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Need a New Junk: So, Whatcha Gonna Do This Summer???

My many friends of the Pacific Northwesterly geographical orientation sure seem to value their sunny summer days unlike so many sunspoiled Californians and other low- to middle-latitude lollygaggers who reasonably expect the weather to comply with their outdoor plans for at least 2/3 of the entire calendar year. Whenever I've come up for a more spontaneous visit, many of my PDX and Puget Sound friends--if their bands are not on tour--cannot fit in a hang-out sesh or dinner because they are camping in a forest or frolicking on the coast or hiking somewhere. So, I suppose you've all got plans a'brewing for the summer already. Care to share them?

Now that baby Una is threatening to walk around and is getting very playful and babbly and even more hilarious, it seems like it's less frivolous or indulgent to give her experiences she can learn from, even if she's still not able to remember much (which brings up a subtopic opportunity (What are some of your earliest memories?)), so we've got some summer ideas which are beginning to form into plans involving things like aquariums and tidepools. Hence, we're trying to iron out some plans to meet on the coast with some friends in Portland who have a baby about the same age as ours. An extended playdate since the first one in our backyard went so well. Newport would seem to be a good spot for it. But maybe also Neskowin if the house where we honeymooned is available again.

Another thing we wanna introduce Una to this summer is camping. That'll probably take me back to the campground which is kinda like my hometown growing up, the place where my grandpa parked his RV every mid-April through October just north of Yosemite. You can hike into Yosemite in a couple hours over some obscure passes which are not indicated on most maps, so even now in the age of every wannabe-outdoorsperson getting charged up with Instagrammed inspiration making the backcountry seem like a piece of cake, you're still likely to see nobody else on the faint semblance of trail into otherwise crowded Yosemite. For instance, this is Little Slide Canyon, and I've accessed Yosemite through it probably half a dozen times.

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I've heard that something more like a trail has been roughed in to make access a little easier, and I'd really like to check that out this summer. Someone gifted us an expedition pack that a baby can ride in, and if it works alright on some less serious local test runs near Lake Tahoe or Carson Pass, we'll aim to do this Yosemite approach in July.

Una has also loved being in forests, which we don't really have nearby except for some riparian areas which all seem to be either inaccessible or socked in by some of the hardest of refugees of the housing affordability crisis. If our coastal trip doesn't scratch that itch enough, a long weekend jaunt to the redwoods'll be in order. Here's the little one in absolute awe of just an intermediate forest right inside your city limits last October when she was just shy of five months old...

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So, how will you make the most of summer? Or are you a spoilsport like Mx. Hines here???

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Which is certainly valid!