Welcome to our happy place!

This was the last morning that we had this alarm clock showing up in our bed at about 5:30 a.m. Our grandaughter was still on central time, and she pointed out that it was already 7:30 there. That was the time we were hoping to wake up this morning. But we cooked breakfast and headed to the highway a little early, because the trailer was still hooked to the pickup on this overnight stop.

We had planned a stop at Newberry Volcano Park, but google maps gave us bad directions and we were already past it by the time we realized it. We didn't back-track because we had other stops to dump our tanks and fill up with water for our next longer stay, and we were anxious to meet up with some other relatives. This was our last travel day for a while, as we were making the final drive to our main destination this summer. Our timing this summer was determined by the wedding of our youngest son, and the destination was determined based on the wedding near Oregon's Mount Hood. We drove the last 142 miles, and needed to stop for lunch. We didn't realize that most of our drive would be through an Indian reservation. Our only choice for lunch was a food truck that had one thing on the menu--Indian tacos. The Twisted Teepee food truck had been busy for the past week feeding firemen fighting the wild fires. Here's a picture of our lunch view.

We found the first smoke of this trip as we drove through central Oregon. We could see gray skies with faint outlines where we should be seeing mountains ahead of us. We saw fire crews cutting down burned trees close to the highway as we passed.

The landscape changed, and the skies got clearer as we neared our destination.  We soon got our first view of the area that brought the bride and groom to choose this place for their wedding. We loved the clear view of Mount Hood as much as they did! We also noticed that the trees here were remarkably healthy and green. After seeing so much pine beetle kill in other parts of the country, it was so nice to see healthy forests.

We will be camped in the middle of that healthy forest. We parked the trailer in the Camp Creek Campground, run by the national forest service, and hosted by one of the best volunteers we have ever met.

With its moss-draped trees that towered above us, we agreed with the camp host who said this was her "happy place." We had a surprisingly large site that included an open area with a picnic table and fire ring.

Because of the high fire danger, we will not be using that fire ring during our stay. This flag was in our fire pit, and we thought it was interesting that the message wasn't in English.

We got to teach Carter about some of the wild berries that were surrounding our camp site. She got her first taste of a thimbleberry, and promptly ate all the ripe red ones on our camp site's bushes.

Later, our camp host gave us a tour of the entire campground, pointing out more edible plants that we weren't familiar with. One of her favorites was the sorrel. We thought it was just a large three-leaf clover. But when we picked one and tasted, it had a nice lemony flavor that would be a nice addition to salads.

Denisa's favorite was the orange huckleberry. We have probably seen these tiny berries before, but wouldn't have tasted them without the guidance of our camp host.

While she called them orange, we think they look more red.  We have tasted huckleberries many times, and these were even better than the purple ones!

Our last new berry actually started as a tiny white flower lined up on a horizontal stem.

Our camp host showed us the next stage--green salal berries dangling from that stem. But don't eat them yet!

They aren't good to eat until they ripen and turn black. While they were edible, the salal weren't our favorite berries.

We got the trailer settled in for its six-night stay with no hook-ups. This was the longest amount of time for it to depend only on solar power to keep the refrigerator going. And some of that time it would be unsupervised because we were staying at the wedding venue. After a month of traveling, we were ready for the wedding! We moved into the Airbnb, and took the longest shower we have had for the last month. Then our son took us for a tour of the wedding venue. It was beautifully green, and this was their "happy place"!

Later that evening we were at a local grill--Bigfoot Growlers--enjoying dinner with other guests that had arrived for the wedding. Denisa and the ring bearers were dancing to live music here in Oregon.

Our granddaughter, Carter, had been traveling with us for the last four days. This day her parents arrived and she stayed with them. They took this nice sunset picture of Carter at their rental that was situated on the Sandy River, with Mount Hood peeking over the water. This area was so beautiful, and we understood why the bride and groom chose to get married here. It was quickly becoming the "happy place" for us as well!