with two cars full of snacks, sleeping bags, and an extremely generic map of oregon, we headed eastward towards the deschutes national forest with no real plan, just camping and swimming on our minds. lots of driving and bags of chips later, we ended up in a post-forest-fire patch of dryness near the metolius river that, despite being void of most lifeforms, was actually quite charming and beautiful.
we spent the next day off-roading in the rental car through the woods (not safe!!!) and trying to swim in the ice-cold mountain creeks (not possible!!!). it was nice to be out in the middle of nowhere, to go for a run in the woods, to photograph some natural pom poms, make music with dried plants, and hang with the buds around the campfire. we made a lot of awesome meals and even invented a new and improved s’more- the cool hand luke! it’s a mint newman o with toasted marshmallow in between!!! SOOO much better than nasty s’mores.
after much trial and error and with great breakfast pride, caitlin and i perfected the camping-stove blueberry pancake! afterwards we found a lake to swim in and spent the afternoon trying to jump off a very long and very slippery log. then caitlin got stung by a bee (that sucked!), we fed some chipmunks the end of our chips, (CHIPmunk!) and we drove back to portland for a final meal at navarre. there’s nothing like eating fancy when your feet are still dirty and you smell like campfire 
s’mores are not nasty, REBECCA!