Busted Opal Creek - Girls Weekend

We had been excited about a girls' camping weekend to Opal Creek for weeks!  Miru and I left early last Friday with a car full of wood, food, booze, and cheer...until we reached the first full campsite.  Certainly one full campsite was not going to stop us.  Then we reached the second full campsite.  By the time we arrived at the third full campsite my cheer turned to panic, and when we began to franticly look through the 300 campsites at Detroit Lake on our phones and saw that ALL were reserved, my panic turned to deep disappointment.  Obviously we underestimated Oregonians fervor for camping!

Grasping at straws and trying to think of ANYWHERE we could camp I thought of our family friend who owns waterfront property on the Willamette in the French Prairie near Butteville, OR (only 40+/- minutes from Portland).  I called her and prepared myself to find out that it was also unavailable.  Somehow the property was free!

We rushed over there and once we unloaded and I had my first beer - the cheer returned and we ended up having a fantastic time.  Not only did we have the whole property to ourselves (minus a quiet and removed man who lived in a trailer on the property and whom we saw 3 times for a total of 3 minutes the whole weekend), but there was a boat house attached to a large dock, a rather nice outhouse, and a fire pit circled with halved logs for benches.  We were glamping for sure!  We ate great food, we jumped off the dock and swam, we built big hot fires, we played cards against humanity, we skinny dipped, we slept under the stars on the roof of the boat house.

For being a bust of an Opal Creek trip, last weekend was pretty great! Thanks to Miru, Diane, and Molly for being such good sports and rolling with the punches.