Camping at Steamboat

We had an excellent weekend camping, even though I got something akin to the Ebola virus Friday-Sat and no sleep on Sunday, the weekend was one to remember. We left Corvallis around 1pm on Friday and by then my stomach had already revolted. I was having several "Dumb and Dumber" bathroom scene moments and was slightly freaked about how sick I was getting. Since I got really sick last year during this camping trip I decided this year I was not going to let it get me down and took some Immodium AD and decided to suffer through it.

It was well worth it, we found a camping site about 6 miles from the Umpqua River on Steamboat Creek right on Steamboat Falls. Our campsite had a view of the falls and the sound of the falls deadened any noise from other campers and lulled us to sleep. We also had direct access to the creek from our site and we were tucked back in the corner so the dogs were able to run around off leash without bothering other campers. On Saturday the guys went off to play disc golf at Whistler's Bend and declared it the best course in Oregon. I stayed back and went hiking on the North Umpqua trail with Bridgette and Avery and really look forward to returning and going mountain biking there. The section we hiked at is 16 miles long but I hear there is a lot more to the trail and it is gorgeous!

Sunday we hiked some more and spent more time on Steamboat Creek watching for Steelhead trying to jump up the falls. We noticed plenty of gooey eggs in the water and the area is a protected tributary so no fishing here. The weather was great, it had to be in the upper 80s and sunny so no rain this year! Bill had to jump off the rocks below the falls (don't look Mom!) and Marshall dog tried to rescue him. I finally felt better on Sunday and we managed to get in a mtn bike ride on logging roads in the morning. Late Sunday afternoon we packed up the car and drove up to a peak for a view of the forest. It was like looking at a living topo map, just really gorgeous. We had to head back for home because we had a triathlon early Monday morning. We got back around 9pm and saw a bunch of cars parked across the street, our college age neighbors were having a raging party. We traded the sound of a waterfall for drunken idiots throwing beer bottles at the construction site across the street.

We got about 4 hours of sleep and were up again at 5:30 am for the Heart of the Valley triathlon. Bill had even less sleep because he was scratching bug bites on his legs (I wore pants most of the time so I was spared that misery) but he was able to perform well at the race. He came in 5th overall and is gaining time on the guys beating him a few weeks ago. He's still training about 3 times a week (one short bike run, a swim or two, and maybe one other 4 mile run) so he must be racing himself into shape. I think he's a freak of nature and I'm totally jealous of him but what can you do? He's got the genes. If I tried to race myself into shape I'd end up in last place in my division and wouldn't be able to walk for several days. I guess all those years of Ironman training were worth something other than a finisher's medal. I'm proud of him for not being a whiner and for showing up and getting beat by people he would be more competitive with if he was able to train. He's got a good attitude and that is something some people are in short supply of, the race winner was yelling at volunteers on the run course for not clearly pointing him around a corner, he even went back after he finished and yelled at them again. Get a grip dude, it's a sprint triathlon and you're an amateur racer. Professional triathletes put up with a lot worse than that and somehow manage to not yell at people who are volunteering their time on a 3 day weekend to put on a silly triathlon. I imagine this guy has a few other problems with life but hopefully he'll stop spreading the misery around in our community.

Trying out Picassa web album slide show feature: