Self-pampered city girl spends 15 days camping (almost consecutively)

That's right. Me, the girl who doesn't like to go more than two weeks between mani/pedis, just got back from two weeks of vacation spent in the "wilderness."

The first week of my vacation was spent at Lake Powell with my cousins, aunts and uncles. I slept under the stars every night, albeit on a houseboat. But don't knock it ... some of us need to ease ourselves into hardcore camping (which was soon to follow).

Lake Powell was beautiful, and just the right mix of relaxation and fun. Everyday went something like this: Wake up, go out on the ski boat, eat, sleep in the sun, eat, read a book, eat, sleep in the sun some more, eat, play games with the cousins, sleep. Oh, and did I mention copious amounts of chilled Diet Coke? Could it get any better?


I learned my philosophy of successful vacations with a lot of people from my Aunt Leslee. Leslee's plan of attack for keeping a large, tightly confined group happy is to keep the tasty morsels coming. This philosophy proved itself again this year in Lake Powell.

I was sad to see the Lake party come to an end, but we headed home just in time for me to hit the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale and then hit the road for my next week of vacation.

In the wee hours of Monday morning, I loaded up Larry & Carol's Expedition with seven of my friends and the Haulmark trailer and we set out for a 6-day whitewater adventure on the Middle Fork of the Salmon River. After a memorable stop at Costco, the eight of us joined up with the rest of the group at Boundary Creek putin, just outside of Stanley, Idaho. We spent the rest of Monday afternoon and evening rigging the rafts and then camped at Boundary Creek, surviving an epic rain storm in tents. Our group of 24 launched Tuesday morning (more like afternoon if we're honest) to tackle the Middle Fork.

What a trip we had. The first three days seemed like they were filled with one disaster after another including freezing (if you ask me) rain and hail, trees blocking the river, massive mud slides that turned the crystal water to mud for the remainder of the trip, a 9-year-old with a bad case of the flu, a dislocated shoulder for one of our rowers and a dramatic tear in one pontoon of Big Al's brand new cataraft. Luckily the next three days settled down a bit and we were able to focus on running the spectacular rapids of the Middle Fork.

While Lake Powell was still a bit on the cushy side, the river trip is the closest thing to hard-core camping I will ever come. I do manage to bring a bit of my pampered self along -- I pack three people into my six man tent and use a battery powered pump to inflate an air mattress every night. I have my limits.

I made a new friend on the river this year. This is Jon Osgood, owner of American Whitewater in California. Jon let me be a passenger on his boat for the first three days of the trip. When he got bored, he made me take the oars so he could assume the River Princess position on the bow of the boat (I guarantee I was in Princess pose far more than I was on the oars).

After day three, Jon wanted to spend some time in the two-man paddle boat (aka The Shredder), so he turned his raft over to Matthias. I bravely got on board and we went through impressive Tappan Falls without a hitch.