Saturday, June 25, 2011

Early morning at Champoeg

After a rough/good* night of sleep, I woke before Matt, and went for a walk. I found this trail.

It doesn't take long to get to the grave. The Friends of Historic Champoeg has an informative essay about Kitty Newell, which I recommend you read. I find focusing on what isn't taught in History as interesting as what is. When I visited Fort Vancouver a few years ago, the guides discussed the fur trappers' Native American wives. I was aghast. White trappers and soldiers had married native women? How was this even possible, given the state of White/Native American relations? And why had I never heard about this before? The Kitty Newell essay gives insight into this window of time.

Spring flowers in the sun.

Big old holey snag.

A glimpse of the Willamette. One of many we would have on this trip.

Back at the yurt, I noticed how dishevelled everything had managed to become in just a few short hours.

Matt slept on, while I read the last of the paper and started on Anne of Green Gables, my individual book for the trip.


*It seems that I am the high maintenance sleeper in the relationship. My plan was to not bring sleeping bags or pillows as we would only behttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif using them at Champoeg. I figured we could just sleep in multiple layers and/or turn up the heat in the Yurt. Matt brought his sleep sack because he likes clean sheets, but I thought I would be fine. It turns out that my minimum requirements for sleeping are 1) something pillow-like and 2) something to cover me. So going to bed in my jacket and yoga pants with my elbow as a pillow didn't work. I kept waking up. Also, I was very cold, despite the heater. Midway through the night Matt gave me his jeans and sweatshirt, shoved a bunch of t-shirts in a bag for a pillow and put the sleep sack over me. I immediately fell into a delightful sleep and Matt earned many boyfriend points.
To see the photographic record of our trip Matt posted on Facebook go here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150240061488137.315910.633443136&l=2392c1b7c6
Don't worry, it's public, you don't have to be a member of Facebook to see it.

2 comments:

Debrarian said...

I listened to Anne of Green Gables on audiobook last year, and it was fabulously narrated. But then the next book had a different narrator, and she was all wrong, so I had to stop.

Sara K. said...

Oh how I love Anne! I have not reread that book in awhile. What a good choice. Sorry the sleeping was elusive. I hate that!