The Water Through the Trees

Hard to tell from a photo, but that’s Puget Sound you’re looking at. And I only booked this site two weeks in advance!

Kayak Point, WA, site #15

Campground||Snohomish land

Another campground we’ve never been to before! Kayak Point is lovely, and it was a nice drive out here. As someone who grew up in a rural, small town, I love getting to drive through the area surrounding Snohomish. And then after I got off of I-5, I got to drive through the Tulalip reservation. I feel like I can breathe in places like that that I can’t anywhere else. Don’t get me wrong, I love Seattle, but again, breathing.

Camp host cat! This camp host has a full garden that was blooming and producing in abundance. They also had a little tiny fence with little tiny pomeranians, and then the pièce de résistance, this guy.

Glad I’m both a vegetarian and too lazy to consider clamming.

Kayak Point Campground sits on the bluff above the county park of the same name on Port Susan. I got us a super bomb campsite (go go, accurate campsite photos) that came with a view of the water! Our neighbours on the right were so quiet, I couldn’t even hear them talking to each other. Before we left I thanked them for being such amazing neighbours, especially in contrast to the cheerful but noisy family camped to our left. I also informed them that they had been under strict surveillance the whole time, because every time they did anything, Leeloo and Sieh were right there spying on them. They were delighted to meet their personal spies. Our site had pretty good privacy, but we were able to look down on their site. That suited Leeloo and Sieh just fine. It’s a feature, not a glitch.

Spies! Like they had their own personal soap opera. Except these people were 0% dramatic.

It was warm enough this trip to warrant packing the pop-up catio, which really facilitated the kids’ spying efforts. We haven’t used it since October (when we shouldn’t have bothered bringing it because it was too cold, but you live and you learn, I suppose). I was so amped to finally be able to bring Leeloo and Sieh’s tiny tents. I also got to use my inflatable couch for the first time. It’s one of those tube-style ones that they’re always flogging for music festivals. If you’d been wondering if they were a gimmick, they’re not. It’s exceptionally comfortable, like a hammock that you don’t need anchor points for. Bonus points for the laughter it brought every time Leeloo stomped awkwardly across it.

They fit so perfectly in their little tents

No idea why he was looking so disgruntled here

Such a little gentleman! He really resembles his adoption photo here.

Got some reading done, which is good because I seriously haven’t read anything at all this month. Finished the english language translation of Matcha on Mondays, by Aoyama Michiko. There was even a chapter focussed on a cat, so it sort of fits the theme I’ve had going for the past few trips. I also started Been Outside: Adventures of Black Women, Non-binary, and Gender Nonconforming People in Nature, edited by Amber Wendler and Shaz Zamore. It felt appropriately themed for a camping trip, and I enjoyed it in spite of it being nonfiction.

The iPhone is a decommissioned one that my neighbour gave me to use as an iPod after the camera broke. My hearing aid is unfortunately MFi (made for iPhone), and you CAN’T pair it with anything outside of the apple ecosystem…and I have a Samsung phone. My actual iPod is from before Bluetooth, so the only way I could listen to music on my hearing aid was to pair it to my iPad…which like, is great if I’m typing, but not useful for most other situations. So grateful to have the broken iPhone to use until I get a new hearing aid in December!

Tried a new dehydrated dinner that was pretty good, Chik’n Teriyaki Bowl (as someone from the Seattle area, teriyaki is a must). I feel lucky that there are as many vegetarian dehydrated meals as there are out there. I also could have brought one of my actual camp stoves because it was warm enough to cook outside, and should definitely do so next time. Then I could make something cheaper, like ramen.

Pro tip: did you know that THE Toshi, of Toshi’s Teriyaki fame, of “brought teriyaki to Seattle directly from Japan” fame, of “is the whole reason that teriyaki is like, one of our official foods” fame, runs the restaurant in Mill Creek?? If he had a vegetarian option I would SO be all over that.

It was pretty roasty toasty this trip! Cooler than at home since we’re right on the water, but it still got up to 85F (a little less than 30C). Too warm for me now that I have dysautonomia. Thankfully, we had the pop-up catio to catch fresh breezes in. So glad that I don’t live in a place that routinely gets ridiculously hot, but thanks to climate change it’s certainly warmer than it used to be. I mean, we never needed AC here when I was a kid. Now, it seems like everyone has to have at least a portable unit (we do). Still remember when it hit 120F (about 49C) in 2021 and the freeways were buckling. On the plus side, I was able to wash all the couch and chair cushions in the house that year because they would go from sopping wet to bone dry in half an hour.

Finally got around to making a wrist strap for my Canon EOS Rebel. I’d eventually like to make one that matches the neck strap that I have for it (olive drab green, got it to go with my film camera back in high school), but hey, rainbow is what we’ve got so rainbow is what we used. It’s been fun having a new craft to explore, especially one that’s inexpensive to engage in. I feel like paracord crafting is the ultimate craft for both 10-year-old girls and 60-year-old men. A true uniter of the demographics.

Need to cut the ends off, weave them in and then melt them to finish them, but I’d left most of my tools at home

I’m so grateful that I’m able to camp during the week instead of having to scrounge for weekend dates. I really feel badly for all of the people who have to book in a hurry six months in advance just to get the campgrounds and campsites that they want. Meanwhile, I never book anything more than a month in advance. Granted, back when I was able to boondock/dispersed camp, I’d head out without booking anything at all. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to get back to that, as the potential for driving longer times is both great and unpredictable. I can only manage about an hour driving now. At least I get half off at a lot of campgrounds, even if it isn’t free anymore.

She may be afraid of cars, but she could never be afraid of Majel

Lovely though this campground is, I probably won’t come back until they finish construction on the park. They’re currently in stage 2 of a massive remodel. Surprisingly, there was no construction noise up at the campground while we were there.

Hey, you can’t park that Humpback whale there! Guess I’d better tow it home with me.

One of the cool new structures they’re putting up.

The scenery at the park is lovely. The big pier is completed and you can roll around on it. There’s also a number of spots where the railing is lower which makes the view more accessible. Not sure if this is for ease of crabbing or as an accessibility feature, but it did make the view more accessible, so it’s a win either way. To get to the pier you currently have to be able to make it through a short section of very large uncompacted gravel. Even Yunnie struggled, though she did manage to plow through triumphantly. There aren’t any sidewalks in the park right now, so you need to either continue rolling in the parking lot or be able to handle the dead lawn. The beach itself is currently inaccessible. It was super busy in spite of being a Monday evening, with people picnicking, crabbing, and fishing.

This is where they had the cutout, so I was able to easily take photos without the railing being in them

There is unfortunately no accessible way down to the beach, and no plan to create one, either. You can either climb down the trail that is not wheelchair accessible at all, drive down, or, as we did, head down the access road. This road is STEEP. And y’all know I like to go fast. The road is currently in very poor repair with lots of loose gravel, and at one point we started Fast & Furious drifting into the guardrail at speed. Thankfully, I was able to deploy ye olde arms and legs to prevent the collision (or, rather, to provide bodily cushioning). Leeloo and Sieh were completely unphased, but I took it a bit slower after that. Hopefully when they repave the road they’ll also include a shoulder for people who end up having to go that way. Hilariously, when I was chatting with one of the rangers, I’d asked if they knew if there was going to be a shoulder included on the road after it was repaved, mentioning our perilous descent and then how I had to lean forward on the way up so I didn’t tip backwards. Hilariously, the ranger was super impressed that we’d made it back up (even after I disabused him of the notion that I had a manual chair, because lol you’d have to be a Paralympian to do that), because their golf carts can’t even make it up the hill! Go go, Yunnie!