Getting out of the City

We had planned on leaving at nap time, right after our morning urban adventure and lunch. But, as it goes doing final packing with young ones it took a little time more than we had planned. Who knew that we would have to wait for the compost man to come up the street and that right behind him would be the mail carrier. By then it was almost 3:30 and so as we turned to head east into the mountains we found ourselves caught in egregious traffic.

As we drove slowly along we wondered. Is it worth going through this traffic just to be free of the city? If there had been an easy turn around we probably would have taken it. We were torn: desiring the peace of the mountain air but hating this slow passageway in our car. In our daily lives we do as much as possible to never be in the car and yet here we were in a long line of autos filing slowly down the road.

We broke free of the traffic, but now it was already nearly five. We wondered if we really should show up to our campsite late in the evening. Dark clouds were overhead and it already seemed as if night would fall soon. Besides, as we went through the list of our gear we realized that Shawn's and my raincoats had been left behind and that our tent would probably not keep out water. Was the forecast which said the next few days would be sunny correct or would we only be getting to the campsite and then needing to pack up in the dark to escape rain in our secondhand tent?

This is the challenge of getting out of the city. There are so many things to pull you back to the comfort of home, especially when you have two kids in the back already crying because they have not napped and they are not used to riding in the car.

But, the lure of the mountains won. Their grey darkness had already cast its spell on us and turning around would have been too sad. Since it was a weekday we knew that if things got too desperate we could probably find a cheap hotel. Thankfully, drives in the northwest when the roads are clear of obstacles go quite quickly. We saw beautiful trees, train trestles, and rivers. We told stories and sang a few songs. We arrived over the winding pass in a great heave. Theo got carsick at the entrance to the campground and the sun stayed glimmering through the trees just long enough to find our site.

We had made it from the grasps of urban life and now we were happily in the wild.