Camping at Sherwood

When Ben and I first started dating two years ago, he worked weekends. So, he would drive down Thursday evenings, and I would drive up Sunday evenings. Once, however, he was able to get a Saturday off. He surprised me with a day of hiking at the Tamanawas Falls near the Sherwood Campgrounds. Yesterday, we went back to the Sherwood Campground and camped overnight near the river. We left Wednesday morning around ten, and got there about 12:00, just in time to find a nice spot right near the river and have some premade sandwiches. We were going to sit by the river and eat our lunch, but it was too windy.

Instead, we decided to go exploring around the woods before we had to set up our tent. This was my first time at the campground, but Ben has camped here many times before, so he is familiar with the terrain. We walked up the river until Ben found two logs which we could walk on to cross the river to the other side. Unfortunately, we do not have pictures of this....I wish I did. But the first log was quite skinny and I decided to let Ben cross the river by himself. However, the second log proved thicker and sturdier, and I felt a bit lonely watching him travel on, so I called him back to help me over. I walked around the first log and he hoisted me up the second log. The second log was a large tree that had fallen over. The roots were massive. I did not get a picture of it, but it looks similar to the one posted below

(I thought the picture of the tree was awesome! Look at all the roots needed to hold that tree up! Ben reminded me that there might be even more roots in the ground.)

We made it safely across the river and Ben lead me through the forest. We stepped over trees, ducked under branches, trotted up the hill, until finally I started to feel like Ben must feel when we go shopping at the housewares department at Ross.....is there a plan, or are we just wandering around? I asked Ben, and he assured me he did have a plan. We finally found the designated trail. After that, we walked back to a massive log that had intentionally been turned into a bridge to cross the river. It was right near our campsite. We never needed to find our own makeshift bridge, we could have taken this to begin with. I did tell Ben I wanted an adventure. When we got back, we set up the tent. It was pretty windy, so I helped Ben stake it down.

(Our campsite)

Later that afternoon, he built a fire and we fried burgers in my cast iron pan over the hot fire. We also tried a new recipe I found for dessert called "Rum Baked Bananas in Foil." It is courtesy of The Oregonian, but they adopted it from "Campfire Cuisine" by Robin Donovan...hmmm, I will have to pick up that book.

For the recipe, you....

1. First, take one banana, still in its peel, and slice lengthwise through the length of the peel and the fruit, leaving the underside of the peel intact.

2nd. Pull the slices of the banana apart and sprinkle 1/2 T butter, cut into small pieces, 1T brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp. cinnamon. You can also add 2t dark rum, but we did not.

3. Close the banana back up and wrap it in aluminum foil. I double wrapped mine, just in case.

4. To cook, you place it directly on the coals (or grate if using a gas grill) and bake 10-12 minutes until hot and soft. Remove, discard foil, and eat with a spoon.

We put ours on the grate over the fire. We cooked it maybe 5-6 minutes and the foil was starting to singe, so we took it out. When we opened the foil, the butter and sugar had melted, leaving a nice gooey mess! The banana was not quite mushy enough, so we could have cooked it longer, but it still tasted great! Ben gave it his seal of approval....which is always the deciding factor for me!

We roasted some marshmallows, but it got dark pretty quickly, so we went to bed soon after.

The next morning, we woke up, had some oatmeal, and went on a short hike to get warmed up. The sun was starting to shine through when we got back, and I got this beautiful picture of the sunrays hitting the river.

We decided not to spend another night, so we had some lunch

(Grilled chicken and hot dogs)

And then I read by the river until it was time to pack up the camp and come home! Thank you for reading about my camping adventures!