just kind of collapsed. That's a great day, folks. A great day. And for me, it's enough. As I go out the door tonight, I want to make sure I celebrate something. Want a shout out film rage, a podcast that I followed for a very long time. They have supported this program for a very long time. And they do an outstanding job talking about a variety of movies that I can't even imagine sitting through at times. Today they hit episode 200. And as someone who has stumbled a little bit in the last year, and only published about 30 episodes for this season instead of my normal 50 I can't even imagine making 200 So salute to all you guys that film rage and I'm going to urge the listeners to this podcast to drop by and give you a listen. Well friends, that's it for this week's edition of strife seek find. Thank you again for listening. If you'd like to join the discussion, or have ideas for future episodes, hop on over to the strife seek find podcast group on Facebook. Alternatively, if Facebook's not your thing, you can find me on Instagram at strife seek find podcast on Twitter, as at chance Whitmore five, or even on email. Links for all those are in the show notes below. Until next time, my friends, keep seeking your own brilliant future