Glamping in Cascade

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to go ‘glamping’ with my mom and sister.  My mom grew up in a big family and most of her childhood was spent running around outdoors with her siblings.  As she’s gotten older she’s spent less time camping, which is something she misses.  Unfortunately, due to the arthritis in her knees, traditional camping is a little difficult for her now.  However, she has a friend, Lisa, who has a cabin just north of Cascade, Idaho, and who invited us for a girls’ weekend.  Thus our glamping trip was born.

I was originally really excited about the trip, but as it got closer, I had some reservations.  Work had been really stressful – we had just finished a major office move/integration.  Plus, I’d just had a lot of family time over Labor Day weekend with my sister’s birthday and my dads in town to close on the sale of their condo.  So as Friday rolled around I was feeling stressed and a little crabby.  I wanted some ‘alone’ time and desperately needed some R&R.  As I headed home after work I gave myself a little pep talk trying to convince myself that it was going to be a good trip.

My mom and Lisa had gone up earlier in the day as they’d both gotten off work at noon.  So when I got off at 5:00, I ran home, grabbed my bag, and met my sister for the 2 hour drive.  After a pleasant and entertaining car ride, we finally made it to the cabin.  We were so happy that we’d gotten there while it was still light out as the twists and turns would have been challenging to navigate in the dark.  Add to that the fact that the street signs were caddywhompus and not pointing in the correct direction and it was surprising that we found it so easily.  It must be a testament to Lisa’s good directions.

We arrived around 8:00pm and Lisa and my mom had already had a couple margaritas and opened a bottle of wine.  That’s one of the perks of glamping: we had a full fridge/freezer, indoor plumbing and outlets to charge our phones.  (Although some of my friends swear that it’s not glamping if you have electricity.)

My mom has never quite learned how not to cook for a family of 11 (even though she only had my sister and me), so the fridge was so full there was barely room for my bottle of water.  My mom had made tex mex, queso dip, pasta salad and a wacky cake for the weekend.  She also brought fixings for smores.  These were just our snacks as Lisa had all of meals covered too.  And we were only there for 48 hours…lol.

Friday night we didn’t have a big dinner; we mostly snacked since it was already a little late by the time we got settled.  I went to bed early as I was totally exhausted.  I had a hard time falling asleep though, since Lisa and my mom were attempting to complete crossword puzzles-not the easiest things to do when you’ve been drinking as it require some unclouded brainpower.  I laid in bed giggling at them every time they’d try to figure out a new clue.  I also couldn’t help but laugh at their exasperation because this was supposed to be the easy level.

Saturday morning I woke up early and sat in the living room and read my book.  When Lisa got up she fixed a big breakfast of eggs, bacon and hash browns.  After breakfast, we sat around in our pajamas and talked and laughed until lunch.  After enjoying some sandwiches we finally got dressed and then spent the afternoon sitting around some more.  All we did the entire day was eat, drink, talk and laugh.  It was exactly the R&R that I needed.  Lisa’s husband, Terry, showed up empty handed after he couldn’t find the new fishing spot he wanted to try.  But he won us over when he grilled shrimp skewers and steaks for dinner.

There is a beautiful lake in Cascade and Lisa suggesting walking down to it as it’s only about 1 mile away from their cabin.  However, we were too lazy to make the trek on Saturday.  We spent all day at the cabin, most of it sitting outside, enjoying the woods and the little critters that were running around.  We saw a blue bird in the afternoon and then sat back and watched the bats come out as it got dark.

Sunday morning we had another fantastic breakfast.  Katie and I loaded up our car afterwards and then we all went down to the lake before heading out of town.  The lake was so peaceful and it was fun to see the prints from several game animals in the sand.  We also saw 3 deer: a momma with her two babies, running along the beach.  (Sadly I didn’t get any good pictures as they darted by too quickly.)  We also saw an Osprey nest up in the trees.  It’s moments like these that make me enjoy places like Idaho so much.

  

     

     

After our brief walk on the beach, we returned to the cabin and then were on our way back to Boise.  It was the perfect weekend and I’m definitely looking forward to a repeat next summer.