A Brief Stop in Seattle.....then on to ROME!
I am back from Part I of Joey's Excellent Adventure '08. It included a few nights at Rachel's folks' house, more than a week of camping in the Oregon Cascades and a brief stop in Portland on the way back to catch our breath. The highlight of it all was something I've been looking forward to for much of the last year. I canoed Rachel out to the middle of the lake her family has been visiting for nearly 30 years and I asked her to marry me! Yippee! Shazaam! Yowzah! I am very excited about the whole thing, there is something very satisfying about looking into someone's eyes and telling them that you wish to spend the rest of your life loving them. I wrote the whole story on the Henney Family Blog for those of you who are interested...
So much happened on the trip, maybe it is best told BY THE NUMBERS:
1..............................Vehicles we took to Oregon
2.............................Vehicles we brought home from Oregon(We bought Isaac's red pickup)
13...........................days I went without my cell phone
0.............................days I really missed having my cell phone
80...........................pounds of potatoes brought camping from the Mclennan farm
2.5...........................hours it took me to mow the Mclennan farm
29............................sea shanties sung while mowing
2..............................shanties I actually remembered all the words to
234.........................pictures Rachel and I took while camping
2.............................starting population of campsite on Sunday(thanks Jo and Claire)
14...........................number of people Rachel, Isaac and I prepared dinner for Wednesday
42...........................people at camp on Saturday night
11............................canoes and kayaks in our fleet(give or take)
2..............................hours before sunrise Rocky starts whining to get out of tent and play
4,000.....................calories Rocky burned per hour while camping
10...........................calories Rocky burned per hour in the days immediately following trip
32...........................cuts, scrapes and bruises on my body after trip
9.............................times Rachel made me stop playing to patch me up
9.............................times I whined about it in my best little kid voice
1,023,789.............mosquitoes collectively swatted by the group
1,001,491..............of those mosquitoes killed while visiting latrine (encourages speediness)
10..........................capacity of backwoods sweat lodge
11...........................pedicures performed at backwoods spa
542........................cocktails served by backwoods tavern
110.........................man/woman hours worked by backwoods public works department
23..........................references to Blazing Saddles campfire scene on chili night
Man, that's a long list....it could go on and on. The amount of food and booze consumed alone deserves its own list, I mean, there must have been over 2 dozen coolers under the food canopy at its peak!
Thanks again to everybody who cooked meals for such a HUGE group, I ate better in the woods than I typically eat at home. Thank you to Seaton and Joanne for all their hard work and planning to make sure everybody had such a great time. Thank you to everybody who pitched in, whether it was unloading or loading monstrous canoe loads, chopping firewood, sprinkling water on the ground for dust control, ferrying drinks to the floatilla, making sangria for the whole group, washing mountains of dishes, digging the latrine, setting up camp, breaking camp, repairing the table and bar area, bringing extra chairs, or one of the hundreds of little things that make this camping trip such a success every year, thank you! And, thank you to Rachel for loving me and for not tipping the canoe and soaking me on the night I asked you to be my wife, although you came pretty close!
