What I Read While I Was Camping: Weekend #3, at Kanaskat Palmer

Alright, already. We get it. Your family loves camping to the point where you're willing to do it four times in one summer. Enough! 

I'll admit, even we get sick of all of the trappings and trimmings of what a camping experience typically entails. The tents, with their confusing, interconnected pole placement. The tarps, which have to be spread out underneath the tent. The camp stove and it's mini propane hookups, the meal planning and its various picky-eater hangups. It's a lot to handle, especially back-to-back-to-BACK across the course of one summer.

Which is why for this particular adventure, we decided to forgo some of that particular baggage, and proceed with as minimal effort and maximum trunk space as possible. 

Oh yeah. I'm talking yurt camping. 

Where we went: Kanaskat Palmer State Park

Kanaskat Palmer State Park is located only about an hour from Tacoma, traveling the route along Highway 18 towards Covington and Enumclaw. It's not too far of a distance during the less crowded times of day - for instance, about a half an hour - but when things get a little stuffier, like during rush hour, the drive shakes out more towards about fifty to sixty minutes. 

The park itself is pretty far out from much by way of civilization. Sure, there's about a fifteen minute drive towards Four Corners Plaza in Covington - with a much-recommended assortment of restaurants, including a Farelli's Pizza - but the park is only located past a few sparse ranch-style houses. Most importantly of all: this is the first camping trip we've gone on so far this year which has yielded absolute zero cell reception... we're talking no 5G, no bars, no nothing. 

Which is a fair trade off for what you get: spacious, well-shaded campsites, decent coverage from the road, and a selection of well-constructed, well-maintained yurts, as well as regular campsites. 

I truly can't tell you enough about the yurts... they each come complete with a bunk bed (twin on top, double on bottom), and a futon that easily collapses out into another double bed, sleeping a total of five guests. They also have their own radiant heaters, ready for your use, overhead lighting by way of electrical outputs as well as a skylight, and a series of outlets to charge your electronic devices on. Again, the phone coverage isn't going to leave you much to do with your smartphone, but as a big fan of podcasts and picture taking, I definitely got my use out of them. While my brother and I conspired to spend at least an hour watching The Vampire Diaries on his tablet, we never got around to it... but it was nice to know that the option was there.

So if glamping's your game, this is certainly the campsite for you! 

What I packed: 

I've got a confession to make: remember how in my last two installments, I kept talking about how I was going to eventually read Emperor Mage? I decided what I really wanted to do, was spend time with it at home... and then proceeded to not bother picking up ANY BOOKS AT ALL for two weeks straight. Seriously, the last book I read was Disability Visability, which I talked about in my last installment! I know, I know... I'm pathetic (and remember when I said that I wanted to read TEN books this month? Puh-lease). 

So, I decided to put that book away altogether, and focus in on something different. More specifically, I mean other boxes on my Summer Book Bingo sheet: "Essays," "Cli-Fi," and "AAPI Author," more specifically. 

I Miss You When I Blink: Essays, Mary Laura Philpott

The Water Knife, Paolo Bacigalupi (on Kindle) 

The Ghost Bride, Yangsze Choo 

What I actually ended up reading: 

I spent the better part of a day working through The Water Knife. 

So, not only were we taking it easy glamping, but as it turns out, my parents were planning on having an even easier time of it: after arriving Friday evening, they bailed early Saturday morning to go home and shower. It was for a good cause - two events, both a wedding reception, and a memorial service - and they arrived back shortly before dinner on Saturday... which left me plenty of time to read through The Water Knife that afternoon. 

It's definitely not a new favorite genre, or style of writing, and it inspired some pretty tense campfire talk with other members of the family about certain habits and tropes of male writers in Science Fiction I find morally repugnant. But even with the difficult subject matter, difficult conversation, and honestly, me just banging my head against a wall trying to simply make it through to the end,  I ended up clocking in with more than enough time for lunch, an hour-long river walk, and a few rounds of crossword puzzles with my brother. Which, after this particular novel, was sorely needed. 

I got about a third of the way into I Miss You When I Blink.

Which is pretty impressive, when you consider that I only spent a little over an hour working my way into it, on Saturday night while making best use of our yurt's overhead lighting. 

Easy to get into, conversational, and friendly, this book is so funny and cleverly written that I probably would have managed to get even further into it, had I not been pausing quite so often to read a certain selection or paragraph for my brother. 

It's enjoyable, and engaging, and I know for certain that I could have finished it in even half the amount of time that The Water Knife took, had I used it. Instead, we decided that on Sunday morning - with a checkout time of 11am - to enjoy some oatmeal and conversation, practice some Words of Affirmation, and roll on out of there, in the hopes of getting unpacked and showered before noon. 

Trip Highlights: 

I think the major draw for Kanaskat Palmer - as a State Park - is absolutely its access to a gorgeous water system; more specifically, a series of various rapids systems through which you can sail a kayak, raft, or more. Unfortunately, this summer's heat snap has made things a little more difficult for anyone who enjoys the rivers and lakes of Washington, as the water levels have gotten more shallow. 

In truth, we didn't see anyone making use of any kind of watercraft, but they found plenty of other ways to enjoy it: fishing, sunbathing, and splashing were all frequent activities by families we spotted along the water as we took a river walk trail past some of the public areas for day use. 

 Hands down, one of my favorite takeaways from this camping trip, was playing a hotly competitive game of Trivial Pursuit, well until after it got dark.

What I'll finish off before the last trip: 

I'm absolutely stoked that I finished a square I was dreading quite as much as Climate Fiction, and am excited to quickly put that particular read out of my mind. 

Also, I'm really enjoying making my way through I Miss You When I Blink, so when I get a free afternoon, I'm really just planning on queueing up some ambient pop music, pouring some cold rose in a glass, and taking some time to read. 

Of course, eventually, I'm eventually going to make my way through Emperor Mage. Hopefully sooner rather than later, right? 

Have you gone camping yet so far this summer? Where are your favorite places to go? Let me know, in the comments below!