Reservations Made For Fall Yurt Camping Trip

We've made reservations for a fall yurt camping trip in November. We are going to try COOKING this next trip so I have some time to plan meals and borrow a campstove. Can't wait to post the photos!

We need to decide what we are going to do about the Oregon coast...we'll need to make our reservations soon.

Yurtastic!

What IS it about yurts?

I've decided that I think yurts are CUTE and
and
saying "yurt" is fun
and
anyone who says "yurt" sounds like they know something you don't
and
they lock for camping security
and
what's not to like about them!?

You get all the benefits of camping without the worry of your tent blowing away or getting flooded! Leaving camp is a breeze, just sweep the concrete floor and leave the key in the key box. They often have HEATERS and ELECTRICITY not to mention BEDS with MATTRESSES! Yurts are the greatest thing since sliced bread. :)

River Meadows Yurt Village Day 3 Sunday

So...to tell you a bit about yurt camping. There are 6 yurts here. 3 yurts are 20' diameter and sleep 8. One of those is "deluxe" with a deck over looking the meadow (sweet, but double the price). The other 3 yurts are 16' and sleep 5. Yurts have been used for thousands of years by nomadic peoples of Central Asia. These are made by Pacific Yurts.

Each yurt has a door that locks and a skylight. They also have a heater and electricity. HELLO! Can you really call this camping? We could see the plethora (!) of people smashed together down over the meadow...RVs, tents, campers, pop-ups who were all slumming it compared to our posh amenities! We really like this camping option and plan to yurtcation up the Oregon coast next spring as we visit the lighthouses. If we can arrange a bigger vehicle or a huge rooftop carrier, it's a go!

There's a separate bathroom building with 6 private bathrooms. Each bathroom has it's own key and includes a toilet, sink and shower (bring quarters). The grounds are immaculate.

The yurt village is connected by a gravel path though part of it is paved for wheelchair accessibility. And the county provides large carts in which to load your stuff and transport to your yurt.

Our yurt was 16' diameter and had everything we needed to have a very comfortable stay outdoors.

All this fun for only $45 per night!

Yurtastic Labor Day Weekend:
This is the post for Sunday.
Saturday is here.
Friday is here.

River Meadows Yurt Day 2 Saturday

Saturday morning we awoke and everyone else had a campfire going and the kids begged for one. STICKS, Sticks, sticks! Both Sarah and Daniel love poking the fire. See Sarah with her "Smoke-ler". I love that photo of Daniel with the skylight reflecting in his glasses.

After breakfast, we headed down to the Stillaguamish River. Sarah built a rock tower that did not topple over until we knocked it down, amazing. Dan and John had a ball floating with the current (once they got in...brrrrrrrr)! Sarah and John skipped rocks and I sat in my camp chair and watched it all. LOTS of people floated down the river on Saturday because it was in the 80s and gorgeous! Then we walked back across the meadow to the yurt. I'm not even going to go into dinnertime...suffice it to say we went into town to get fast food and BARELY made it back before DARK! Of course, the highlight is the campfire and SMORES!

Just a note about food...you see, planning a camping trip is one thing...but planning a camping trip AND planning menus and packing and preparing food is beyond my abilities at this time! Now that we've ventured out on our own for the first time, I feel ready to tackle that challenge. This trip we ate dinner at home Friday night, Saturday breakfast was hard boiled eggs and Medifast bar, lunch was our Snak Paks, dinner we did Subway/McDonald's salads. Sunday breakfast same eggs and bars and lunch again Snak Paks.

Yurtastic Labor Day Weekend:
This is the post for Saturday.
Sunday is here.
Friday is here.

River Meadows Yurt Day 1 Friday

We left after dinner and in perfect style, we BARELY made it into River Meadows Yurt Village before the gate closed at dusk/dark. This yurt village is so sweet and very clean. We grabbed a cart, loaded up our stuff, took it down the gravel path to our yurt #5. We set up our sleeping bags and started our FIRST CAMPFIRE! Then we flopped into bed. Every first night camping should have the token SLUG!

We almost hit a deer on the way up (we almost clipped it with the rear view mirror). It was standing on the shoulder, which was about 3 inches wide. John thinks it is "ironic" that the only wildlife photo is of the slug!

Love that my daughter wears a skirt camping! I thought those were marshmallows but they are doughnut holes (we did smores Saturday night).

Our yurt was 16' diameter, contained a small coffee table, queen size futon and a large industrial size bunk bed. And a broom. Oh, and a stick that opens the skylight. Outside is a small porch, fire pit, picnic table and street light. One thing I really liked was that is wasn't DIRTY like camping. There was grass all around and gravel under the picnic table and paths. Each yurt has a door and LOCK and we are assigned our own bathroom with a key. Photos to come on that one.

Yurtastic Labor Day Weekend:
This is the post for Friday.
Saturday is here.
Sunday is here.

We're Going Yurt Camping Tomorrow!

Tonight we had a picnic dinner for my mom's birthday at Waverly Beach Park in Kirkland. The sunset was gorgeous butter yellow and lavender blue. We have more packing to do. On Friday before we leave I'll make the Snak Paks and we'll head for Arlington to River Meadows after dinner. It is supposed to be in the 80s so we'll have beautiful warm and dry weather for our first yurt camping trip.

First Post Yurtastic!

I started this blog to journal our future yurt camping adventures. We are a very non-outdoorsy family of four. John, Michelle, Daniel and Sarah. We went camping once with friends and slept in our own tent. There are pros and cons to camping with a tent. We decided we liked the camping part but not the tent factor. Yurts may be our solution!

Here's the story...in June 2010 we took a church hike to the Ice Caves. We all LOVED it! Then in August we went with some friends for our first camping trip. All we had to do was "show up with a tent". We bought a large tent at Target and drove to the group camp site at a state park. What a fantastic experience! Our friends made it super easy because of their 17 years of camping experience.

Then in spring 2011, while John was between jobs, we had some time to take a trip. We quite spontaneously rented an RV and traveled to the California Redwoods. We booked the RV and left town 5 days later, reading the RV operation manual as we pulled out of the rental lot. Everyone LOVED it! What isn't to love about driving a $90K rig down the coast!?

In July 2011 we decided to make an effort to get outdoors more. So we set about to schedule some hikes. This led to setting a goal to visit all the lighthouses of Washington state. After our 3rd hike, we started brainstorming about possibly doing some more camping. But we agreed together, we really didn't like camping! We started discussing the pros and cons of tent camping, RVs, trailers and hotels. We don't like tenting for many reasons, RV rental is expensive and owning is not something we desire, our car can't really tow anything but an ultra lightweight trailer  (with no cargo!) and hotels are convenient but expensive.

In the course of our ongoing discussions, we took a drive through a local park in the rain one weekend to check out a park with a campground (since our first camping trip we find that we're addicted to driving through campgrounds and that's how we discovered our first local yurt village)! A few months later, we met some friends at a local park which also had a yurt village.

Our first official 2011 Weekend Getaway was to Long Beach, Washington to visit the Cape Disappointment and North Head lighthouses. On the way home, with lots of time to chat, we again discussed our "getting outside" options. That got us thinking about the benefits of yurt camping so before we unpacked our backpacks upon arriving home, we booked a yurt for 7 weeks out. Our first yurtcation will be 7 weeks from now and we're all very excited!

In spring 2012 we plan to visit the lighthouses of the Oregon coast and we're going to see if we can yurtcation up the coast instead of renting the RV again. This would save over $1,000!

This blog will journal our future yurtcations! Stay tuned!