Buffington Family Reunion `06

I traveled up north for my family reunion this last weekend. It was a pretty good time. We camped at Belfair state park on Saturday night with my sister Brandi, her son Aiden, and my Mom. This made it a lot easier for us to get up early and stake out a section for our family's picnic on Sunday. On Sunday a decent sized group of my family showed up for the picnic, some had driven all the way from Great Falls, MT for the event. I had a chance to visit with my older relatives (aunts, uncles, great aunts, 2nd cousins, etc). There was also lots of good foods to eat! I was a bit disappointed that many of my cousins, who live local to the event, weren't able to make it. Seems this is a continuing occurrence. Making me think that this tradition might end someday down the road when it's left to our generation to organize it. I can remember a long time back attendance to the family reunion was enormous. There would be around 100 people there, all of which we share blood with. Softball games, potato sack races, water balloon toss', BINGO, raffles, and a myriad of other corny fun kid games were organized. It was a fun event to look forward to every year. Lately the event is a shriveled shadow of what it once was. Usually it's just the older folks that make the effort to come to the event, and their numbers are quickly diminishing due to the reality of mortality. This is pretty saddening to me, especially after seeing the dedication of folks attending Darci's family reunion. Her family travels hundreds of miles from all over the country to attend their annual family reunion campout over Labor Day weekend. Folks driving RV's up from Arizona, taking flights in from Texas, even using their military leave (from serving in IRAQ) to attend the event. For some it's the highlight of their year. They all camp out on a stretch of family property west of Eugene, OR. The field looks like a mini Woodstock some years. Everyone pitching in to cook for the group meals each day, coordinating to play a round of golf on one of the days, bringing their music instruments to entertain, etc. You can really feel the love they share. Especially when people leave on the last day. Whenever a family leaves, everyone else runs out to the far stretch of field by the road, lines up in a long line, and does a celebratory bow with arms out stretched (much like the "We're not Worthy" bow from Wayne's World). I feel it's important that we try to organized something like this for my family. The majority of the youngest cousins are now grown adults, and the older cousins are now married and having children of their own. It's really time to draw the family closer and ensure the events survival for the next generation. Since my father has been the one to take on organizing the event for so many years, it only seems fitting that I lend a hand and try to help. After all this isn't anything new to me, as I've had plenty of experience organizing our stubborn group of friends for parties and campouts. Next year I'm going to try to organize the family (primarily the younger folks) into dedicating the whole weekend to the reunion. Doing a group campout from Fri-Sun, ending the event with the reunion picnic Sunday afternoon. I think it would be a great experience. We can get the little kids together to play, while the rest of us share good conversation and really get to know each other better. 361 days until next year, sounds like I have plenty of time to get the ball rolling on this. Wish me luck!

Estacada Camping Trip

This last weekend we camped along the Clackamas river, approx 40 miles past Estacada. Justen left early in the day and scouted the many state/federal camp grounds as well as some free spots off hwy-224. We ended up with a really good spot. It was right off hwy-224, with the Clackamas river on one side and a small creek run off on the other. The creek made for a safe and fun play spot for the kids, easing my fears of them playing along the fast moving Clackamas. There was two established fire pits and many tent spots around the camp, and no one else for miles. The only down side was no toilet facilities, which was only really a minor complaint for the ladies and kids. While I don't prefer shitting in the woods, I'll gladly take that over the poorly maintained and highly used vault toilets. By the end of the trip all the kids conjured their fear of doing their business in the woods, and the complaints from the ladies became less frequent. This trip was the maiden voyage for our tent trailer which we recently acquired. We had to take it down empty as I haven't had the time to finish the interior paneling and new cabinets. I hadn't yet upgraded my s10 blazer's toy package from a class 2 receiver to a class 4, so I was a little worried about towing it. Especially since we did a rush packing job and the trailer weight was unbalanced. It took quite a bit of concentration to tow it out on the windy hwy-224 and I found myself going to hot into some of the suggested 25-35mph corners. But we made it safe and sound. On the return trip I took the time to equally distribute the trailer weight and it towed great. I was amazed at the difference. It was so nice to have the trailer on the trip, we slept in amazing comfort. One hurt irritation though occurred on the last day when we were packing up the trailer. One of the support rails that holds the slide out beds, pulled straight off the wall. I found that it was only hanging on by a few stables. How cheap is that? A structure that is made to support 300+ lbs is stabled to the wall? I'm constantly amazed at how cheap these campers are build, and they charge so much money for them. I'm actually glad this happened, since the camper is still bare I'm going to pull all the support rails off, reinforce the walls around them, and secure them properly with some lag bolts. This baby is going to be a tank when I'm done and will last for years to come. For this trip I also made a Ladder Golf setup. An amazingly simple horseshoe variant game, made out of $25 worth of hardware supplies & some old golf balls. I'd seen this game being played before at a couple different car camp grounds. I did a little research and decided to make myself a set. It was great success and a lot of fun to play, even though I think I only won one game the entire weekend. Thanks to Heath and Justen for your assistance and use of your shop tools! Overall it was a good trip. The weather report had stated mostly cloudy and chances of showers for the weekend. However it ended up dry, sunny, and hot all weekend. Although not hot enough to jump into the cold snow run-off river water. I only wish more of our friends were able to make it out to enjoy it all with us. Maybe next time, I know we are overdue for a large group trip to the Trask!

Memorial Day Weekend `05

I'm nearly all packed up and ready to leave for a relaxing 5 day camping trip to Nan-Scott Lake. This is a private lake near Marion Forks, OR, on property owned by my girlfriends family. This place has some interesting history as it's been in their family for generations. There is evidence of old timber operations, remains of ingenious water fed power generators, and the still operational Marion Forks Restaurant. There isn't much to the town of Marion Forks, but what is there is all closely tied to their family's history. Each time I go out there I see something new or hear more stories of their family. Someday I would love to document the entire tale, maybe even use it as subject for a documentary? Nan-Scott Lake CLICK HERE for pictures from last years trip. We are bringing several of our friends with us again this year. So it'll be a good chance to enjoy each other's company. Often on our trips together we are so busy with seeing sights, shopping, or other activities we don't really get a chance to socialize in-depth. So I'm also looking forward to some good conversations and bounding with my friends. I'm also going to try to document as much of the property as possible, there is so much there to see and learn about. Check back next week to find out how the trip went and to see some great pics. Have a great Memorial Day weekend everyone!

Tent Trailer

First off let me say that I am in no way a weenie ass that has to bring every luxury of the modern world with me "camping". I've always been disgusted by those individuals, and thought they had no place in the woods. However as I've seasoned a bit and have a family of my own I've come to the conclusion that there is in fact two types of camping. "Family Camping" (also known as "Car Camping") and "Rugged, Manly, Shit in a Hole, Sleep Under the Stars, Backpacking Camping". So I've become a participant in both. However even when I do go "Family Camping" I'm still a believer that you need to leave your modern day luxury items at home. That is why I don't want a fancy RV, all I want is a easy up hard shell tent. Something I don't have to spend two hours figuring out how to setup, or another four trying to tear it down in the rain and roll back up to fit into it's 1/2 sized tote bag. So the perfect fit is a Tent Trailer. I've spend some time scouring craigslist for a good deal on one. I didn't even care if it needed some restoration work. Finally on Monday I found a killer deal on a nice 1970's era trailer. Darci and I met up with the owner, got a full walkthrough on the thing, looked over every inch ourselves, and made a deal on it. This thing is in great shape, only some minor cosmetic work necessary. It's got very large beds, four to be exact, so we'll each have our own beds with plenty of room to spare. It's got battery powered lights and accessories, plumbing for water in/out, and propane powered stove. I'm not sure what all I'm going to keep and what I'm going to remove. I'm super excited about the amount of storage room in this thing. I can now organize and permanently pack all my camping gear in this and have it ready to go whenever needed. No more sorting through the multitude of gear to pack just what we need for the desired trip, and then trying to fit it all into the vehicles. We'll just pack some clothes, toiletries, and food. Then hook up the tent trailer and we're off! I'm definitely going to apply my master techie geek hack/mod skills and add some choice additions to this thing. First off is LED lighting to conserve battery power. For pictures, details specs, and a continuous log of work on this tent trailer click HERE.

Burningman 2006

I've known of the Burning Man event for many years, and thought it was just some pyro fetish art event in the middle of the desert. However recently I've done a bit more research on it and found that it's a whole lot more then just that. It's an attempt at a non-regulated communal city (Black Rock City, NV USA Zip: 89412), where all things commercial are banned. Money has no value all things are bartered or traded for. All commercial logo's are covered, removed, or altered. TV networks that would use footage of the event for a commercial interest and banned from attending. It's not a spectator event that you buy a ticket to and then kick back and watch the show. It's an experience, you go to be apart of it. To be apart of the freedom experiment. To live in a temporary city filled with people who are free to express themselves in whatever manner they feel fit: showcasing their artwork, burning stuff, wearing crazy costumes or body paints, wear nothing at all, some even coordinate to setup theme camps (including one that is a replica of Thunderdome ala Mad Max). For more pics of the event check out the Flickr Burningman Cluster. The more I read about the event the more I'm intrigued. I think it would be an interesting experience and a chance to see a lot of cool, crazy, wacky, and maybe even borderline insane things. It would be a brake from the usual mundane vacations I take. One of the biggest selling points for me was finding out that the event really isn't that far from me. Occurring near the town of Garlach, NV it's only about 500 miles away from home. Easily drivable, making it a possibility. Anyone else interested in going with me? You can track my trip planning here.

Pacific Crest Trail

I've always enjoyed the wilderness and being outdoors, especially when your miles away from all the people, sounds, and sites of civilization. In recent years my interest in backpacking has increased, and one of the ultimate goals of any west coast backpacker is to do a thru-hike on the PCT. Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of taking a 3-6 month break from my life to do a through hike. So I'm making plans to hike the length of the trail in sections. I'm in no great hurry and figure that this is a long term life goal. I'll likely get to do most of the sections once my son Logan is old enough to join the Scouts and we can make this a mutual goal. This summer I'm planning to hike the stretch of trail from Timberline Lodge on Mt. Hood to the town of Cascade Locks, OR. This is a challenging stretch of trail as it has a 3,160' drop in approx 50 miles, that is why I'm doing the stretch in reverse and hiking downhill instead of up.