Sunday, July 5, 2015

Doris Lake


Paul and I have been really busy lately, as he works full time and I just got a second job. It's also been really hot; the little animation on the weather app on my phone has not been a sun, but a danger symbol, for over a week. Also, recently at the REI garage sale, I purchased a backpacking backpack for 70% off. All of these factors together, plus getting the weekend off, meant we were going backpacking, to Doris Lake in the Deschutes National Forest. We parked our car at the trail head and hiked for about an hour and 20 minutes until we reached the lake. You'll notice my clean feet in the picture above, before we started hiking.


And after.




The first thing we did when we got to the lake was swim around for a while. That was nice, but I was the most excited about all the critters I saw. Then we set up our camp. Doris Lake had a little peninsula that jutted out a little bit into the lake, and we decided that was the prime spot for camping. It was awesome to be completely in the middle of nature by ourselves. When we first started swimming, there was a family there too, but they left eventually. And we saw a tent set up across the lake, but the lake was so huge, it was as if we were alone. This actually wasn't my first time backpacking. We went once about a year and a half ago, where we had to snow shoe into our camp, but it was freezing, I strained my hip, and I had a panic attack where I cried hysterically about Ted Bundy coming to get us all night. So this was much more successful! 



My favorite part about this trip hands down was relaxing in the hammock. My mom got us this two person hammock for Christmas two years ago, and while Paul's used it a few times, this was my first time getting to use it, and it was awesome.


How unreal is the view from inside our tent? Oregon is the best state. Also the best, reading while camping. I was reading The Motorcycle Diaries and Paul was reading Bel Canto.



This was a very short little trip. We had planned to spend two nights but ended up only staying one. We both woke up the first morning feeling a little ill, and the combination of the mosquitoes and worrying about how our cats would handle the 4th of July fireworks without us, in addition to the concern that we might wake up the next morning feeling even worse (we were right), we decided to hike back to the car around 3 in the afternoon, and then drive home. But we had a glorious little 36 hour getaway. 

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