Apologies to Dr. Seuss
So last week my girlfriend and I took at trip up to Seattle to catch some baseball (see that post), play a bit in Seattle and check out Bastyr University, where she’s thinking of going to grad school. Beyond visiting the campus (which, in addition to featuring an inordinate amount of both Naropa and The Evergreen State College bumper stickers, had a really awesome meditative pond, complete with fish and turtles), we took the opportunity to “camp out” at Kanaskat-Palmer State Park on the way back.
I use the air quotes “camp out” because really we stayed in a yurt, which offered a lock, power and plenty of cozy space (sleeps 5 with a bunkbed and fold-out futon). I know that yurts have been sprouting up in the Pacific Northwest state parks the last couple of years as an alternative to cabins (much more moveable, but still semi-permanent structures) and for people like us who were looking for the opportunity to get outdoors, but without the hassle of adding a major camping excursion (backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, etc) to our trip.
In terms of a one-night “stop-over” it was a great way for us to get (semi) outdoors, get a hike in and be able to BBQ some food. The cost was amazingly affordable, coming at something like $60 for the night. Part of why I wanted to test-drive a yurt was for purely literary reasons. The yurts in Oregon include heat in the winter and I wanted to see how hospitable they were, with the intent of being able to take a couple of off-season writing weeks to a yurt. With power and heat, I can still cook outside, play in nature and be able to be writerly, something many cabins in OR state parks can’t offer.
The yurts are awesome. They’ve got them at Grayland Beach on the Washington coast, too.
The site’s lookin good Tak, as is the Yurt. So glad you were able to get away.