Weekend Camping

The wife and I spent our Memorial Day weekend camping. Original, I know. We stayed at Beverly Beach, which is a few miles north of Newport. It's as close to not camping as humanly possible. There are showers and toilets, and a ton of people are rammed together as close as they can ram us. It was fun. We walked along the beach down to Mo's on Saturday, ate sandwiches, then walked back. On Sunday we shopped at the outlet stores in Lincoln City and did some shopping. I got a sweet pair of old-style Nikes and a couple of Nike polos.

Anyway, the highlight of the weekend for me was all the cooking over the fire. We made the obligatory hot dogs, but we also tossed some foil-wrapped potatoes and corn on the cob into the coals. We cooked steak chunks rolled in lemon pepper using skewers, green beans cooked directly on the fire inside a tin foil pouch, and made cheesy bread over the grill. We fried our 2 leftover potatoes and 2 left over hot dogs in a wok over the fire, then mixed in 4 eggs and some cheese for a sweet breakfast. We ate well. And Midge is an expert marshmallow roaster. She has an incredible talent for toasting the outside of the marshmallow to a golden brown, without burning it, while at the same time melting all of the gooey goodness inside.

One other story...
Our neighbors on one side were a bunch of college kids from a nearby Christian university. They prayed before meals, and one of them sang drippy acoustic songs around the campfire. They were pretty decent neighbors. But on Sunday night, they all went to the movies. Around 7:30-ish? a group of four bikers pulled up to their spot. "36d, this is it," they said. They all had matching leather jackets with some embroidered logo on the back, likely a gang. It seemed incongruous... these tough-looking bikers hanging out with young Christians. But the college kids weren't there. A ranger came up and talked to the bikers, as did the state police. We heard the bikers say they were waiting for their friends, and the cops said they had until 10 to get out. The guys bought beer, and put it into the college kids' cooler. But still, no kids. At 9:59, the bikers roared their engines and took off. A little later, the group of students came back, and discovered some strange beer in their cooler. It turns out, they don't know any bikers, and were a little freaked out that some showed up at their spots. The wife and I believe that the bikers just had the wrong spot. It was an entertaining evening.

I give camping four toasted, ooey-gooey marshmallows out of five.